Saul of Tarsus: A Tale of the Early Christians Read online

  CHAPTER II

  A PRUDENT EXCEPTION

  After he had separated from Stephen, Marsyas went to the house of aresident Essene with whom he made his home, to be fed, to be washed, tooffer supplication and to announce his decision to go on a journey. Atthe threshold of his host's house he put aside his sandals and lethimself in with a murmured formula. In a little time he came forthwith a wallet flung over his shoulder and took the streets towardGennath Gate. It was not written in the laws of his order that heshould make greater preparation for a journey. He had alreadyacquainted himself with the abiding-places of Essenes in villagesbetween Jerusalem and Nazareth and, assured of their hospitality andthe provision of the Essene's God, he knew that he would fare well tothe hill town of Galilee.

  So he passed through the city by the walk of the purified, garmentswell in hand lest they touch women or the wayside dust, meeting the eyeof no man, proud of his humility, punctilious in his simplicity, andwearing unrest under his shell of calm. He had an unobstructed path, apath ceremonially clean. He had but to hesitate on the edge of acongestion, and the first gowned and bearded Jew that observed himsigned his companions and the way was opened. For the Essenes were thebest of men, the truly holy men of Israel.

  He went down between the fronts of featureless houses, through thegolden haze of sun and dust that overhung the narrow, stony mule-ways,until the distant dream towers of Mariamne, of Phasaelus and of Hippicusbecame imminent, brooding shapes of blackened masonry, and the wall cutoff the mule-ways and the great shady arch of the gate let in a glimpseof the country without. On one hand was the Praetorium, the Romangarrison encamped in the upper palace of Herod the Great; on the other,the houses of the Sadducees, the Jewish aristocrats, covered the ridgeof Akra. Marsyas came upon an obstruction. At a gate opening into thestreet, camels knelt, servants of diverse nationality but of one liveryclustered round them, several unoccupied Jewish traveling chairs in thehands of bearers stood near. In the center of the considerable crowd,a number of Sadducees, priests of high order and Pharisees in garmentscharacteristic of their several classes were taking ceremoniousfarewell of a man already seated in a howdah. No one took notice ofthe Essene, who stood waiting with assumed patience until he should begiven room.

  Presently the camel-drivers cried to their beasts which arose with alurch, priests and Sadducees hurried into their chairs, the servantsfell into rank, the crowd shifted and ordered itself and a processiontrailed out alongside the swaying camels toward Gennath Gate. Adistinguished party was taking leave under escort.

  Marsyas repressed the impatient word that arose to his lips andfollowed after the deliberate, moving blockade.

  The rank of the departing strangers did not encourage the city rabbleto follow, and as the escort kept close to the head of the processionthe hindmost camel was directly before Marsyas and the occupant of thehowdah in his view. Over head and shoulders the full skirts of a vittafell, erasing outline, and, contrasting the stature with that of theattending servant, he concluded that the small traveler was a child.

  Under the dripping shade and chill of the ancient Gate they passed andout into the road worn into a trench through the rock and dry grayearth and on to the oval pool which supplied Hippicus, where a halt fora final farewell was made. Again Marsyas was delayed, and for a muchlonger time. He might have climbed out of the sunken roadway andpassed around the obstruction, but the banks above were lined withclamoring mendicants, women and lepers, and he could not escapeceremonial defilement that might more seriously delay his journey.

  Meanwhile the courtly leave-taking progressed with dignified sloth.Gradually Sadducee, priest and Pharisee moved one by one from thedeparting aristocrat. At the hindmost camel the Pharisees stopped notat all, but saluting without looking at the traveler, the priestsmerely raised their hands in blessing; but the Sadducees to a mansalaamed profoundly, and passed on if they were old, or lingereduncertainly if they were young.

  A little flicker of enlightenment showed in the young Essene'sbrilliant eyes, an angry tension in his lips straightened their curveand he drew himself up indignantly. The young aristocrats tarried andlaughed his precious time away with a woman! That was the traveler inthe last howdah! Twice and thrice the time they had spent speeding therest of the party they consumed bidding the woman farewell, and everymoment carried danger nearer to Stephen.

  Then an old voice, refined and delicate as the note of an ancient lyre,lifted in laughing protest from the front, the young men laughed,responding, but moved away to their chairs, the camel swung out into arapid walk, and crying farewells the party separated.

  With abating irritation Marsyas moved after them. At the intersectionof the first road, he would pass these travelers and hasten on.

  A breeze from the hills cut off the smell of the city with a fullstream of country freshness. Marsyas lifted his head and drew in along breath that was almost a sigh. His first trouble weighed heavilyupon him and its triple nature of distress, heart-hurt andapprehension, sensations so new and so near to nature as to be at widevariance with anything Essenic, moved him into a mood essentiallyhuman. Then an exhalation from aft the fragrant spring-flowered grovesstole into the pure air about him, bewildering, sweet, and through it,as harmoniously as if the perfume had taken tone, a distant hill birdsent a single stave of liquid notes. The small figure in the howdah atthat moment turned and looked back, and Marsyas for the first time inhis life gazed straight into the eyes of a beautiful girl.

  Spring-fragrance, bird-song and flower-face were harmony too perfectfor Essenism to discountenance. Without the slightest discomposure,and absolutely unconscious of what he was doing, Marsyas gazed andlistened until the vitta fell hastily over the face, the bird flew awayand the garden incense died.

  He passed just then the intersecting road, but he continued after thelast camel. He walked after that through many drifts of fragrance, andmany hill birds sang, but he knew without looking that the flower facewas not turned back toward him again.

  He halted for the night at a little village and sought the hospitalityof an Essene hermit that lived on the outskirts. But in the night,terror for Stephen, of that unknown kind which is conviction withoutevidence and irrefutable, seized him. He endured until the earlywatches of the morning and took the road to Nazareth while the starsstill shone.

  He had forgotten his fellow wayfarers of the previous afternoon untiltheir camels, speeding like the wind, overtook him beyond Mt. Ephraim.In a vapor of flying scarves he caught again a glimpse of the flowerface turned his way.

  Then for the first time in his life he reviled his poverty that forcedhim to walk when the life of the much-beloved depended upon despatch.Nazareth, clinging like a wasps' nest under the eaves of its chalkyhills, was many leagues ahead, and the sun must set and rise againbefore he could climb up its sun-white streets.

  His hope was not strong. His plan had won such little respect from himthat he had not ventured to propose it to Stephen. It was extremesacrifice for him to make, a sacrifice lifelong in effect, and in thathe based his single faith in its success. Stephen loved him and wouldnot persist in the fatal apostasy, if he knew that his friend, theEssene, was to deny himself ambition and fame for Stephen's sake.

  He would get his patrimony of the old master Essene who held it intrust for him, formally give over his instruction, bind himself to theperpetual life of husbandry and seclusion, and then tell Stephen whathe had done and why he had done it.

  Everything else but the appeal to Stephen's love for him had failed,and he had shrunk from forcing that trial.

  But Saul had meant to go to the Synagogue at once; there wereinnumerable chances that he was already too late.

  At noon he came upon the party of travelers again. A fringed tent hadbeen pitched under a cluster of cedars and the slaves were putting awaythe last of the meal. He saw now as he hurried by that there was aspare and elegant old man, in magistrate's robes, reclining withsingular grace on a pallet of rugs before the lif
ted side of the tent.The girl sat near. He noted also that the master and the slaves fellsilent as he approached and looked at him with interest.

  But he sped on, forgetting that it was the noon and that he was hungry,heated and weary, and remembering only that the time and the distancewere deadly long.

  There was the soft pad-pad of a camel-hoof behind him and a servant ofthe aristocrat that he had passed drew up at his side. With a lightleap the man dropped from the beast's neck and bowed low. The ease ofhis salaam and the purity of his speech were strong evidences oftraining among the loftiest classes of the time. The attitude askedpermission to address the Essene.

  Marsyas signed him to speak.

  "I pray thee accept my master's apologies," the man said, "forinterrupting thy journey. He bids me say that he is a stranger andunfamiliar with the land. We have found no water for the meal. Wiltthou direct us to a pool?"

  Marsyas checked his impatience.

  "Save that I am in great haste I would tarry to direct him. But lethim send hence into the country to the westward, half a league to thehill of the flat summit. There is a grove by a well of sweet water."

  "Nay, the country is as obscure to us as the whereabouts of the pool,"the servant protested. "We are Alexandrians and as good as lost inthese hills. If thou wilt speak to my master, he will understandbetter than his foolish servant."

  Irritation forced its way up through the Essenic calm. The servantsalaamed again.

  "The Essenes are noted even in Alexandria for their charity," he saiddeftly. Marsyas turned with him and went back to the fringed tent.

  The old aristocrat still lounged gracefully, as no thirsty man does, onhis pallet of rugs, but the girl had drawn farther away and her eyeswere veiled.

  "I perceived by thy garments that thou art an Essene," the old mansaid, "and therefore a safe guide in this land of few milestones."

  Marsyas thanked him and waited restlessly on the inquiry.

  "We have not found a well since mid-morning and I crave fresh drink.The water we bear is brackish."

  "Bid thy servants go westward without deviation for less than half aleague, until they come unto a hill with a flat summit, which can beseen afar off. They will find there a grove with a well."

  "And none is nearer?" the old man asked idly.

  "There is none nearer."

  "My servants were bred to the desert; they are ill mountaineers. Thouwilt show them the way?"

  "They can not lose the way," Marsyas protested; "it is the flock's welland all the hill paths lead to it. Think not ill of me, that I can notgo, for I am in haste."

  The old man smiled a little.

  "An Essene, and he will not stop to give an old man water?"

  Marsyas frowned resentfully, but turned to the servant at hand.

  "Get thy fellows and the water-skins and follow!"

  He turned off the Roman road and struck into the hills to the west.The servitors of the Alexandrian caught up amphoras and hastened afterhim.

  In less than an hour he reappeared before the man under the fringedtent.

  "Thy servants are returned. Peace and farewell."

  "Nay, but it is the noon. Wilt thou not tarry and rest?"

  "I go," Marsyas said resolutely, "to save a life."

  "Ah, then I did wrong to delay thee! I remember that Essenes arephysicians."

  "We can not cure the wicked of their evil intent, so I haste to saveone threatened with another's malice. My friend is in peril. I mustgo unto Nazareth and return unto Jerusalem, before I can save him. Andeven now I may be too late!"

  The magistrate searched the young man's face and then thehalf-incredulous curiosity passed out of his manner.

  "Pardon mine idle wasting of thy precious minutes," he said soberly."Go, and the Lord speed thee!"

  Marsyas bowed low, and keeping his eyes fixed on the gray earth, lestthey stray in search of the flower face, he turned again towardNazareth. He heard a very soft, very hurried and almost imperiouswhisper, as he moved away, but he knew that it was not for him to hear,and he did not tarry. But a word from the magistrate brought him up.

  "Stay! It is not customary for any outside of thine order to offer anEssene assistance, since we would spare thee the pain of refusal.But--it hath been suggested that thy haste may permit thee to waive thyscruples and accept help from me--as it hath been suggested--I filchedprecious time from thee. Thou canst ride with us, if thou wilt, andtake my daughter's camel. She will come with me."

  The brilliant eyes no longer obeyed the restraint which would keep themfrom the flower face. He turned to the girl, shyly withdrawn under theshade of the fringed tent, and knew by the lowered eyes and the warmerflush mantling the cheek that it was she that had made thesesuggestions.

  Twenty reasons why he should accept the magistrate's offer arose tocombat the single stern admonition of Custom. He was not yet under theEssenic vow to accept hospitality from none but Essenes, though he hadlived in its observance all his life; he could not reach Nazareth undera day's journey and these swift beasts could carry him into the villageby midnight. And Stephen's life depended on it.

  "We depart even now," the magistrate added, "and I promise thee nofurther delay."

  Ancient usage accused the young man on account of the woman, but bythis time she had arisen and passed out of his sight, as if in goodfaith that he should not be troubled by her presence.

  "Thou yieldest me invaluable aid," he said in a lowered tone, "andsince I am not an elected Essene, but a ward of the brotherhood and apostulant, I am free and most glad to have thy help. Be thou blessed."

  The magistrate acknowledged the young man's acceptance by a wave of awithered white hand and the slaves made the camels ready to proceed.

  At midnight, the rocking camels sped without apparent weariness up theuneven streets of Nazareth, white under the stars. At the lewen of thesingle khan, the drivers drew up and Marsyas alighted to go forward andthank his host, but the magistrate slept, even while his servantslifted him down from the howdah. As he turned away, regretfully, heconfronted the veiled girl, almost childlike in stature under theprotection of her tall handmaiden. She dropped her head modestly andmoved aside to let him pass, but he hesitated, and stopped. Few indeedhad been the words he had addressed to women in his lifetime, and nowhis speech was more than ever unready.

  "Thy father sleeps, yet I would not depart with my thanks unsaid. Bethou the messenger and give him my gratitude when he waketh."

  "It shall be my pleasure," she answered softly, "and may thy hopes cometo pass. Farewell."

  "Thou hast my thanks. The peace of the Lord God attend thee.Farewell."