Stephen

"Thou had best go to thy chamber--" he began irritably, but Caiaphas checked him with an impatient gesture.

"Prate not to me of my chamber! I am sick, yes, but it is a sickness of the soul. Thou dost not know all, I have not told thee; but hear now that my son, my son David, was crucified as a thief at the right hand of the Nazarene." His voice rose almost to a shriek at the last word and he tore at his hair as one in uncontrollable agony.

Annas started to his feet. "Thou art mad!" he cried. "For G.o.d"s sake, do not shriek forth such foul ravings, lest it come to the ears of them without."

"Nay, I am not mad," said Caiaphas. "If I were mad, I might sometimes forget. Thou knowest how we lost him," he continued, sinking his voice to a husky whisper. "He was stolen by a thief who bred him to his own d.a.m.nable trade, and who also was crucified. This Stephen, who preaches to the people of the Nazarene, is his son. It was Stephen who taught the woman who was my wife to believe that the Nazarene was the Messiah of Israel. What if it were true! My G.o.d, if it were true!"

"Fool!" cried Annas, clenching his hands. "Breathe to another human soul what thou hast told me and I will thrust thee into a dungeon where thou shalt cool thy hot brain to eternity. Wilt thou drag our ancient name in the foul mud of the streets and make it a by-word and a hissing? This fellow Stephen shall die, and that speedily; now look to it that thy tongue is forevermore silent in the matter! Dost thou hear me?"

Caiaphas cowered beneath the murderous eyes of the old man. "It shall be as thou hast said," he faltered weakly. Then he burst into a pa.s.sion of sobbing like a sick child.

CHAPTER XVII.

IN THE PRISON HOUSE.

It was very dark in the prison, and the straw which littered the earthen floor of the place was damp and filthy. Abu Ben Hesed found a difficulty in breathing the stagnant air, he groaned aloud and beat upon his breast. "Alas!" he sighed, "how have the wicked prevailed against the innocent. We are as birds in the snare of the fowler." The babe in the arms of the woman beside him stirred, then wailed loudly.

"I have no food for him," said the woman plaintively. "Nevertheless he hath the strength to wail for it, thanks be to the Almighty. But how doth the bitter and the sweet always commingle. No sooner is my child restored than I am thrust into this noisome place; for what reason I know not, I but praised him by whose name was the healing wrought."

"Thinkest thou not that he who hath restored thy babe is able likewise to deliver thee from prison?" said a deep voice from out the gloom.

The woman drew a little nearer to Abu Ben Hesed. "Who is it that speaks?" she whispered timidly, while the child again wailed loudly.

Ben Hesed turned his piercing gaze toward the place from whence the voice had come. He thought he could distinguish a number of dark figures huddled together in one corner. "Who are our companions in this misery?" he asked.

"We are the apostles of the Lord Jesus, in whose name we are able to heal them that are sick. By the command of the chief priests are we thrust into this place; the officers who seized us are well known unto us. But praises be to the Eternal One that we are accounted worthy to do the works which the Lord did, and to be partakers of his sufferings.

For unto us shall be also a share in his glory which he hath with the Father. But how is it that ye are come with us into this place?"

"I am from the desert," answered Ben Hesed. "As I journeyed I found by the wayside this woman, who had essayed to bring her babe to Jerusalem for healing. When I perceived that she could go no further by reason of her weariness, I set her upon my own beast and fetched her into the city. As we waited, hemmed in on every side by the mult.i.tude, it seemed to us that the child was dead, therefore I bore her away a little from out the throng, because the spirit was well nigh gone out of her by reason of her grief. Then it was that a little lad called Seth, brought unto us a young man, who laid his hands on the twain and healed them. I saw it with mine own eyes as did they that were with me, and we all cried aloud and praised G.o.d for his mercy, the woman also with a voice of thanksgiving. But as we rejoiced, there came a certain man who commanded us to be silent. "Shall I be silent," I answered him, "when mine eyes have seen wondrous things?" Then I bade him begone, for it is not my custom to hear or to heed commands from any, since I am lord in mine own land. But even as I spoke I was seized on a sudden from behind by them that bound me and haled me away hither, together with the woman.

For this also shall vengeance overtake the man, for I will neither eat bread nor drink wine till I have accomplished my wrath upon mine enemy.

I, Ben Hesed, have spoken it."

"Nay, my brother," said another voice, "I will show thee a more excellent way. The Lord Jesus, when he was betrayed into the hands of cruel men--who also accomplished their desires upon him, reviling him, beating him, and at last crucifying him--though he was endued with all power from on high, offered no resistance; even as it is written by the prophet Isaiah, "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastis.e.m.e.nt of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." If the holy Jesus, Lord of all the heavens, could endure such suffering with patience, is it meet for sinful man to seek for vengeance?"

Ben Hesed listened attentively. "I would hear more of this man Jesus,"

he said. "I once saw him in Jerusalem. He seemed to me a man, even as others, though it was told me that he had the power to heal them that were afflicted with diseases."

Then they told him all the story of Jesus of Nazareth; and when they spoke of his awful death on the cross, the old man wept aloud.

"Would to G.o.d that I had known it!" he cried; "I would have come with my tribe like a swift whirlwind from out the desert, and would have s.n.a.t.c.hed him from the hand of the oppressor. In the desert G.o.d reigns."

"Doth not G.o.d reign over all the earth, for he made it?" cried Peter.

"Yet he suffered these things so to be; it was his will concerning him, as also our Lord told us many times before his death, yet because of our blindness we heeded him not. Yea, I even denied that I knew him, in his extremity; yet he forgave me, as also he will forgive and save all that come unto him."

"How can he forgive when he is dead?" said the woman sadly. "Behold there is no hope in the grave; they that go down unto death return not for either loving or forgiving, though we weep tears of blood in our anguish."

"Hast thou not heard," cried Peter in amaze, "how that the grave could not hold him? On the third day he became alive again, and we all saw him and knew by many infallible proofs that it was he and no other. And as he arose from among the dead, even so shall every one that believeth on him also become alive again. Death is swallowed up in victory.

After many days, with our own eyes did we behold the heavens receive him. Yet is he even now with us to help and to comfort, and shall be alway even unto the end."

While he yet spake, lo! all the place became light about them, and they saw that the doors of the prison stood wide open; and while they marvelled at the sight, a man in bright raiment stood before them and said:

"Go, stand and speak in the temple all the words of this life!"

And they went forth, all of them, into the night; but the keepers of the prison continued to stand before the doors, neither seeing nor hearing what had happened, for their eyes were holden by the angel.

Ben Hesed was baptized in that same hour, and so likewise was the woman, because they believed what the men had told them concerning Jesus of Nazareth; and they tarried for the night at the house of John. But in the morning very early the Apostles went into the temple that they might speak to the people, even as the angel had bidden them.

About the third hour of the day at the bidding of Annas came the members of the Sanhedrim, with the chief doctors of the law, and all the great rabbis that were at Jerusalem, that they might take council together concerning them which Saul had made fast in the prison. And when Annas had spoken before them at length concerning the matter, and with great power and subtilty had convinced the greater part of them that these men were of the devil, and that upon the Senate thus convened rested the honor and safety of Israel, he commanded that the prisoners should be brought. And the officers went as they were bidden, and when they were come to the prison they asked of them that stood on guard before the door, whether the prisoners had been troublesome during the night.

"We heard them speaking one to another about the third watch," the officer of the guard made answer. "But there has been neither sound nor motion from within for many hours; they sleep heavily and late."

"They must even awake now, that they may appear before the council.

Fetch them out at once, for I must make haste."

Then the officer of the guard, whose name was Chilion, opened the door of the prison and went in. "Awake, sluggards!" he cried loudly, "and come forth."

But when there was yet neither voice nor motion, he drew his sword and thrust it in among the heaps of mouldy straw. "If ye will not come forth peaceably," he said, "then shall I fetch thee forth at the point of the sword." But no shriek of pain answered the weapon. So he strode forth into the light. "Fetch hither a torch," he roared, "there is the darkness of the pit within, and the rascals make me no answer."

So they made haste and fetched lights, and they searched the prison with all diligence. The prisoners were gone.

"Thou hast been drunken in the night and so have the fellows eluded thee," said Caleb, the chief of the temple police, when he had satisfied himself that the men had indeed made good their escape. "For this shalt thou answer with a scourging."

"Thou liest, man; I have neither eaten bread nor tasted wine during the night," cried Chilion, choking with rage, "and these shall bear me witness. We have stood continually before the doors, even as thou didst find us; it is from within that they have gotten away."

Then they again examined the floor and the walls of the prison; but there was no place where so much as a mouse could have crept through.

"I am undone!" cried Chilion, rending his clothes, "if they be not found. "Twas by their magic powers that they have done this thing.

Thinkest thou that men who can open the eyes of the blind, cannot also open the doors of a prison house?"

So Caleb returned unto the council; and when he had made obeisance before them, he said, "I am most unhappy, my lords, in that I am the bearer of evil tidings; the prisoners whom I was sent to fetch have somehow made good their escape during the night."

"How is this?" cried Annas angrily. "Who guarded the prison?"

"The detachment of Chilion, with Chilion himself in command, my lord.

The prison was shut with all safety, and the keepers found we standing without before the doors; but when we had opened, there was no man within."

"A most singular story this, my lord," remarked Alexander sarcastically.

"It will doubtless transpire that the fellows reasoned with the keepers during the night watches, and so converted them from their duty to their own interests; this do they with all men."

"The guard, Chilion, hath been bribed," suggested another. "Fetch him hither, and try the effect of a scourging. A bleeding back createth an honest tongue oftentimes when nothing else will suffice."

But as they thus talked together, Chilion himself knocked at the door; and when he was admitted, he cried out before them all that he was innocent of any failure in his duty; he was, moreover, ready to swear to the truth of this upon the high altar of the temple, than which there was no oath more sacred. "As for the men whom ye put in prison," he added, "they are at this moment standing in the temple teaching the people!"