He plucked the crucifix from his tunic and caught it between his hands to break it, when she sprang toward him and seized his wrists.
"Do not so!" she besought, her eyes large with fright.
He had forced her to defend it, and she had stood to the breach; he had proved the gravity of her disaffection for the faith of Abraham.
"Why wilt thou endanger thyself for this social drift?" he demanded pa.s.sionately. "Lydia! How canst thou turn from the faith of thy fathers?"
"I--I am not worthy to be a Nazarene!" she answered. "They are forbidden to enact a falsehood!"
"Let be; I do not care for their philosophy; it is like the Law of Rome.--an empty armor that any knave can wear. But I urge thee to behold what misery thou invitest upon thyself! What will come of it?
Immortal as thou art in soul, thou canst not keep alive the single spark of wisdom in the ashes of their folly; thou canst not save them against the combined vengeance of the whole world! But thou canst be disgraced with them, persecuted with them, and die with them!
Unhallowed the day that ever Cla.s.sicus spoke their name to thee!
Cursed be his words! May the Lord treasure them up against him--!"
"Hush! hush!" she whispered.
He became calm with an effort.
"Lydia," he began after a pause, "it is a poor intelligence that can not foresee as ably as the augurs. One successful life gives opportunity, to all that spring from it, to be successful; a failure scatters the seed of misfortune through all its blood. Choose thou for thyself and thou choosest for a nation which comes after thee. I see thee radiant, crowned, worshiped; and if they who come up under thy guidance walk as thou dost walk, Lydia shall give queens unto princ.i.p.alities and rulers unto satrapies. These be days when women of virtue and women of remark; women of wisdom are remembered women. And thou, virtuous, wise and n.o.ble--the empresses of coming Caesars will a.s.sume thy name to conceal their tarnishment under a badge of l.u.s.ter!
This on one hand. On the other thou shalt flee from the stones of the rabble, come unto the humiliation of thy womanhood and the agony of thy body in the torture-cell, and die like a criminal!"
She shrank away with a quivering sound and flung her hands over her ears. He caught her and drew her close, until she all but rested on his breast.
"Lydia, naught but mine extremity could make me speak thus to thee," he said tremulously and in a pa.s.sion of appeal. "If the words be hideous, let the actualities that they mean warn thee in time!"
"But--thou dost not understand," she faltered, drawing away from him.
"I do understand; through anguish and rancor and suffering, I have learned. Must I give all to the vengeance of G.o.d, who visiteth apostates for their iniquity? Lydia, depart not from the righteous religion, I implore thee. Behold its great age," he went on, speaking rapidly and with quickened breath, "behold its history, its monuments, its achievements, its great exponents, its infallibility! The rest of the world was an unimagined futurity when an able son of thy race was minister to Pharaoh and lord over the whole land of Egypt. The G.o.dly kings of thy people were poets and musicians when Pindar"s and Homer"s ancestors were still Peloponnesian fauns with horns in their hair.
Before Isis and Osiris, before Bel and Astarte, thy G.o.d was molding universes and hanging stars in the sky. And lo! the sons of the Pharaohs are wasted weaklings, fit only for slaves; the Chaldees are dust in the dust of their cities; Babylonia is hunting-ground for jackals and the perch of bats; Rome--even Rome"s greatness hath returned into the sinews of her hills, but there is no decadence in Israel, no weakness in her G.o.d! Aid not in the perversion of her ancient faith--thou who art the incarnation of her queens--"
He halted, but only for an instant, in which he seemed to throw off recurring restraint and drove on:
"David did not seek for one more lovely, nor Solomon for one more wise!
Truth, even Truth demands dear tribute when it takes a life. For a mere scintillation of verity, wilt thou die?"
"I--I fear not," she answered painfully. "I--who could be affrighted out of telling a truth!"
Not his prayer, but the Nazarene"s teaching had weight with her, at that moment!
"All thy hazard of life and fame for their vague philosophy," he cried, "and not one stir of pity for me!"
There was a moment of complete silence; then she lifted her face.
"Thou knowest better," she said, "thou, who labored in vain with Stephen, who loved thee!"
His heart contracted; for a moment he entertained as practicable a resolve to stay stubbornly under the alabarch"s roof until he had broken the determination of this sweet erring girl to destroy herself.
He drew in his breath to speak, but the futileness of his words occurred to him. Again, he had a thought of telling the alabarch privately of his daughter"s peril, but instantly doubted that the good old Jew could move her. While he debated desperately with himself, she drew, nearer to him.
"Be not angry with me! If thou leavest Alexandria in three days, it may be that I--shall not see thee again--"
"So I am dismissed to know no rest until I have brought Saul of Tarsus low, for thy sake, as well as for Stephen"s!"
He knew at the next breath that he had hurt her, and repented.
"I shall see thee once more," he said hurriedly, feeling that he dared not make retraction. He took up the pilgrim"s wallet containing his belongings, and put out his hand to her. She took it, so wistfully, so sorrowfully, that a wave of compunction swept over him. Bending low, he pressed his lips to her palm, and hastened, full of agitation, out of the alabarch"s house.
The preparations for the Feast of Flora had been brought to completeness. The funds for the lavish display had come out of the taxes upon provinces, the flamens managed it, the patricians and the rich patronized it and all Alexandria, whether rich or poor, free or enslaved, plunged into its celebration with recklessness and relish.
The dwellers of the Regio Judaeorum took no part in the celebration, but Marsyas saw that a spirit of interest invaded the district, even to the doors of the great Synagogue. Mothers in Israel put aside the wimples over their faces when they met in the narrow pa.s.sages or the market-places to talk of the recurring abomination in lowered voices and with sidelong glances to see if the velvet-eyed children, who clung to their garments, heard. Fathers in Israel, rabbis and constabularies were abroad to make preparation against the local characteristic which tended to turn every popular gathering into a demonstration against the Jews. The b.l.o.o.d.y uproar of the preceding year was fresh in the fear of the people, and though Lysimachus had spread abroad the promise of the proconsul, the Regio Judaeorum had cause to be doubtful of the favor of a former persecutor.
But as the young man entered the Gentile portion of the city, he saw that, from the Lochias to the Gate of the Necropolis, Alexandria was no longer a city of normal life and labor but a play-ground for revel and lawlessness. The two main avenues which crossed the city toward the four cardinal points were cleared of traffic and the marks of wheel and hoof were stamped out by crowds that filled the roadways. The crowding glories of Alexandrian architecture which lined these n.o.ble highways--temples, palaces, theaters, baths, gymnasia, stadia and fora, high marks of both Greek and Roman society--were wreathed, pillar and plinth, with laurel and roses, lilies and myrtle, nelumbo and lotus.
Fountains gave up perfumed water; aromatic gums in bowls set upon staves fumed and burned and were filling the dead airs of the Alexandrian calm with oriental musks; everywhere were the reedy shrilling of pipe, the tinkle of castanet, the mellow notes of flutes and the muttering of drums. Wine was flowing like water; immense public feasts were in progress, at which droves of sheep and oxen were served to gathered mult.i.tudes, which were never full-fed except at Flora"s bounty. Processions were streaming along the streets, meeting at intersections to romp, break up in revel and end in excess. Tens of thousands with one impulse, one law, frolicked, fought, drank, danced, sang, piped, wooed, forgot everything, grudges and all, except Flora and her license and bounty. The citizens were no longer the descendants of Quirites, remnant of the Pharaohs or the Macedonian kings, but satyrs, fauns, bacchantes, nymphs, mimes and harlequins.
Marsyas kept away from the crowds and went by deserted paths toward Rhacotis.
He knew without inquiry where to find the Nazarene quarter. It was marked by the strange, strained silence that hovers over houses where life is not secure, by poverty, by orderliness, by the patient faces of the humble dwellers, by the brotherly greeting that the few citizens gave him as he approached. He saw many of the garrison loitering about, but they permitted him to pa.s.s without notice.
The roar of the merrymaking without swept into the quiet pa.s.sages like a t.i.tanic purr of satisfaction. The young man had grown away from his toleration of solitude. His Essenic training had suffered change; its usages, at variance with his nature, had become difficult as soon as the opportunity for more congenial habits had presented itself. Only a few weeks before, he could voyage the giant breadth of the Mediterranean, excluding himself from the contaminating Nazarenes, without effort. Now, he asked himself how he was to live among these people for three days.
He found the quarter absolutely packed with people, and realized then how many followers of Jesus of Nazareth there were in Alexandria, and how thoroughly Flaccus had weeded them out of the rest of the city.
He looked about him, grew impatient, and, with the ready invention of a man who has lived only by devices for the past many months, made up his mind to house himself elsewhere than in the crowded Nazarene quarter.
"I will go to the ship," he said to himself. "It is victualed and ready for the prince"s arrival to weigh anchor. No one but my seamen need know that I am there, and they will be too intent on Flora to speak of me abroad in the city!"
He turned promptly and made his way down the quarter toward the harbor.
Within sound of the waters lapping on the wharf piling, a soldier of the city garrison stepped into his way.
"Back!" he said harshly.
Marsyas stopped.
"Why may I not pa.s.s?" he demanded.
"None pa.s.ses from this rebel"s nest hereafter!"
CHAPTER XIX
THE DELIVERANCE
There followed time for diverse and earnest meditation for Marsyas: He criticized himself sarcastically, for permitting himself to be so easily entrapped, and cast about him for means of escape. He found by successive trials that the siege was perfect. Half of Alexandria"s garrison had been posted about the district. The more he considered his predicament, the more an atmosphere of impending danger weighted the air of the Nazarene community.
He did not seek the hospitality of the Nazarenes, because he had not come to the point of admitting that he was to remain among them. At nightfall, while the roar of the reveling city without swept over the community, he hoped to find some unguarded spot in the Roman lines, but his hope was vain. With his attention thus forced upon the people penned in with him, he began to wonder if there might not yet be some profit in counsel with his fellows, hemmed in for some purpose by Flaccus.
He found the inhabitants gathered in a broad s.p.a.ce in one of the streets, where at one time a statue or a fountain might have stood, but after a few minutes" listening, he heard only prayers and words of submission to the unknown peril threatening them. Angry and disappointed he flung himself away from the gathering, to spend the night in the streets.