"When Drusus died my living died with him, and when I took ship at Puteoli for Palestine I owed three hundred thousand drachmae to Caesar and forty tradesmen barked about my heels.
"I had a ruined castle in Idumea. I forgot that I owned it till I was in actual want of shelter. Thither I went. But I was a young man, hopeless, and young hopelessness is harder than the hopelessness of age. I should have put an end to myself, but Cypros, my princess, prevented me by the gentle force of her love and devotion.
"She could not have balked me more thoroughly had she tied me hand and foot. I railed, but while I railed she wrote and sent a messenger, and in a little time an answer came. It was from my brother-in-law, Herod Antipas, who is tetrarch of Galilee. Cypros had besought him to help us. He wrote courteously, or else his scribe, for it is hard to reconcile that letter with the man I met, and begged me come and be his prefect over Tiberias. I went."
The prince paused and when he went on thereafter it seemed as if his account were expurgated.
"At Tyre before an hundred n.o.bles a.s.sembled at a feast he twitted me with my poverty and boasted his charity. I tore off the prefect"s badge and flung it in his face. And that same night I took the road to Antioch, my princess with me, a babe on either arm.
"The proconsul of Antioch took us in, but there was treachery against me afoot in his household, and I lost his friendship through it. His was my last refuge under roof of mine own rank. I heard recently that Alexander Lysimachus, Alabarch of Alexandria, was in Jerusalem, presenting a Gate to the Temple, and sending my wife and children to Ptolemais, I hastened hither to get a loan of him. But he had departed some days before I came. So here am I as a player of dice to win me money enough to take me back to Ptolemais. But Herrenius Capito, Caesar"s debt-collector, hath found me out."
He looked down at Marsyas" interested face.
"Let me be truthful," he corrected. "I found him. I could have flown him successfully, but for thy close straits. All that would save thee would be the interference of Rome, and I could command it at sacrifice."
Public version of Agrippa"s story had enlarged much on certain phases of his adventures which he had curtailed, and these minutiae had not been to Herod"s credit. Yet, though Marsyas knew of these things, his heart stirred with great pity. His was that large nature which turns to the unfortunate whether or not his misfortune be merited. It seemed to him that the prince"s fall had been too hapless for comment. But the word here and there, which suggested the prince"s intercession in his behalf, stirred him.
"How shall I make back to thee thy effort in my behalf?" he asked earnestly. "Thou sayest that thou needest me; what can I do?"
"First let me know of thyself."
Marsyas relinquished his thought on Agrippa to turn painfully to his own story.
"I am Marsyas, son of Matthew, of Nazareth. He was a zealot who fought beside Judas of Galilee. I was born after his death, and at my birth my mother died, and being the last of their line, I am, and have been all my life alone. I was taken in mine infancy by the Essenic master of the school in Nazareth and reared to be an Essene. But I developed a certain aptness for learning and in later youth a certain aptness for teaching, and my master by the consent of the order, whose ward I was, designed me for the scholar-cla.s.s of Essenes, which do not reside in En-Gadi but without in the world. The vows of the order were not laid upon me; they are reserved for the sober and understanding years when my instruction should be completed."
Agrippa frowned. "Art thou not a member of the brotherhood, then?" he asked.
"No, I am a neophyte, a postulant."
The Herod ran his fingers though his hair, and Marsyas went on.
"I had two friends, both older than I. One was Saul of Tarsus; one, Stephen of Galilee. Neither knew the other. Stephen was born an h.e.l.lenist, and until the coming of his Prophet, a good Jew. But when Jesus arose in Nazareth, Stephen followed Him, and, after the Nazarene was put away, he remained here in Jerusalem. When I came hither to complete mine instruction in the college, I found the synagogue aroused against him.
"Chief among the zealous in behalf of the Law is Saul of Tarsus. Him I most feared, when the rumors of Stephen"s apostasy spread abroad. An evil messenger finally set Saul upon Stephen, and I pleaded with him to spare Stephen, until I could win him back to the faith. But Saul would not hear me.
"I meant to give over mine ambition to become a scholar and take Stephen into the refuge of En-Gadi--"
He stopped for control and continued presently with difficulty.
"But when I returned from Nazareth, whither I had gone to get my patrimony which the Essene master held in ward, his enemies stoned him before mine eyes!"
Stephen"s death and not his own peril was the climax of his story and he ceased because his heart began to shrink under its pain.
"And this Saul of Tarsus, whom I heard you threaten over in Bezetha, mistaking your natural grief and hunger for vengeance as signs of apostasy, would stone you also," Agrippa remarked, filling in the rest of the narrative from surmise. Marsyas a.s.sented; it hurt him as much to think on Saul as it did to remember that Stephen was dead.
"It was doubtless his intent."
"Implacable enough to be Caesar! And thou art not a member of the Essenic order--only a neophyte. That is disconcerting. Hast thou any influence with the brethren?"
"None whatever."
Perplexity sat dark on the Herod"s brow. Marsyas, with his eyes on the prince"s face, observed it.
"Can I not help thee?" he asked anxiously.
"I thought once that thou couldst; but thou sayest that thou hast no power with the Essenes. Now, I do not know."
"What is it thou wouldst have had me do?"
"I have said that I owe three hundred thousand drachmae to Caesar.
Unless I discharge it, under the Roman law I can be required to become the slave of my creditor. That I might secure intercession in thy behalf, I had to promise Capito and Vitellius that thou couldst help me to repay this sum."
"I!" Marsyas cried, sitting up.
The legionary stirred and Agrippa laid a warning finger on his lip.
The two sat silent until the sleeper fell again into total unconsciousness.
"Three hundred thousand drachmae!" Marsyas repeated. "I, to get that!"
"I knew that the Essenic brotherhood have a common treasury and that they are believed to be rich. I thought that thou couldst persuade them to lend me the sum."
Marsyas shook his head. "They are poor, poor! Their fund is not contributed in great bulk, and the little they own must be expended in hospitality and in maintaining themselves. Their treasury would be enriched by the little I bring."
"O Fortune!" Agrippa groaned aloud. "I am undone and so art thou!"
Marsyas lapsed into thought, while the Herod looked at the solid door that stood between him and liberty. He had set the subject aside as profitless and was a little irritated when Marsyas spoke again.
"What hopes hast thou in Alexandria?"
"The alabarch, Alexander Lysimachus, is my friend. He is rich; I could borrow of him."
"Take thou my gold and go thither," Marsyas offered at once.
"It is not so easy as it sounds, for the sound of it is most generous and kindly. How am I to get out of Capito"s clutches, here?"
Marsyas gazed straight at Agrippa with the set eyes of one plunged into deep speculation. Then he leaned toward the prince.
"Will this gold in all truth help thee to borrow more in Alexandria?"
"I know it!"
"And then what?"
"To Rome! To imperial favor! To suzerainty over Judea!"
Marsyas laid hold on the prince"s arm.
"Thou art a Herod," he said intensely. "Ambition natively should be the very breath of thy nostrils. Yet swear to me that thou wilt aspire--aye, even desperately as thy grandsire! Swear to me that thou wilt not be content to be less than a king!"