The man laughed aloud. "I am Gestas; second in authority to Dumachus, who was chief of our band--and your father. Since the Romans put an end to him, along with t.i.tus and the Nazarene, I have been chief."
"And is it one of your followers who is in need of healing?" asked Stephen, shrinking back a little with something of his old-time dread.
"It is. Art thou afraid?"
"No," returned Stephen quietly, "I am not afraid; surely of all men ye are most in need of the mighty help of the risen Lord; "twere most fitting if so be that I may bring it into your midst."
Gestas looked at him with an indescribable mixture of contempt and pity.
"Thou art a pretty enough fellow," he said, running his eyes over the slender but well-knit figure. "A thought too pretty indeed. Why art thou contented to pa.s.s thy days in the company of a band of crazy fools, who will end as their Master did--though he merited it not--on the cross. Why take the devil"s wages without the devil"s pleasures first?
If now, I die on the cross, it will be for reasons better than preaching, praying, and the healing of dirty beggar folk."
"Afterward is the judgment," said Stephen.
"A fig for the afterwards!" cried Gestas. "Who knows anything about that? But, come," he added with a sudden change in his tones, "it lacks but an hour of midnight; thou must be gone before that time."
"I am not in haste to be gone," said Stephen gently. "I will remain until morning, if I can do anything to help."
"There is naught that thou canst do--after midnight," said Gestas gruffly. "If there is an afterwards," he muttered, "it will make no difference to him."
The two walked silently for a time, pausing at length at the edge of a low-growing coppice, through the interlacing branches of which could be seen the fitful flash of a dying fire. Making their way through the thicket by a winding path evidently well known to Gestas, the twain presently found themselves in the centre of the encampment.
"Where is the dying man?" said Stephen, eager to begin his ministry of love.
For answer, Gestas seized him by the arm and hurried him forward into the midst of a dark group of figures which seemed to be awaiting their approach. "Thou art the dying man!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "Prepare for thy afterwards swiftly."
Half involuntarily, Stephen made a mighty unavailing effort to free himself from the grasp of the ruffian who held him; life on a sudden looked very sweet to him. It could not be that G.o.d had appointed such an end as this for one who would serve him long and faithfully. Surely he was too young to die. Yet not younger than t.i.tus, who had gone by the horrible way of the cross to be with him in Paradise. At the thought a great peace possessed his soul. "Not my will but thine be done," he murmured aloud, raising his eyes to the stars which glittered keenly through the interlacing branches overhead.
"So this is the man!" cried a rough voice, as a dozen hands bound him to the trunk of a tree. "It may be that if he hath the power to heal, as they say, he will be master also of other magic arts, which he will use to our undoing. Best make way with him quickly."
Stephen looked about on the crowd of evil faces which surrounded him, and a great wave of pity for his tormentors swept over him. So far were they from G.o.d, so deep in unfathomable depths of misery. For himself he felt no fear; from earth to heaven was but a single step.
"Men and brethren," he cried, and his voice rang out clear and sweet upon the startled air. "Let me live for yet a little s.p.a.ce, till I shall declare unto you the words of life. For such as you, Jesus died upon the cross; he will save you from out the misery of this present life, and afterward give you the life that endeth not. Only believe on him and forsake your evil ways."
"Prate not to us of thy Jewish Messiah," cried one. "He is not for us, even if what thou sayest be true. We must die as we have lived. We be uncirc.u.mcised Greeks that care not for an everlasting abode with them that spit upon us in this life."
"Nay, but he died for the sins of the world, and he is risen from death to abide forever with the Father which made the Greek as well as the Jew, and loveth both alike."
"Give to us a sign!" cried another. "If what thou hast said be true, let the man Jesus come down out of the heavens and deliver thee, then will we believe on him; nay, more, thou shalt be our leader in place of Gestas here--who is too stupid to be chief."
At this Gestas swore a great oath of rage. "Stand back, all of you," he cried. "I will smite him; and there is none that shall deliver him out of my hand, either on earth or in heaven."
Then he raised his arm; Stephen caught the keen glitter of the steel.
He closed his eyes. His lips moved in prayer. Something smote him on the breast, but it was not the soul-delivering blade, as he dimly realized ere his senses left him. Gestas, stricken full in the heart by an arrow sped from the bow of an unseen archer, had leapt straight into the air without a cry, then falling limply, his head striking against the prisoner, he lay, a grim unsightly heap, at Stephen"s feet.
The others stood for an instant aghast, then with wild cries of fear they fled away into the thicket.
"I fear the knaves have done for him, whoever he be," cried a voice, as the figure of a young man bounded out of the bushes.
"Nay, my son," said Ben Hesed, who had followed more deliberately, "the miscreant had but raised his blade when my arrow smote him; let us loose the man here and get away from this place with all speed, for they will return and fall upon us, if they find that we be few."
"I must fetch the white dromedary," said the voice of Seth, at his elbow. "It is in yonder glade."
"Be quick, then; there is no time to lose!"
The moon had looked down for a full hour longer upon the dark motionless something, which lay just where it had fallen on the soft gra.s.s, when the thicket again opened and a man peered out. He looked about him cautiously, then turned and spoke rea.s.suringly to some one behind him.
"There is no one here, Joca; come on!"
"It was a bolt from heaven a.s.suredly which smote him; for there is naught missing save the man," said the other, looking keenly about in his turn at the familiar scene; "Let us get away from this place; I am sick of it."
"Ay! we will return to Greece where the old G.o.ds yet rule; I like not the ways of the G.o.d of this land; but first--" And the speaker cautiously approached the body of Gestas. "He hath something about him, which we shall have more need of than he. Ah! here it is, ten good pieces--if he have not already spent some of them."
"But there were to have been thirty pieces more."
"Ay! and more"s the pity that they be lost to us."
"Why need they be lost to us, man?"
"What meanest thou?"
Joca whispered something in his companion"s ear, whereat the other chuckled hoa.r.s.ely.
"Why not?" he cried, "thou art a son of Minerva to have thought it."
The servant of Annas had waited outside the Jaffa gate for nearly two hours; he was growing impatient at last.
"I will not stay longer," he muttered, "something hath miscarried in the matter; it will be to-morrow--if the knave hath not failed me altogether."
But even as he spoke he saw a man approaching him. He at once stood forth in the full moonlight, bidding his companions remain within the shadow of the wall.
The man came up to him swiftly. "Art thou he who hath thirty pieces of gold to give in exchange for a strange commodity?"
"I am he. Hast thou the commodity?"
"Ay! it is here; wilt thou see it?"
The Jew shuddered at sight of the bag which the other tendered him.
"No!" he said shortly. "Take the money and be gone." Then he turned to one of the slaves who waited his orders. "Take this," he commanded, "and fetch it to the palace."
CHAPTER XXI.
NOT A SPARROW FALLETH.
Something more than two years after the events narrated in the preceding chapter, a little group of men might have been seen standing in the portico of a building known as the Synagogue of the Nazarenes. They were conversing in low tones, but their excited gestures and gloomy faces betrayed the fact that the topic which they were discussing was not a pleasant one.