MANASSEH THE JEW
The two friends had been talking after their supper about the repulse
of the morning, and were now musing over the problem before them in a
perplexed silence, when Charidemus started up from his seat, and brought
down his hand with an emphatic blow upon the table. “I have it,” he
cried, “Manasseh the Jew!”
Charondas had heard the story of the combat by the ford of the Orontes,
and of the confidence, or what, if time had allowed, would have been the
confidence, of the dying Persian; but he did not see the connection of
the name with the subject of their discussion. “How can the Jew serve,
you?” he said.
“I am told,” answered Charidemus, “that the Jew knows everything. Anyhow
I feel that I have got hold of a clue. I am driven to despair by having
to climb up what I may call a perfectly blank wall, without a single
crevice or crack to put my foot in. Here is something that may give me
a hold. This Manasseh is doubtless a man of some importance, one who
has dealings with great people. What Artabazus wanted me to do for him,
what I am to say to Manasseh, or Manasseh is to say to me, I have not an
idea. But still I feel that there is something. There will be some kind
of relation between us; he will recognize the chain and bracelet; he will
see that Artabazus trusted me. Perhaps I shall be able to help him, and
perhaps he will be able to help me. Anyhow I shall go.”
“And you had better go alone,” suggested Charondas.
“Perhaps so,” replied the Macedonian.
It was not difficult to find Manasseh. The Jews had a quarter of their
own in Damascus which they had occupied, though not, it may be supposed,
without some interruptions, for several centuries.[46] In this quarter
Manasseh was one of the leading inhabitants, and Charidemus was at once
directed to his dwelling. The exterior of the Damascus houses seldom gave
much idea of what the interior was like. You entered by an unpretending
door in a mean-looking front, and found something like a palace within.
Manasseh’s dwelling surprised the visitor in this way. It was built
round a spacious quadrangle, in the centre of which a fountain played,
surrounded by orange, pomegranate, and myrtle trees. The ground floor of
the building was occupied by a colonnade. Above this was the apartment of
the family, furnished with a splendour and wealth known only to a few.
Chance comers and visitors on business Manasseh the Jew was accustomed
to see in a plainly-furnished room close to the gate. The Jews were even
then beginning to learn that painful lesson of prudence as regarded the
display of their wealth which afterwards they had so many reasons to
practise.
Manasseh was civil to his visitor, whom, from a hasty survey of his
person, he conjectured to be an impecunious young officer, whose object
was to borrow some money, for the Jews had already begun to follow the
trade of money-lender. When Charidemus produced the chain and bracelets
which had belonged to Artabazus, Manasseh’s first impression was that
they were articles offered by way of security for an advance. He took
them up in a careless way to examine them, but his look and manner
changed at a nearer inspection.
“How came you by these?” he asked, and his voice was stern and even
menacing.
The Macedonian told the story with which my readers are already
acquainted. “What more Artabazus would have told me,” he went on to say,
“I know not. He had only strength to utter your name, and the place where
I might find you. But I felt bound to come. It was clear that for some
reason he wished it; and it was the least I could do for him.”
“You have done well, sir,” said the Jew. “Pardon me if I had harsher
thoughts of you. And now, let me think.”
Manasseh walked up and down the room several times in an agitation that
contrasted strangely enough with the cool and business-like air which he
had worn at the beginning of the interview. Then he paused.
“Young man,” he said, “you are not, I know, of my faith, and I cannot ask
you, as I would ask one of my own race, to swear by the God of Israel.
But I have lived long enough among the Gentiles to know that there are
oaths which bind them as surely as to swear by the Lord binds a son of
Abraham. And I have learnt, too, that there is among them, even as there
is among us, that which is stronger than all oaths, the sense of right
and truth in the heart. I believe that you are one of those who have this
sense; I seem to see it in your face; you have shown it by coming here
to-day on this errand. A man who keeps his word to the dead will not
break it to the living. I will trust you. And now listen to my story.
The dead man whose chain and bracelets you have brought here to-day was,
I may say, my friend. Between his race and mine there has been a close
tie for many generations. He, indeed, as I dare say you know, was of
one of the noblest houses of Persia, and we were of the captivity of
Judah. Still my fathers have done some service for his in times past, as,
indeed, his have done for mine. You would not care to hear how it was;
but, believe me, it was so. We of the house of Israel can sometimes do
more than the world would think. But enough of this; let me go on to that
which concerns the present. The sister of this Artabazus is Barsiné, who
was the wife and is the widow of Memnon the Rhodian.”
Charidemus gave an unmistakeable start when he heard the name.
“What!” cried the Jew, “you know her?”
Charidemus in as few words as possible related how he had been taken
prisoner at Halicarnassus, and had there made the acquaintance of Memnon
and his family.
The Jew’s face lighted up when he heard it. “You make my task easier. I
now feel that I can speak to you, not only as to a man of honour, but as
to a friend. When Memnon sent his wife and his niece—you saw the niece?”
The young man assented, not without the consciousness of a blush.
“When Memnon sent his wife and niece to court, Artabazus made interest
with the king that they should be allowed to reside here in Damascus,
rather than at Susa. The climate was better, and there were other
reasons. I may tell you, though I dare say you had an opportunity of
seeing so much for yourself, that Artabazus, like his sister, had had a
Greek bringing up, and that there were some things in Persian ways that
did not please him or her. Well, being in high favour with the king, he
got his request. Barsiné and the girl were sent to this city her brother
making himself responsible for them. I found a home for them; and I
have managed their affairs. A few weeks since the king, as you know,
sent all his harem here, all his hostages and guests, in fact, all his
establishment of every sort and kind. Then came his defeat at Issus, and
now everything belongs to the conquerors. I had hoped that Barsiné and
her niece might have lived quietly here till these troubles were passed.
If all this crowd of men and women and slaves had been left at Susa
it might have been so. But the situation is changed. They too must be
included in any list of the prisoners that have come into the possession
of your king. I have been thinking over the matter long and anxiously.
Once or twice it has occurred to me to send them away. But whither was I
to send them? What place is out of the reach of your arms?”
He paused, overpowered by the perplexities of the situation. “God of
Israel,” he cried, “what am I to do?”
“What says the Lady Barsiné herself?” interposed the Macedonian. “I
judged her, when I was in her company, to be one who could very well
think for herself.”
“She is so,” said Manasseh, “and in any case she must be told of her
brother’s death. Come to me again, if you will, in two days’ time, and
come after dark. It is as well to be secret.”
Charidemus took his leave, just a little touched in conscience by the
Jew’s praises. He felt that he had gone on an errand of his own, in
which, indeed, he had succeeded beyond all his hopes; and he was ashamed
to be praised for a loyalty to the dead which had certainly been quite
second in his thoughts.
He did not fail, it may be supposed, to present himself at the appointed
time. The Jew greeted him warmly, and said, “The Lady Barsiné wishes to
see you. Let us go; but not by the street. It would be well that neither
you nor I should be seen.”
He led the way into the garden. There was light enough, the moon having
now risen, for Charidemus to catch a glimpse of spacious lawns, terraces
ornamented with marble urns and balustrades, and trees of a stately
growth. His guide conducted him down a long avenue of laurel, and another
of myrtle, that ran at right angles with the first. At the end of the
second they came to a small door in the wall. This brought them into a
lane which the Macedonian seemed to recognize, so far as was possible
in so different a light, as that into which he and his companion had
strayed three days before. Almost facing the gate by which they had gone
out was another in the opposite wall. This opened into another garden,
arranged similarly to that which they had just left, but much smaller.
The house had no front to the street, but stood pavilionwise in the
centre of the enclosure. Manasseh knocked, or rather kicked, at a small
postern door. When this had been cautiously opened a few inches, the
bolts having been withdrawn but the chain remaining fastened, the Jew
gave his name, which was evidently a sufficient password, the chain being
immediately withdrawn by the porter.
“The Lady Barsiné awaits you,” said the man, and led the way down a
richly carpeted passage on which their footsteps fell in perfect silence,
to a room which was evidently the library. By the side of the hearth,
on which a small fire of cedar-wood was burning, was a chair of ebony
richly inlaid with ivory. Close to this stood a citron table, on which
was a silver lamp and a roll of manuscript, which a curious eye might
have found to be the “Dirges” of Pindar. Book-cases and busts were ranged
round the walls, which were hung with embroidery representing the contest
of Athena and Poseidon, a design copied from the West Pediment of the
Parthenon. One wall of the room, however, was occupied by a replica of
Protogenes’s great masterpiece, “The Piping Satyr.”
The room was empty when the two visitors were shown into it; but in the
course of a few minutes Barsiné appeared. Grief had robbed her of the
brilliant bloom of her beauty, but had given to her face a new and more
spiritual expression. When Charidemus last saw her she might have been a
painter’s model for Helen, a Helen, that is, who had not learnt to prefer
a lover to a husband; now she was the ideal of an Andromaché. She caught
hold of Manasseh’s hand, and lifted it to her lips, and then turned to
greet his companion. She had been prepared for his coming, but the sight
of him overcame her self-control. She was not one of the women who sob
and cry aloud. Persian though she was—and the Persians were peculiarly
vehement in the expression of their grief—she had something of a Spartan
fortitude; but she could not keep back the big tears that rolled silently
down her cheeks.
“It is a sad pleasure to see you,” she said at last, addressing the
Macedonian, when she had recovered her voice. “My Memnon liked you well;
he often spoke of you after you left us; and now I find that my dear
brother liked you and trusted you also. I know you will help me if you
can. Have you any counsel to give to the most unhappy of women?”
“Alexander,” said the Macedonian, “is the most generous of conquerors.
I would say, Appeal to his clemency and compassion. I know that he
respected and admired your husband. I have heard him say—for he has
often deigned to talk of such things with me—that Memnon was the
only adversary that he feared in all Asia. ‘Whether or no I am an
Achilles’—these, lady, were his very words—‘he is certainly a Hector.’ Go
to him, then, I say—he comes to-morrow or the next day—throw yourself at
his feet. Believe me, you will not repent of it.”
“Oh, sir,” cried the unhappy woman, “that is hard advice for the widow
of Memnon and the daughter of Artabazus to follow. To grovel before him
on the ground as though I were a slave! It is more than I can bear. Oh!
cannot I fly from him to some safe place? Tell me, father,” and she
caught Manasseh’s hand, “you know everything, tell me whither I can go.
Should I not be out of his reach in Tyre?”
“Lady,” said Manasseh, “I have put this question to myself many times,
and have not found an answer. I do not know how you can escape from
him. As for Tyre, I am not even sure that it will attempt to stand out
against him; but I am sure that if it does it will bitterly repent
it. She repented of having stood out against Nebuchadnezzar,[47] and
Nebuchadnezzar is to this man as a vulture is to an eagle. And there are
words, too, in our sacred books which make me think that an evil time is
coming for her. No! I would say, Do not trust yourself to Tyre. And would
you gain if you fled to the outer barbarians, to those that dwell by the
fountains of the Nile, if you could reach them, or to the Arabs? Would
they treat you, think you, better than he, who is at least half a Greek?”
“Let me think,” cried Barsiné, “let me have time.”
“Yes,” said Manasseh, “but not so much time as would rob your
supplication of all its grace. Go to him as a suppliant; let him not
claim you as a prisoner.”
Some little talk on other matters followed; but the conversation
languished, and it was not long before the visitors took their leave.