Magistus was in a towering pa.s.sion. He beat Ethopus severely, notwithstanding my protestations that I alone was to blame-and drove him from the room.

Turning fiercely upon me, he exclaimed:

"Do you not know the crime, the danger of teaching that man to write?"

"Oh, uncle!" said I, "what harm is there in bestowing the light of knowledge upon a poor dumb slave?"

"He was made dumb to keep him from betraying secrets."

"Horrible!" said I.

"Not my secrets," he added, cautiously, "but his former master's. If Simon Magus thought he could write, he would come all the way from Egypt to cut his heart out of his body."

After that event, the sphere of Ethopus' duty was changed, so that we rarely saw him.

Several weeks pa.s.sed away, and we wondered why Caiaphas, from whom our father expected so much, did not come to see us. He was to aid and befriend us, and, as I hoped, to deliver us from the control of Magistus.

He had evidently promised all that to our dear father. The priestly authorities, if properly applied to, surely would not permit the children of a good and devout man to continue under the influence of a thief and magician.

Caiaphas at last came. His visit was short: his manner constrained but polite. He sympathized briefly with our affliction; explained and defended the Mosaic laws against leprosy; eulogized our father in eloquent terms; and congratulated us on having such a worthy uncle, who would train us so carefully in the faith, and who would make our home so happy.

And this was the result of the secret interviews with my father, and of his solemn warnings against Magistus as a thief and a magician! I was puzzled and disappointed. I could not help saying:

"Did you know, O Caiaphas! that my father entertained a very different opinion of this good uncle?"

"Remember, my son," said he, somewhat abashed, "that your father was very sick, and his mind greatly impaired. There was no foundation whatever for his unhappy suspicions. Obey your uncle like good children, and you will find him all I have represented him to be." He then retired.

I was too young and ignorant of the ways and wiles of the world, to suspect that this priest had been all along in collusion with Magistus, and was to share with him in the plunder of the orphans of his friend.

The words of my father rang in my ear and continually haunted my mind: "He is a thief and robber, and addicted to magic."

I asked my uncle one day, in a very quiet manner, his opinion of magic.

He looked at me severely and answered:

"What are the words of Moses on the subject? Listen: 'A man or a woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall stone them with stones.'"

This did not convince me that my father was in error.

Months pa.s.sed; and a gradual and saddening change was creeping over our life and its surroundings. I had detected no robbery, no magical practices; but I had no faith in my uncle. Cautious and reticent as he was, he could not conceal some of the ugly points of his character. He was violent and cruel in his dealings with his slaves. He was addicted to falsehood, and in both opinion and practice was dest.i.tute of charity. His strict observance of the ceremonial law and his intense ritualism, could not conceal from me the fact that his heart was wholly untouched by the spiritualizing influences of true religion.

He ceased after a while to take us to see our aunt. Our teachers in various branches were not re-engaged, or were dismissed. Education came to a stand-still. Company was excluded from our house. His own was opened at night to suspicious characters. By bribing one of his servants one dark night, I obtained admission to his courtyard, and discovered, by m.u.f.fled sounds of music and dancing, that a baccha.n.a.lian revelry was going on underground. He sometimes betrayed the next day, in his face and manner, the effect of these midnight orgies.

In the mean time my beautiful sisters pined, neglected and sorrowful.

Magistus rarely visited them; and when he did, he was guilty of coa.r.s.e familiarities which shocked and repelled them. I summoned courage, boy as I was, on one of these occasions to reproach him bitterly for these things; for neglecting our education, our dress, our manners, our comforts; and for falling himself into habits which would certainly lead to the ruin of us all. He stared at me insolently, and said that I had better get my father's friend Caiaphas to revise his guardianship.

Like a man who sits helpless in a boat without oars, gliding down a swift current, and hears the far-off but inevitable cataract, I contemplated the dark future that awaited us. I grieved for my sisters more than for myself. We had just been mourning together one day over our sad fate, when Magistus came into the room. He had held a long private interview that morning with a strange man of gigantic size and very coa.r.s.e manners, whose appearance, as he entered the guest-chamber, excited my gravest suspicions.

"You complain so bitterly," said he, looking reproachfully at me, "of the general decay and ruin into which everything about here, animate and inanimate, is falling, that it is surprising you have not yet intimated your doubts about your father getting his proper supply of provisions."

"Oh no, uncle!" said Mary, tenderly, "you could not forget so sacred a duty as that. Surely no one ever hinted such a thing. The thought of it would drive me mad."

"I wish you to satisfy yourselves perfectly upon that point," he continued, in the tone of a man who thought himself aggrieved. "A trusty servant is to convey to him a basket of things the day after to-morrow.

Let Lazarus accompany him. Let his daughters send some little presents.

His son can see him and even speak with him at a distance. He can see his lodging and satisfy himself that he is comfortably situated."

"Without confessing, uncle," said I, "that this visit is necessary for my faith in your attention to my father, I concede that it will give me very great pleasure."

"How long will he be gone?" said Martha.

"Is there no danger?" said Mary.

"He will run no risk and will return the same night," said Magistus, answering both questions in a breath.

This visit occupied our thoughts continually, and we delighted to imagine what joy it would give our poor father. I was out of bed before daylight that morning, impatient to start. I partook heartily of an extempore breakfast which Ethopus provided me. That personage to my surprise seemed sad and abstracted. I could say nothing to him, however, for Magistus was present. I kissed my sisters good-bye at the door of their room, for they too could not sleep for excitement. Magistus waved his adieu at the front door. I walked through the courtyard with Ethopus, who carried a covered basket on his arm.

We were near the gate, when Ethopus coming close to me slipped something into my hand. It was a long, thin, bright dagger. I concealed it immediately in my bosom.

"Ethopus thinks there will be danger," said I, to myself.

I would perhaps have said something, but I observed the porter admitting a person through the gate, whose entrance at that hour in the morning caused me the greatest surprise.

It was a woman; and at the age of sixteen a woman occupies a great deal of the field of vision before the masculine eye. This woman was very young-not more than fifteen, although perfectly mature. She was very beautiful-so beautiful that everybody must have turned to look after her.

Her eyes were large, soft and hazel; her hair brown and wavy; her cheeks blended roses and pearls: her mouth small and curved like a bow; her voice and smile perfectly bewitching-all that I took in at a glance: nor did it need the splendid ear-rings and brilliant necklace and scarlet robe she wore, to impress it very deeply on my mind.

She bade me good-morning with the sweetest smile imaginable, and with the affable, self-possessed manner of a woman much older than herself.

Startled and abashed, I could do nothing but bow profoundly and hurry into the street where Ethopus had given the basket to the person who was to be my guide.

I made signs to Ethopus, by a kind of pantomime we had acquired, to keep a watchful eye on my sisters. He replied by an affirmative motion of the head and a deep sigh, which was evidently on my own account.

This woman was destined, under the leadings of Providence, to make a greater and more lasting impression on my soul than all others. And this was our first meeting: I a bashful boy; she a strange woman, too gaudily dressed, entering my father's house at a strange hour. So two ships might pa.s.s each other on the Great Sea, merely exchanging signals of good-morning-ships destined long afterward to convoy each other beyond the Pillar of Hercules into the infinite unknown!

This woman was Mary Magdalen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]

III.

_NIGHT BY THE DEAD SEA._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Initial]