At the threshold of the porch he halted. In the street opposite two young men were walking slowly. One was slight, young, graceful and simply clad in a Jewish smock. The other was Marsyas, the Essene, who went with an arm over the shoulders of the first, and, bending, seemed to speak with pa.s.sionate earnestness to his companion. The faces of the two young men thus side by side showed the same spiritual mode of living, and youthful purity of heart. But the expression of the slighter one was less ascetic than happy, less rigorous than confident.

As Marsyas spoke, the other smiled; and his smile was an illumination, not entirely earthly.

Joel seized Saul's arm, and held it while the two approached, unconscious of the watchers in the shadow of the porch.

"That is he," he whispered avidly. "That is he! Stephen, the apostate!"

Stephen turned his head casually, and, catching the Pharisee's eye, returned the gaze with a little friendly questioning; then he raised his face to Marsyas and so they pa.s.sed.

The pallor on Saul's face deepened.

CHAPTER II

A PRUDENT EXCEPTION

After he had separated from Stephen, Marsyas went to the house of a resident Essene with whom he made his home, to be fed, to be washed, to offer supplication and to announce his decision to go on a journey. At the threshold of his host's house he put aside his sandals and let himself in with a murmured formula. In a little time he came forth with a wallet flung over his shoulder and took the streets toward Gennath Gate. It was not written in the laws of his order that he should make greater preparation for a journey. He had already acquainted himself with the abiding-places of Essenes in villages between Jerusalem and Nazareth and, a.s.sured of their hospitality and the provision of the Essene's G.o.d, he knew that he would fare well to the hill town of Galilee.

So he pa.s.sed through the city by the walk of the purified, garments well in hand lest they touch women or the wayside dust, meeting the eye of no man, proud of his humility, punctilious in his simplicity, and wearing unrest under his sh.e.l.l of calm. He had an un.o.bstructed path, a path ceremonially clean. He had but to hesitate on the edge of a congestion, and the first gowned and bearded Jew that observed him signed his companions and the way was opened. For the Essenes were the best of men, the truly holy men of Israel.

He went down between the fronts of featureless houses, through the golden haze of sun and dust that overhung the narrow, stony mule-ways, until the distant dream towers of Mariamne, of Phasaelus and of Hippicus became imminent, brooding shapes of blackened masonry, and the wall cut off the mule-ways and the great shady arch of the gate let in a glimpse of the country without. On one hand was the Praetorium, the Roman garrison encamped in the upper palace of Herod the Great; on the other, the houses of the Sadducees, the Jewish aristocrats, covered the ridge of Akra. Marsyas came upon an obstruction. At a gate opening into the street, camels knelt, servants of diverse nationality but of one livery cl.u.s.tered round them, several unoccupied Jewish traveling chairs in the hands of bearers stood near. In the center of the considerable crowd, a number of Sadducees, priests of high order and Pharisees in garments characteristic of their several cla.s.ses were taking ceremonious farewell of a man already seated in a howdah. No one took notice of the Essene, who stood waiting with a.s.sumed patience until he should be given room.

Presently the camel-drivers cried to their beasts which arose with a lurch, priests and Sadducees hurried into their chairs, the servants fell into rank, the crowd shifted and ordered itself and a procession trailed out alongside the swaying camels toward Gennath Gate. A distinguished party was taking leave under escort.

Marsyas repressed the impatient word that arose to his lips and followed after the deliberate, moving blockade.

The rank of the departing strangers did not encourage the city rabble to follow, and as the escort kept close to the head of the procession the hindmost camel was directly before Marsyas and the occupant of the howdah in his view. Over head and shoulders the full skirts of a vitta fell, erasing outline, and, contrasting the stature with that of the attending servant, he concluded that the small traveler was a child.

Under the dripping shade and chill of the ancient Gate they pa.s.sed and out into the road worn into a trench through the rock and dry gray earth and on to the oval pool which supplied Hippicus, where a halt for a final farewell was made. Again Marsyas was delayed, and for a much longer time. He might have climbed out of the sunken roadway and pa.s.sed around the obstruction, but the banks above were lined with clamoring mendicants, women and lepers, and he could not escape ceremonial defilement that might more seriously delay his journey.

Meanwhile the courtly leave-taking progressed with dignified sloth.

Gradually Sadducee, priest and Pharisee moved one by one from the departing aristocrat. At the hindmost camel the Pharisees stopped not at all, but saluting without looking at the traveler, the priests merely raised their hands in blessing; but the Sadducees to a man salaamed profoundly, and pa.s.sed on if they were old, or lingered uncertainly if they were young.

A little flicker of enlightenment showed in the young Essene's brilliant eyes, an angry tension in his lips straightened their curve and he drew himself up indignantly. The young aristocrats tarried and laughed his precious time away with a woman! That was the traveler in the last howdah! Twice and thrice the time they had spent speeding the rest of the party they consumed bidding the woman farewell, and every moment carried danger nearer to Stephen.

Then an old voice, refined and delicate as the note of an ancient lyre, lifted in laughing protest from the front, the young men laughed, responding, but moved away to their chairs, the camel swung out into a rapid walk, and crying farewells the party separated.

With abating irritation Marsyas moved after them. At the intersection of the first road, he would pa.s.s these travelers and hasten on.

A breeze from the hills cut off the smell of the city with a full stream of country freshness. Marsyas lifted his head and drew in a long breath that was almost a sigh. His first trouble weighed heavily upon him and its triple nature of distress, heart-hurt and apprehension, sensations so new and so near to nature as to be at wide variance with anything Essenic, moved him into a mood essentially human. Then an exhalation from aft the fragrant spring-flowered groves stole into the pure air about him, bewildering, sweet, and through it, as harmoniously as if the perfume had taken tone, a distant hill bird sent a single stave of liquid notes. The small figure in the howdah at that moment turned and looked back, and Marsyas for the first time in his life gazed straight into the eyes of a beautiful girl.

Spring-fragrance, bird-song and flower-face were harmony too perfect for Essenism to discountenance. Without the slightest discomposure, and absolutely unconscious of what he was doing, Marsyas gazed and listened until the vitta fell hastily over the face, the bird flew away and the garden incense died.

He pa.s.sed just then the intersecting road, but he continued after the last camel. He walked after that through many drifts of fragrance, and many hill birds sang, but he knew without looking that the flower face was not turned back toward him again.

He halted for the night at a little village and sought the hospitality of an Essene hermit that lived on the outskirts. But in the night, terror for Stephen, of that unknown kind which is conviction without evidence and irrefutable, seized him. He endured until the early watches of the morning and took the road to Nazareth while the stars still shone.

He had forgotten his fellow wayfarers of the previous afternoon until their camels, speeding like the wind, overtook him beyond Mt. Ephraim.

In a vapor of flying scarves he caught again a glimpse of the flower face turned his way.

Then for the first time in his life he reviled his poverty that forced him to walk when the life of the much-beloved depended upon despatch.

Nazareth, clinging like a wasps' nest under the eaves of its chalky hills, was many leagues ahead, and the sun must set and rise again before he could climb up its sun-white streets.

His hope was not strong. His plan had won such little respect from him that he had not ventured to propose it to Stephen. It was extreme sacrifice for him to make, a sacrifice lifelong in effect, and in that he based his single faith in its success. Stephen loved him and would not persist in the fatal apostasy, if he knew that his friend, the Essene, was to deny himself ambition and fame for Stephen's sake.

He would get his patrimony of the old master Essene who held it in trust for him, formally give over his instruction, bind himself to the perpetual life of husbandry and seclusion, and then tell Stephen what he had done and why he had done it.

Everything else but the appeal to Stephen's love for him had failed, and he had shrunk from forcing that trial.

But Saul had meant to go to the Synagogue at once; there were innumerable chances that he was already too late.

At noon he came upon the party of travelers again. A fringed tent had been pitched under a cl.u.s.ter of cedars and the slaves were putting away the last of the meal. He saw now as he hurried by that there was a spare and elegant old man, in magistrate's robes, reclining with singular grace on a pallet of rugs before the lifted side of the tent.

The girl sat near. He noted also that the master and the slaves fell silent as he approached and looked at him with interest.

But he sped on, forgetting that it was the noon and that he was hungry, heated and weary, and remembering only that the time and the distance were deadly long.

There was the soft pad-pad of a camel-hoof behind him and a servant of the aristocrat that he had pa.s.sed drew up at his side. With a light leap the man dropped from the beast's neck and bowed low. The ease of his salaam and the purity of his speech were strong evidences of training among the loftiest cla.s.ses of the time. The att.i.tude asked permission to address the Essene.

Marsyas signed him to speak.

"I pray thee accept my master's apologies," the man said, "for interrupting thy journey. He bids me say that he is a stranger and unfamiliar with the land. We have found no water for the meal. Wilt thou direct us to a pool?"

Marsyas checked his impatience.

"Save that I am in great haste I would tarry to direct him. But let him send hence into the country to the westward, half a league to the hill of the flat summit. There is a grove by a well of sweet water."

"Nay, the country is as obscure to us as the whereabouts of the pool,"

the servant protested. "We are Alexandrians and as good as lost in these hills. If thou wilt speak to my master, he will understand better than his foolish servant."

Irritation forced its way up through the Essenic calm. The servant salaamed again.

"The Essenes are noted even in Alexandria for their charity," he said deftly. Marsyas turned with him and went back to the fringed tent.

The old aristocrat still lounged gracefully, as no thirsty man does, on his pallet of rugs, but the girl had drawn farther away and her eyes were veiled.

"I perceived by thy garments that thou art an Essene," the old man said, "and therefore a safe guide in this land of few milestones."

Marsyas thanked him and waited restlessly on the inquiry.

"We have not found a well since mid-morning and I crave fresh drink.

The water we bear is brackish."

"Bid thy servants go westward without deviation for less than half a league, until they come unto a hill with a flat summit, which can be seen afar off. They will find there a grove with a well."

"And none is nearer?" the old man asked idly.