Marsyas seized the rabbi's shoulder with a fresh grasp.

"Where are they?" he demanded.

"Dost thou--in truth, dost thou not know?" he demanded.

"Accused though I am, I am a good Jew, Rabbi. Never until now have I wished to know where they house themselves. But even were it the powers of darkness which alone could help me, now, I should not hesitate! Where are these apostates?"

"Here, in Ptolemais. What wilt thou have of them, Marsyas?"

"Were not heathen and idolaters instruments for the Lord's work? Have not even the beasts of the fields served His ends?"

"What dost thou meditate?"

"Saul's undoing!" Eleazar heard him thoughtfully and answered after a silence.

"So be it, then; if thou choosest that spirit, it must serve. Thou hast a dead friend to avenge and I, the guiltless oppressed to justify.

So the one end, the prevention of Saul's work, be attained, what matter if the spirit be mine or thine!"

"Well enough; the means, then! Where are these Nazarenes?"

"They--they meet on the water-front, nightly, since the oppression hath been inst.i.tuted against them," Eleazar answered reluctantly, as if he doubted the propriety of betraying a knowledge of the apostates' habits.

"Nightly!" Marsyas repeated. "So then to-night! Where is the place?

We will go there!"

Eleazar stood undecided and debated with himself. But the pressure of the young man's impelling firmness a.s.sumed material force against him and he yielded doubtfully.

"Come, then," he said, and his hesitation melted in the face of the other's decision.

Marsyas put himself at the rabbi's side and together they tramped through the dark streets toward the poorer districts of Ptolemais, along the harbor. It was poor indeed; the houses were the smallest in the city, low, square boxes of sun-dried earth little higher than a man's head and mere stalls for s.p.a.ce and comfort. Each, however, had a numerous tenantry, and wherever doors were opened the two men saw within, now Jews, now Greeks or Romans. Although uproar and disorder common in the lower walks of the city went on in the environments, the particular pa.s.sage Marsyas and the rabbi walked was quiet though not deserted. But it was a veritable black well, that maintained a swift slope for many rods and indicated the proximity to the water.

"How found you them, in this hole?" Marsyas asked, astonished, in spite of his intent thoughts, at the black labyrinth.

"I, too, was in hiding for my life's sake," Eleazar answered.

The brooding cornices of the houses, visible against the strip of starry sky, rounded suddenly and closed in upon the pa.s.sage. Marsyas saw that they were nearing a blind end, when a door opened in the cul-de-sac, disclosing several other men preceding Marsyas and the rabbi.

"Haste!" Eleazar whispered, and, seizing Marsyas' hand, ran so that they reached the lighted doorway before it closed again.

They entered with the others, and the bolts were shot behind them.

CHAPTER XII

SCATTERING THE FLOCK

They were in a single large chamber, rough, barren and barn-like. The gray drapery of cob-webs was sown with chaff; there was the fresh smell of grain with the mustiness of dust contending for prominence; the floor was dry packed earth that had not tasted rain for a century.

High above the few resin torches burning on the walls, huge cedar beams traversed the ceiling which was tight, that no moisture nor the consuming rays of the sun should enter. It was an abandoned grain house, builded just without the reach of the highest storm-wave on the water-front.

There were two or three benches, but not seating capacity for the number gathered there. So the youths, women and children sat on the earth along the walls and left the benches to the older men of the a.s.sembly.

Marsyas glanced at the gathering. He saw there not one, but many races, however Jewish in predominance. In most of the number he found a common expression, which made him think. It was a certain delineation of fort.i.tude, a brave patience that does not forswear persistence, however seriously the heart fears. In others, there were curiosity and expectation; in still others, apprehension and suspicion.

These, he noted, seemed not to wear that look of uplift; intuitively, he knew them to be investigators, more or less convinced, at the moment. Others, he saw, came with bundles of belongings as if prepared for a journey.

Eleazar selected a place by the door and signing to Marsyas that he would sit and await the young Essene's will, dropped down on the packed earth, and, drawing up his powerful limbs, clasped his arms around them. The torch above his head threw the shadow of his projecting kerchief over his face and hid his features.

There was s.p.a.ce between him and the next sitter, a young woman wearing the dress of a Jewish matron. She glanced uneasily at the huge stranger and drew closer to a man of her own age, on the other side.

Marsyas, seized with a new interest, sat down between the rabbi and the woman.

At the farther end of the building a man arose. He had a pilgrim's scrip at his side; he put away a staff as he gained his feet, and the heightened color of the brown on his cheek-bones and his nose showed that he had but recently come from a long journey.

He raised his arms over the a.s.sembly, and each of those gathered there bowed his head and clasped his hands.

"O patient Bearer of the Cross," he prayed, "let us not faint thus soon--we who are driven on! Let Thy footsteps be illumined that we may go Thy way, even though they lead unto Calvary! Teach us Thy submission, quicken us with Thy love, clothe us with Thy charity, that they who oppress us may see that submission is stronger than rebellion, that love is more enduring than hate, that charity is broad enough for our enemies. And if it be Thy will that we should love the spoiler of Thy Church and the destroyer of Thy saints, teach us then to love that enemy!"

This of a surety was not what Marsyas had expected to hear.

Undoubtedly the praying man spoke of Saul. The prayer continued.

"Lo, Thou hast tarried thus long away from us, and evil already gathereth thick about Thy people. In those days, when we asked and were answered, voice unto voice, we did not grope. Now, O Lord, we ask and there answers but the speech of faith left in us, and that in grievous hours--doth not bid the cup to pa.s.s from us!"

Marsyas' chin sank on his breast; somehow the faltering sentences fell on some keenly sensitive spot in his soul, for in spirit he winced, and listened intently, in spite of himself.

"Yet, judge us not as wavering, O Lord; we but miss Thee from our side, who loved Thee, O Christ!"

The sentence ceased suddenly at the edge of a break in the voice. It seemed that human sorrow had broken in on an inspiration, and the sound of a sob arose here and there from the bowed circle of Nazarenes.

Marsyas suddenly saw the dark trampled s.p.a.ce without Ha.n.a.leel, the falling night, the still figure of Stephen stretched on the sand, the three humble mourners who of all Jerusalem were not afraid to sorrow for him, and the young Essene choked back a cry to the praying man,

"I know thy pain, brother!"

For that instant bond of sorrow it did not matter that, according to Marsyas' lights, the praying man blasphemed and besought another than the one Lord G.o.d as divinity. The Nazarene had loved a friend and lost him from his side; the voice had ceased and, in place of the warm content, only agony and emptiness abode in the heart.

"Show us Thy will; let us see and we shall follow; above all things quicken our ears that Thy loved voice may still be sweet in them across the boundaries of Death and through the darkness which embraceth our heads. Lo, Thou art with us alway even unto the end, we believe, we believe!"

There was too much human suffering, self-examination and beseeching in the prayer for it to help any who heard it. It was not like Stephen's prayers, which had seized upon Marsyas' spirit because of their unshaken confidence and beatification, and had terrified him, as a.s.saults upon his steadfastness. In those moments, he had been afraid of the Nazarene heresy; now, he was stirred to pity for the heretics.

The sensation added to his resolution against Saul.

Another voice roused him, by reason of its difference from that of the first speaker. It was not loud, but it carried and penetrated every dusty corner of the great s.p.a.ce, with the strength and evenness of a sounded horn. The temper as well as the quality was different; it was triumphant, eager, glad.

"It is the hour of fulfilment, beloved; the accomplishment of the prophecy, for by persecution shall we who are witnesses to the truth be scattered into all the world that the gospel may come unto every creature. The flesh in us which crieth out and feareth death shall be the instrument whereby fleeing to save ourselves we shall go quickened into distant lands and testify. Wherefore let not any soul lament this day nor denounce the circ.u.mstance which sendeth him into strange places and unto the Gentile. Ye were not charged to save your flesh but to save your souls. And whosoever saveth his soul hath Christ in his bosom and Christ on his tongue; wherefore the Redeemer is not dead and buried, nor even pa.s.sed from among you, but living and preaching numerously, by many tongues. Doubt not ye shall have your Gethsemane and your Calvary, yet likewise ye shall arise from the dead and enter into Paradise. The oppressor shall persecute, the rod hang over you, the Cross be set up, but though ye go forth unweaponed ye shall level walls and throw down tyrants by the power of love; ye shall conduct peace and mercy through the flights ye make from oppression, and Life everlasting shall begin where your hour is accomplished and ye die.

"If there be any among you who are timid in flesh that say in their souls, 'Let us find a secure place and live secretly and in G.o.dliness away from the abominations of the wicked,' verily I say unto such, if the world were precious enough unto the Son of G.o.d that He suffered death to save it, it is not too evil for the habitation of them who were in sin and ransomed by His sacrifice.

"If there be those among you given to wrath and vengeance who shall say, 'Let us fall upon the oppressor and put him to death,' verily I say unto such if the Son of G.o.d, who was despised and rejected of men, who raised the dead and cleansed lepers, directed not His powers to punishment and havoc, how shall ye, who are but lately lifted out of sin and d.a.m.nation?

"Ye are ministers of peace and love and humility. Go forth and testify to these things in His name, and I who stand before you, elected of Him whom ye follow to speak His word, I say unto you that if ye testify faithfully, no persecutor shall triumph over you, no power shall overthrow you, no evil shall prevail against your souls!"