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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mary Magdalen by Edgar Saltus
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: Mary Magdalen
+
+Author: Edgar Saltus
+
+Release Date: March 5, 2010 [Ebook #31510]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MAGDALEN***
+
+
+
+
+
+                              By Mr. Saltus
+
+                                HISTORIA AMORIS
+                               THE POMPS OF SATAN
+                                IMPERIAL PURPLE
+                            THE ANATOMY OF NEGATION
+                                 VANITY SQUARE
+                              THE PERFUME OF EROS
+
+
+
+
+
+                             MARY MAGDALEN
+
+                              _A Chronicle_
+
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                               EDGAR SALTUS
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+BRENTANO'S
+MCMXIX
+
+
+
+
+
+                            COPYRIGHT, 1891,
+                             BY EDGAR SALTUS.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                 CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+CHAPTER II.
+CHAPTER III.
+CHAPTER IV.
+CHAPTER V.
+CHAPTER VI.
+CHAPTER VII.
+CHAPTER VIII.
+CHAPTER IX.
+CHAPTER X.
+Transcriber's note
+
+
+
+
+
+                              MARY MAGDALEN
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.
+
+
+                                    I.
+
+
+"Three to one on Scarlet!"
+
+Throughout the brand-new circus were the eagerness, the gesticulations,
+shouts, and murmurs of an impatient throng. On a ledge above the entrance
+a man stood, a strip of silk extended in his finger-tips. Beneath, on
+either side, were gates. About him were series of ascending tiers,
+close-packed, and brilliant with multicolored robes and parasols. The sand
+of the track was very white: where the sunlight fell it had the glitter of
+broken glass. In the centre was a low wall; at one end were pillars and
+seven great balls of wood; at the other, seven dolphins, their tails in
+the air. The uproar mounted in unequal vibrations, and stirred the pulse.
+The air was heavy with odors, with the emanations of the crowd, the cloy
+of myrrh. Through the exits whiffs of garlic filtered from the kitchens
+below, and with them, from the exterior arcades, came the beat of
+timbrels, the click of castanets. Overhead was a sky of troubled blue;
+beyond, a lake.
+
+"They are off!"
+
+The strip of silk had fluttered and fallen, the gates flew open, there was
+a rumble of wheels, a whirlwind of sand, a yell that deafened, and four
+tornadoes burst upon the track.
+
+They were shell-shaped, and before each six horses tore abreast. Between
+the horses' ears were swaying feathers; their manes had been dyed clear
+pink, the forelocks puffed; and as they bounded, the drivers, standing
+upright, had the skill to guide but not the strength to curb. About their
+waists the reins were tied; at the side a knife hung; from the forehead
+the hair was shaven; and everything they wore, the waistcoat, the short
+skirt, the ribbons, was of one color, scarlet, yellow, emerald, or blue:
+and this color, repeated on the car and on the harness, distinguished them
+from those with whom they raced.
+
+Already the cars had circled the hippodrome four times. There were but
+three more rounds, and Scarlet, which in the beginning had trailed
+applause behind it as a torch trails smoke, lagged now a little to the
+rear. Green was leading. Its leadership did not seem to please; it was
+cursed at and abused, threatened with naked fist; yet when for the sixth
+time it turned the terminal pillar, a shout that held the thunder of Atlas
+leaped abroad. Where the yellow car, pursued by the blue, had been, was
+now a mass of sickening agitation--twelve fallen horses kicking each other
+into pulp, the drivers brained already; and down upon that barrier of
+blood and death swept the scarlet car. In a second it veered and passed;
+in that second a flash of steel had out the reins, and, as the car swung
+round, the driver, released, was tossed to the track. What then befell him
+no one cared. Stable-men were busy there; the car itself, unguided,
+continued vertiginously on its course. If it had lagged before, there was
+no lagging now. The hoofs that beat upon the ring plunged with it through
+the din down upon Emerald, and beyond it to the goal. And as the last
+dolphin vanished and the seventh ball was removed, the palm was granted,
+and the spectators shouted a salutation to the giver of the games--Herod
+Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee.
+
+He was superb, this Antipas. His beard was like a lady's fan. On his
+cheeks was a touch of alkanet; his hair, powdered blue, was encircled by a
+diadem set with gems. About his shoulders was a mantle that had a broad
+purple border; beneath it was a tunic of yellow silk. Between the railing
+of the tribune in which he sat one foot was visible, shod with badger's
+skin, dyed blood-red. He was superb, but his eyelids drooped. He had a
+straight nose and a retreating forehead, a physiognomy that was at once
+weak and vicious. He looked melancholy; it may be that he was bored. At
+the salutation, however, he affected a smile, and motioned that the games
+should continue. And as the signals, the dolphins and the seven balls,
+appeared again, his thoughts, forsaking the circus, went back to Rome.
+
+Insecure in the hearts of his people, uncertain even of the continued
+favor of the volatile monster who was lounging then in his Caprian
+retreat, it was with the idea of pleasing the one, of flattering the
+other, that he had instituted the games. For here in his brand-new
+Tiberias, a city which he had built in a minute, whose colonnades and
+porticoes he had bought ready-made in Rome, and had erected by means of
+that magic which only the Romans possessed--in this capital of a parvenu
+was a mongrel rabble of Greeks, Cypriotes, Egyptians, Cappadocians,
+Syrians, and Jews, whose temper was uncertain, and whose rebellion to be
+feared.
+
+_Annona et spectaculis_ indeed! Antipas knew the dictum well; and with an
+uprising in the yonderland, and a sedition under his feet, what more could
+he do than quell the first with his mercenaries, and disarm the second
+with his games? Tiberius, whom he emulated, never deigned to appear at the
+hippodrome; it was a way he had of showing his contempt for a nation.
+Antipas might have imitated his sovereign in that, only he was not sure
+that Tiberius would take the compliment as it was meant. He might view
+such abstention as the airs of a trumpery tetrarch, and depose him there
+and then. He was irascible, and when displeased there were dungeons at his
+command which reopened with difficulty, and where existence was not
+secure. Ah, that sausage of blood and mud, how he feared and envied him!
+An emperor now, a god hereafter, truly the dominion of this world and a
+part of the next was a matter concerning which fear and envy well might
+be.
+
+And as Antipas' vagabond fancy roamed in and out through the possibilities
+of the Caesar's sway, unconsciously he thought of another monster, the son
+of a priest of Ascalon, who had defied the Sanhedrim, won Cleopatra,
+murdered the woman he loved the most, conquered Judaea and found it too
+small for his magnificence--of that Herod in fact, his own father, who gave
+to Jerusalem her masterpiece of marble and gold, and meanwhile, drunk with
+the dream of empire, had made himself successor of Solomon, Sultan of
+Israel, King of the Jews, and who, even as he died, had vomited death and
+crowns, diadems and crucifixions.
+
+It was through his legacy that Antipas ruled. The kingdom had been sliced
+into three parts, of one of which Augustus had made a province; over
+another a brother whom he hated ruled; and he had but this third part, the
+smallest yet surely the most fair. Its unparalleled garden surrounded him,
+and its eye, the lake, was just beyond. In the amphitheatre the hills
+formed was a city of pink and blue marble, of cupolas, porticoes, volutes,
+bronze doors, and copper roofs. Along the fringe of the shore were
+Choraizin and Bethsaida, purple with pomegranates, Capharnahum, beloved
+for its honey, and Magdala, scented with spice. The slopes and intervales
+were very green where they were not yellow, and there were terraces of
+grape, glittering cliffs, and a sky of troubled blue, wadded with little
+gold-edged clouds.
+
+Yes, it was paradise, but it was not monarchy. It was to that he aspired.
+As he mused, a rancid-faced woman decked with paint and ostrich-plumes
+snarled in his ear:
+
+"What have you heard of Iohanan?"
+
+And as with a gesture he signified that he had heard nothing, she snarled
+again.
+
+Antipas turned to her reflectively, but it was of another that he
+thought--the brown-eyed bride that Arabia had given him, the lithe-limbed
+princess of the desert whose heart had beaten on his own, whom he had
+loved with all the strength of youth and weakness, and whom he had
+deserted while at Rome for his brother's wife, his own niece, Herodias,
+who snarled at his side.
+
+Behind her were her women, and among them was one who, as the cars swept
+by, turned her head with that movement a flower has which a breeze has
+stirred. Her eyes were sultry, darkened with stibium; on her cheek was the
+pink of the sea-shell, and her lips made one vermilion rhyme. The face was
+oval and rather small; and though it was beautiful as victory, the wonder
+of her eyes, which looked the haunts of hope fulfilled, the wonder of her
+mouth, which seemed to promise more than any mortal mouth could give, were
+forgotten in her hair, which was not orange nor flame, but a blending of
+both. And now, as the cars passed, her thin nostrils quivered, her hand
+rose as a bird does and fluttered with delight.
+
+On the adjacent tiers were Greeks, fat-calved Cypriotes, Cappadocians with
+flowers painted on their skin, red Egyptians, Thracian mercenaries,
+Galilean fishermen, and a group of Lydians in women's clothes.
+
+On the tier just beyond was a man gazing wistfully at the woman that sat
+behind Herodias. He was tall and sinewy, handsome with the comeliness of
+the East. His beard was full, unmarred at the corners; his name was Judas.
+Now and then he moistened his under lip, and a Thracian who sat at his
+side heard him murmur "Mary" and some words of Syro-Chaldaic which the
+Thracian did not understand.
+
+To him Mary paid no attention. She had turned from the track. An officer
+had entered the tetrarch's tribune and addressed the prince. Antipas
+started; Herodias colored through her paint. The latter evidently was
+pleased.
+
+"Iohanan!" she exclaimed. "To Machaerus with him! You may believe in fate
+and mathematics; I believe in the axe."
+
+And questioningly Herodias looked at her husband, who avoided her look,
+yet signified his assent to the command she had given.
+
+The din continued. From the tier beyond, Judas still gazed into the perils
+of Mary's eyes.
+
+"Dear God," he muttered, in answer to an anterior thought, "it would be
+the birthday of my life."
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+
+
+                                   II.
+
+
+"O Prophet Iohanan, how fair you are!"
+
+Iohanan was hideous. His ankles were in stocks, a chain about his waist
+was looped in a ring that hung from the wall. About his body were tattered
+furs, his hair was tangled, the face drawn and yellow. Vermin were visible
+on his person. His lips twitched, and his gums, discolored, were as those
+of a camel that has journeyed too far. A tooth projected, green as a fresh
+almond is; the chin projected too, and from it on one side a rill of
+saliva dripped upon the naked breast. On the terrace he was a blur, a
+nightmare in a garden.
+
+"Ah, how fair!"
+
+Tantalizing as temptation, Mary stood just beyond his reach. Her eyes were
+full of compliments, her body was bent, and, the folds of her gown held
+back, she swayed a little, in the attitude of one cajoling a tiger. She
+was quite at home and at her ease, and yet prepared for instant flight.
+
+Iohanan, or John--surnamed, because of practices of his, the
+Baptist--beckoned her to approach. In his eyes was the innocence that oxen
+have.
+
+"My body is chained, but my soul is free!"
+
+Mary made a pirouette, and through the terrace of the citadel the rattles
+on her ankles rang.
+
+It was appalling, this citadel; it dominated the entire land. Perched on a
+peak of basalt, it overhung an abyss in which Asphalitis, the Bitter Sea,
+lay, a stretch of sapphire to the sun. In the distance were the heights of
+Abraham, the crests of Gilead. Before it was the infinite, behind it the
+desert. At its base a hamlet crouched, and a path hewn in the rock crawled
+in zigzags to its gates. Irregular walls surrounded it, in some places a
+hundred cubits high, and in each of the many angles was a turret. Seen
+from below it was a threat in stone, but within was a caress, one of those
+rapturous palaces that only the Orientals build. It was called Machaerus.
+Peopled with slaves and legends, it was a haunt of ghosts and fierce
+delights.
+
+And now as Mary tripped before the prophet the walls alone repelled. The
+terrace was a garden in which were lilies and sentries. For entrance there
+was a portal of red porphyry, above which was a balcony hemmed by a
+balustrade of yellow Numidian stone.
+
+Against it Antipas leaned. He had been eyeing the desert in tremulous
+surmise. The day before, he had caught the glitter of lances, therewith
+spirals of distant smoke, and he had become fearful lest Aretas, that king
+of Arabia Petraea whose daughter he had deserted, might be meditating
+attack. But now there was nothing, at most a triangular mass speeding
+westwards, of which only the edges moved, and which he knew to be a flight
+of cranes.
+
+He took heart again and gazed in the valley below. It was the anniversary
+of his birth. To celebrate it he had invited the stewards of his lands,
+the notables of Galilee, the elect of Jerusalem, the procurator of Judaea,
+the emir of Tadmor, mountaineers and Pharisees, Scribes and herdsmen.
+
+But in the valley only a few shepherds were visible. Along the ramparts
+soldiers paced. At the further end of the terrace a group of domestics was
+busy with hampers and luggage. The day was solemnly still, exquisitely
+clear; and between two hills came a glare of gold projected from the
+Temple of Jerusalem.
+
+Through the silence rang the tinkle of the rattles that Mary wore. The
+prophet was beckoning her.
+
+"And Martha?" the tetrarch heard him ask.
+
+The pirouette ceased awkwardly. Mary's eyes forgot their compliments. Her
+brows contracted, and, as though perplexed, she held her head a little to
+one side.
+
+"There," he added, "there, I know you well. It was at Bethany I saw you
+first. Yes, yes, I remember perfectly; you were leaving, and Martha was in
+tears. Only a little since I had speech with her. She spoke of you; she
+knew you were called the Magdalen. No," he continued, for Mary had shrunk
+back, "no, I will not curse. There is another by whom you will be
+blessed."
+
+Mary laughed. "I am going to Rome. Tiberius will give me a palace. I shall
+sleep on the down the Teutons bring. I shall drink pearls dissolved in
+falernian. I shall sup on peacocks' tongues."
+
+"No, Mary, Rome you will never see. The Eternal has you in His charge.
+Your shame will be washed away."
+
+"Shame to you," she interrupted. "Shame and starvation too." She made as
+though she were about to pirouette again. "Whom are you talking of?"
+
+"One whose shoes I am unworthy to bear."
+
+For a moment he seemed to meditate; then, with the melancholy of one
+renounceing some immense ambition, he murmured, half to himself, half to
+the sky, "For him to increase I must diminish."
+
+"As for that, you are not much to look at now. I must go. I must braid my
+hair; the emir's eyes are eager."
+
+"Mary," he hissed, and the sudden asperity of his voice coerced her as a
+bit might do, "you will go to Capharnahum, you will seek him, you will say
+Iohanan is descended into the tombs to announce the Son of David."
+
+Through the lateral entrance to the terrace a number of guests had
+entered. From the balcony above, Antipas leaned and listened. Some one
+touched him; it was Herodias.
+
+"The procurator is coming," she announced. "You should be at the gate."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+He seemed indifferent. What Iohanan had said concerning the Son of David
+stirred him like the point of a sword. He felt that there could be no such
+person; his father had put a stop to all that. And yet, if there were!
+
+His indifference surprised Herodias.
+
+"What are you staring at?" she asked; and to assure herself she looked
+over the balustrade. "That carrion? You should----"
+
+Her hand drawn across her throat completed the sentence.
+
+The tetrarch shook his head. There was no hurry. Then, too, the prophet
+was useful. He reviled Jerusalem, and that flattered Galilee. But there
+was another reason, which he kept to himself. Iohanan affected him as no
+one had done before.
+
+He feared him, chained though he was, and into that fear something akin to
+admiration entered. In his heart he wished he had let him alone. No, there
+was no hurry. As he assured her of that the prophet looked up.
+
+"Jezebel!"
+
+The guests approached. Their number had increased. There were Greek
+merchants from Hippos and Sepphoris, Pharisees from Jericho, and Scribes
+from Jerusalem. Herodias clapped her hands. A negro, naked to the waist,
+appeared.
+
+"Take him below."
+
+But the guests surrounded Iohanan. The Pharisees recognized him at once.
+He was the terror of the hierarchs.
+
+As he cried out at Herodias he seemed as though he would rise and wrench
+his bonds and mount to where she was. His eyes had lost their pathos; they
+blazed.
+
+"Woe unto you!" he shouted, "and woe unto your barren bed! Though you hid
+in the bowels of the earth, in the uttermost depths of a jungle, the
+stench of your incest would betray you. Woe unto you, I say; the swine
+will turn from you, the Eternal will rend you, and the heart of hell will
+vomit you back!"
+
+Herodias shook with anger. She was livid. Murmurs circulated through the
+increasing throng.
+
+The Pharisees edged nearer. On their foreheads were slips of vellum on
+which passages of the Law had been inscribed. About their left arms other
+slips extended spiralwise from the elbow to the end of the third finger.
+They were in white; where their garments had become soiled, the spots had
+been chalked.
+
+To them the prophet showed his teeth. "And woe unto you too, race of
+vipers, bladders of wind! As the fire devours the stubble, and the flame
+consumes the chaff, so your root will be rottenness and your seed go up as
+dust. Fear will engulf you like a torrent. The high peaks will be broken,
+the mountains will sever, and night be upon all. The valleys and hills
+will be strewn with your corpses, the rocks will run with your blood, the
+plain will drink it, and the vultures feast on your flesh. Woe unto you
+all, I say, that call good evil, and evil good!"
+
+The invective continued. It enveloped the world. Everything was to be
+destroyed. Presently it subsided; the voice of the prophet sank lower; his
+eyes sought the sky, the pupils dilated; and the dream of his nation, the
+triumphant future, the sanctification of the faithful, the magnificence
+that was to be, poured rapturously from his lips.
+
+"The whole land will glow with glory. The sky will be a rose in bloom. The
+meadows will rejoice, and the earth will be filled with men and maidens
+singing and kneeling to Thee, Immanuel, whom I await."
+
+The vision would have expanded, perhaps, but the chain that bound him was
+loosed, sinewy arms were dragging him away. As he went, he glared up again
+at Herodias. His face had lost its beatitude.
+
+"You will be stripped of your purple, Jezebel; your diadem will be trodden
+under foot. The pains of a woman in travail will be as joys unto yours.
+There will be not enough stones to throw at you, and the abomination of
+your lust will bellow, Accursed, even beyond the tomb."
+
+The anathema fainted in the distance. The Scribes consulted between their
+teeth. By the Pharisees Antipas was blamed. A merchant from Hippos did not
+understand, and the Law was explained. That a man should marry his
+brother's wife was a duty, only in this instance it had not occurred to
+the brother to die beforehand. Then, again, by her first husband Herodias
+had a child, and in that was the abomination.
+
+The merchant did not wholly grasp the distinction, but he nodded as though
+he had.
+
+"There was a child, was there?"
+
+A captain of the garrison answered: "A girl, Salome."
+
+He said nothing further, but the merchant could see that his mouth watered
+at the thought of her.
+
+The crowd had become very dense. Suddenly a trumpet blared. At the gate
+was Pontius Pilate. On his head was a high and dazzling helmet. His tunic
+was short, open at the neck. His legs were bare. He was shod with shoes
+that left the toes exposed. From his cuirass a gorgon's head had, in
+deference to local prejudice, been effaced; in its stead were scrolls and
+thunderbolts. From the belt rows of straps, embroidered and fringed, fell
+nearly to the knee. He held his head in the air. His features were
+excellent, and his beard hung in rows of short overlapping curls.
+
+Behind him was his body-guard. Before him Antipas stood, welcoming the
+Roman in Greek.
+
+In the sky now were the advancing steps of night; in crevices of the
+basalt the leaves of the baaras weed had begun to flicker. It was time for
+the festival to begin; and, preceding the guests, Antipas passed into a
+hall beyond.
+
+It was oblong, curved at the ends, and so vast that the roof was vague. On
+the walls were slabs of different colors, marble spotted like the skin of
+serpents, and onyx flecked with violet. On two sides were galleries
+supported by columns of sandstone. A third gallery formed a semicircle.
+Opposite, at the further end, on a dais, was the table of the tetrarch.
+
+Antipas faced the assemblage. At his left was the procurator, at his right
+the emir of Tadmor. Curtains were looped on either side. Above were
+panels; they separated, and flowers fell. On a little stool next to the
+couch on which the emir lay was a beautiful boy with curly hair. The couch
+of the procurator was covered with a dim Babylonian shawl. That of the
+tetrarch was of ivory incrusted with gold. All three were cushioned.
+
+As the guests entered they were sprinkled with perfume. Throughout the
+length of the hall other tables extended, and at these they found seats
+and food: Syrian radishes, melons from the oases near the Oxus, white
+olives from Bethany, honey from Capharnahum, and the little onions of
+Ascalon. There were candelabra everywhere, liquids cooled with snow,
+cheeses big as millstones, chunks of fat in wooden bowls, and behind the
+tables, slaves with copper platters. On the platters were quarters of red
+beef, breams swimming in grease, and sunbirds with their plumage on. In
+the semicircular gallery musicians played, three notes, constantly
+repeated.
+
+The tetrarch's table was spread with a cloth of byssus striped with
+Laconian green. On it were jars of murrha filled with balsam, Sidonian
+goblets of colored glass, jasper amphorae, and water-melons from Egypt.
+Before the procurator was a dish of oysters, lampreys, and boned barbels,
+mixed well together, flavored with cinnamon and assafoetida; mashed
+grasshoppers baked in saffron; and a roasted boar, the legs curled inward,
+the eyes half-closed. The emir ate abundantly of heron's eggs whipped with
+wine into an amber foam. When his fingers were soiled, he wiped them in
+the curls of the beautiful boy who sat near by.
+
+The smell of food filled the hall, mounted to the roof. The atmosphere was
+that of a bath, and the wines were heady. Already discussions had arisen.
+A mountaineer and a Galilean skiffsman had been dragged away, the one
+senseless, the other with features indistinguishable and masked in blood.
+It was a great festival, and the tetrarch was entertaining, as only he
+could, his friends, his enemies, and whoever chanced that way.
+
+"As a child he rubbed his body with the leaves of the cnyza, which is a
+preservative of chastity." It was a little man with restless eyes and a
+very long white beard detailing the virtues of Iohanan. "But," he added,
+"he must have found cold water better."
+
+His neighbors laughed. One pounded the table.
+
+"Jeshua--" he began, but everyone was talking at once.
+
+"Jeshua--" he continued; yet, as no one would listen, he turned to a
+passing eunuch and caught him by the arm--"Jeshua does more; he works
+miracles, and not with the cnyza either."
+
+The eunuch eluded him and escaped. However, he would not be balked; he
+stood up and, through the din, he shouted at the little man:
+
+"Baba Barbulah, I tell you he is the Messiah!"
+
+His voice was so loud it dominated the hubbub, and suddenly the hubbub
+ceased.
+
+From the dais Pontius Pilate listened indifferently. Antipas held his
+hands behind his ears that he might hear the better. The emir paid no
+attention at all. On his head was a conical turban; about it were loops of
+sapphire and coils of pearl. He wore a vest with scant sleeves that
+reached to the knuckles, and trousers that overhung the instep and fell in
+wide wrinkles on his feet; both were of leopard-skin. Over the vest was a
+sleeveless tunic, clasped at the shoulders and girt at the waist. His hair
+was long, plentifully oiled; his beard was bushy, blue-black, and specked
+with silver.
+
+Mary had approached. From the lessening waist to the slender feet her
+dress opened at either side. Beneath was a chemise of transparent
+Bactrianian tissue. From girdle to armpits were little clasps; on her
+ankles, bands; and above the elbow, on her bare white arm, two circlets of
+emeralds from the mines of Djebel Zabur.
+
+The emir spoke to her. She listened with a glimpse of the most beautiful
+teeth in the world. He put out a hand tentatively and touched her: the
+tissue of her garment crackled and emitted sparks. He raised a goblet to
+her. The wine it held was yellower than the marigold. She brushed it with
+her lips; he drank it off, then, refreshed, he looked her up and down.
+
+In one hand she held a cup of horn, narrower at the top than at the end;
+in it were dice made of the knee-joints of gazelles, and these she rattled
+in his beard.
+
+"That beautiful Sultan, will he play?"
+
+With an ochre-tipped finger she pointed at the turban on his head. The
+eyes of the emir vacillated. He undid a string of gems and placed them on
+the table's edge. Mary unclasped a coil of emeralds and rattled the dice
+again. She held the cup high up, then spilled the contents out.
+
+"Ashtaroth!" the emir cried. He had won.
+
+Mary leaned forward, fawned upon his breast, and gazed into his face. Her
+breath had the fragrance of his own oasis, her lips were moist as the
+pomegranate's pulp, her teeth as keen as his own desire.
+
+"No, beautiful Sultan, it is I." With the back of her hand she disturbed
+the dice. "I am Ashtaroth, am I not?"
+
+Questioningly the emir explored the unfathomable eyes that gazed into his.
+
+On their surface floated an acquiescence to the tacit offer of his own.
+Then he nodded, and Mary turned and gathered the jewels from the cloth of
+byssus where they lay.
+
+"I tell you he is the Messiah!" It was the angry disputant shouting at the
+little man.
+
+"Who is? What are you talking about?"
+
+Though the hubbub had ceased, throughout the hall were the mutterings of
+dogs disturbed.
+
+"Jeshua," the disputant answered; "Jeshua the Nazarene."
+
+A Pharisee, very vexed, his bonnet tottering, gnashed back: "The Messiah
+will uphold the law; this Nazarene attacks it."
+
+A Scribe interrupted: "Many things are to distinguish his advent. The
+light of the sun will be increased a hundredfold, the orchards will bear
+fruit a thousand times more abundantly. Death will be forgotten, joy will
+be universal, Elijah will return."
+
+"But he has!"
+
+Antipas started. The Scribe trembled with rage. But the throng had caught
+the name of Elijah, and knew to whom the disputant referred--a man in
+tattered furs whom a few hours before they had seen dragged away by a
+negro naked to the waist, and some one shouted:
+
+"Iohanan is Elijah."
+
+Baba Barbulah stood up and turned to whence the voice had come:
+
+"In the footprints of the Anointed impudence shall increase, and the face
+of the generation shall be as the face of a dog. It may be," he added,
+significantly--"it may be that you speak the truth."
+
+The sarcasm was lost. The musicians in the gallery, who had been playing
+on flute and timbrel, began now on the psalteron and the native sambuca.
+Behind was a row of lute-players; but most in view was a trignon, an
+immense Egyptian harp, at which with nimble fingers a fair girl plucked.
+
+In the shadow Herodias leaned. At a signal from her the musicians attacked
+the prelude of a Syrian dance, and in the midst of the assemblage a figure
+veiled from head to foot suddenly appeared. For a moment it stood very
+still; then the veil fell of itself, and from the garrison a shout went
+up:
+
+"Salome! Salome!"
+
+Her hair, after an archaic Chanaanite fashion, was arranged in the form of
+a tower. Her high bosom was wound about with protecting bands. Her waist
+was bare. She wore long pink drawers of silk, and for girdle she had the
+blue buds of the lotus, which are symbols of virginity. She was young and
+exquisitely formed. In her face you read strange records, and on her lips
+were promises as rare. Her eyes were tortoise-shell, her hair was black as
+guilt.
+
+The prelude had ceased, the movement quickened. With a gesture of
+abandonment the girl threw her head back, and, her arms extended, she
+fluttered like a butterfly on a rose. She ran forward. The sambuca rang
+quicker, the harp quicker yet. She threw herself to one side, then to the
+other, her hips swaying as she moved. The buds at her girdle fell one by
+one; she was dancing on flowers, her hips still swaying, her waist
+advancing and retreating to the shiver of the harp. She was elusive as
+dream, subtle as love; she intoxicated and entranced; and finally, as she
+threw herself on her hands, her feet, first in the air and then slowly
+descending, touched the ground, while her body straightened like a reed,
+there was a long growl of unsatisfied content.
+
+She was kneeling now before the dais. Pilate compared her to Bathylle, a
+mime whom he had applauded at Rome. The tetrarch was purple; he gnawed his
+under lip. For the moment he forgot everything he should have
+remembered--the presence of his guests, the stains of his household, his
+wife even, whose daughter this girl was--and in a gust of passion he half
+rose from his couch.
+
+"Come to me," he cried. "But come to me, and ask whatever you will."
+
+Salome hesitated and pouted, the point of her tongue protruding between
+her lips.
+
+"Come to me," he pleaded; "you shall have slaves and palaces and cities;
+you shall have hills and intervales. I will give you anything; half my
+kingdom if you wish."
+
+There was a tinkle of feet; the girl had gone. In a moment she returned,
+and balancing herself on one foot, she lisped very sweetly: "I should like
+by and by to have you give me the head of Iohanan--" she looked about; in
+the distance a eunuch was passing, a dish in his hand, and she added, "on
+a platter."
+
+Antipas jumped as though a hound under the table had bitten him on the
+leg. He turned to the procurator, who regarded him indifferently, and to
+the emir, who was toying with Mary's agate-nailed hand. He had given his
+word, however; the people had heard. About his ears the perspiration
+started; from purple he had grown very gray.
+
+Salome still stood, balancing herself on one foot, the point of her tongue
+just visible, while from the gallery beyond, in whose shadows he divined
+the instigating presence of Herodias, came the grave music of an Hebraic
+hymn.
+
+"So be it," he groaned.
+
+The order was given, and a tear trickled down through the paint and
+furrows of his cheek. On the hall a silence had descended. The guests were
+waiting, and the throb of the harp accentuated the suspense. Presently
+there was the clatter of men-at-arms, and a negro, naked to the waist,
+appeared, an axe in one hand, the head of the prophet in the other.
+
+He presented it deferentially to Antipas, who motioned it away, his face
+averted. Salome smiled. She took it, and then, while she resumed her veil,
+she put it down before the emir, who eyed it with the air of one that has
+seen many another object such as that.
+
+But in a moment the veil was adjusted, and with the trophy the girl
+disappeared.
+
+The harp meanwhile had ceased to sob, the guests were departing; already
+the procurator had gone. The emir looked about for Mary, but she also had
+departed; and, with the expectation, perhaps, of finding her without, he
+too got up and left the hall.
+
+Antipas was alone. Through the lattice at his side he could see the baaras
+in the basalt emitting its firefly sparks of flame. From an adjacent
+corridor came the discreet click-clack of a sandal, and in a moment the
+head of the prophet was placed on the table at which he lay. The tetrarch
+leaned over and gazed into the unclosed eyes. They were haggard and
+dilated, and they seemed to curse.
+
+He put his hand to his face and tried to think--to forget rather, and not
+to remember; but his ears were charged with rustlings that extended
+indefinitely and lost themselves in the future; his mind peopled itself
+with phantoms of the past. Perhaps he dozed a little. When he looked up
+again the head was no longer there, and he told himself that Herodias had
+thrown it to the swine.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+
+
+                                   III.
+
+
+In the distance the white and yellow limestone of the mountains rose. Near
+by was a laughter of flowers, a tumult of green. Just beyond, in a border
+of sedge and rushes, a lake lay, a mirror to the sky. In the background
+were the blue and white terraces of Magdala, and about a speaker were
+clustered a handful of people, a group of laborers and of fishermen.
+
+He was dressed as a rabbi, but he looked like a seer. In his face was the
+youth of the world, in his eyes the infinite. As he spoke, his words
+thrilled and his presence allured. "Repent," he was saying; "the kingdom
+of heaven is at hand." And as the resplendent prophecy continued, you
+would have said that a bird in his heart had burst into song.
+
+A little to one side, in an attitude of amused contempt, a few of the
+tetrarch's courtiers stood; they were dressed in the Roman fashion, and
+one, Pandera, a captain of the guard, wore a cuirass that glittered as he
+laughed. He was young and very handsome. He had white teeth, red lips, a
+fair skin, a dark beard, and, as he happened to be stationed in the
+provinces, an acquired sneer. Dear old Rome, how vague it was! And as he
+jested with his comrades he thought of its delights, and wished himself
+either back again in the haunts he loved, or else, if he must be separated
+from them, then, instead of vegetating in a tiresome tetrarchy, he felt
+that it would be pleasant to be far off somewhere, where the uncouth
+Britons were, a land which it took a year of adventures to reach; on the
+banks of the Betis, whence the girls came that charmed the lupanars; in
+Numidia, where the hunting was good; or in Thrace, where there was blood
+in plenty--anywhere, in fact, save on the borders of the beautiful lake
+where he happened to be.
+
+It was but the restlessness of youth, perhaps, that disturbed him so, for
+in Galilee there were oafs as awkward as any that Britannia could show;
+there was game in abundance; blood, too, was not as infrequent as it might
+have been; and as for women, there at his side stood one as appetizing as
+Rome, Spain even, had produced. He turned to her now, and plucked at his
+dark beard and showed his white teeth; he had caught a phrase of the rabbi
+in which the latter had mentioned the kingdoms of the earth, and the
+phrase amused him.
+
+"I like that," he said. "What does he know about the kingdoms of the
+earth? Mary, I wager what you will that he has never been two leagues from
+where he stands. Let's ask and see."
+
+But Mary did not seem to hear. She was engrossed in the rabbi, and Pandera
+had to tug at her sleeve before she consented to return to a life in which
+he seemingly had a part.
+
+"What do you say?" he asked.
+
+Mary shook her head. She had the air of one whose mind is elsewhere. Into
+her face a vacancy had come; she seemed incapable of reply; and as the
+guardsman scrutinized her it occurred to him that she might be on the
+point of having an attack of that catalepsy to which he knew her to be
+subject. But immediately she reassured him.
+
+"Come, let us go."
+
+And, the guardsman at her side, the others in her train, she ascended the
+little hill on which her castle was, and where the midday meal awaited.
+
+It was a charming residence. Built quadrangularwise, the court held a
+fountain which was serviceable to those that wished to bathe. The roof was
+a garden. The interior facade was of teak wood, carved and colored; the
+frontal was of stone. Seen from the exterior it looked the fortress of
+some umbrageous prince, but in the courtyard reigned the seduction of a
+woman in love. From without it menaced, within it soothed.
+
+Her title to it was a matter of doubt. According to Pandera, who at the
+mess-table at Tiberias had boasted his possession of her confidence, it
+was a heritage from her father. Others declared that it had been given her
+by her earliest lover, an old man who since had passed away. Yet, after
+all, no one cared. She kept open house; the tetrarch held her in high
+esteem; she was attached to the person of the tetrarch's wife; only a
+little before, the emir of Tadmor had made a circuitous journey to visit
+her; Vitellius, the governor of the province, had stopped time and again
+beneath her roof; and--and here was the point--to see her was to acquire a
+new conception of beauty. Of human flowers she was the most fair.
+
+Yet now, during the meal that followed, Mary, the toast of the tetrarchy,
+she whose wit and brilliance had been echoed even in Rome, wrapped herself
+in a mantle of silence. The guardsman jested in vain. To the others she
+paid as much attention as the sun does to a torch; and when at last
+Pandera, annoyed, perhaps, at her disregard of a quip of his, attempted to
+whisper in her ear, she left the room.
+
+The nausea of the hour may have affected her, for presently, as she threw
+herself on her great couch, her thoughts forsook the present and went back
+into the past, her childhood returned, and faces that she had loved
+reappeared and smiled. Her father, for instance, Theudas, who had been
+satrap of Syria, and her mother, Eucharia, a descendant of former kings.
+
+But of these her memories were slight--they had died when she was still
+very young--and in their place came her sister, Martha, kind of heart and
+quick of temper, obdurate, indulgent, and continually perplexed; Simon,
+Martha's husband, a Libyan, born in Cyrene, called by many the Leper
+because of a former whiteness of his skin, a whiteness which had long
+since vanished, for he was brown as a date; Eleazer, her brother, younger
+than herself, a delicate boy with blue pathetic eyes; and with them came
+the delight of Bethany, that lovely village on the oriental slope of the
+Mount of Olives, where the rich of Jerusalem had their villas, and where
+her girlhood had been passed.
+
+From the lattice at which she used to sit she could see the wide white
+road begin its descent to the Jordan, a stretch of almond trees and
+oleanders; and just beyond, in a woody hollow, a little house in which
+Sephorah lived--a woman who came from no one knew where, and to whom Martha
+had forbidden her to speak.
+
+She could see her still, a gaunt, gray creature, with projecting
+cheek-bones, a skin of brick, and a low, insinuating voice. The
+fascination which she had exercised over her partook both of wonder and of
+fear, for it was rumored that she was a sorceress, and as old as the
+world. To Mary, who was then barely nubile, and inquisitive as only
+fanciful children are, she manifested a great affection, enticing her to
+her dwelling with little cakes that were sweet to the tooth and fabulous
+tales that stirred the heart: the story of Stratonice and Combabus, for
+instance, which Mary did not in the least understand, but which seemed to
+her intensely sad.
+
+"And then what?" she would ask when the tale was done; and the woman would
+tell her of Ninus and Semiramis, of Sennachereb, of Sardanapalus,
+Belsarazzur, of Dagon, the fish-god of Philistia, by whom Goliath swore
+and in whose temple Samson died, or of Sargon, who, placed by his mother
+in an ark of rushes, was set adrift in the Euphrates, yet, happily
+discovered by a water-carrier, afterwards became a leader of men.
+
+"Why, that was Moses!" the child would exclaim.
+
+"No, no," the woman invariably answered, "it was Sargon."
+
+But that which pleasured Mary more highly even than these tales were the
+legends of Hither Asia, the wonderlands of Babylon, and particularly the
+story of the creation, for always the human mind has wished to read the
+book of God.
+
+"Where did they say the world came from?" she would ask.
+
+And Sephorah, drawing a long breath, would answer: "Once all was darkness
+and water. In this chaos lived strange animals, and men with two wings,
+and others with four wings and two faces. Some had the thighs of goats,
+some had horns, and some had horses' feet, or were formed behind like a
+horse and in front like a man; there were bulls with human faces, and men
+with the heads of dogs, and other animals of human shape with fins like
+fishes, and fishes like sirens, and dragons, and creeping things, and
+serpents, and fierce creatures, the images of which are preserved in the
+temple of Bel.
+
+"Over all these ruled the great mother, Um Uruk. But Bel, whom your people
+call Baal, divided the darkness and clove the woman asunder. Of one part
+he made the earth, and of the other the sun, the moon, the planets. He
+drew off the water, apportioned it to the land, and prepared and arranged
+the world. The creatures on it could not endure the light of day and
+became extinct.
+
+"Now when Bel saw the land fruitful yet uninhabited, he cut off his head
+and made one of the gods mingle the blood which flowed from it with earth
+and form therewith men and animals that could endure the sun. Presently
+Chaldaea was plentifully populated, but the inhabitants lived like animals,
+without order or rule. Then there appeared to them from the sea a monster
+of the name of Yan. Its body was that of a fish, but under its head
+another head was attached, and on its fins were feet, and its voice was
+that of a man. Its image is still preserved. It came at morning, passed
+the day, and taught language and science, the harvesting of seeds and of
+fruits, the rules for the boundaries of land, the mode of building cities
+and temples, arts and writing and all that pertains to civilized life, and
+for four hundred and thirty-two thousand years the world went very well.
+
+"Then in a dream Bel revealed to Xisuthrus that there would be a great
+storm, and men would be destroyed. He bade him bury in Sepharvaim, the
+city of the sun, all the ancient, mediaeval, and modern records, and build
+a ship and embark in it with his kindred and his nearest friends. He was
+also to take food and drink into the ship, and pairs of all creatures
+winged and four-footed.
+
+"Xisuthrus did as he was bidden, and from the ends of heaven the storm
+began to blow. Bin thundered; Nebo, the Revealer, came forth; Nergal, the
+Destroyer, overthrew; and Adar, the Sublime, swept in his brightness
+across the earth. The storm devoured the nations, it lapped the sky,
+turned the land into an ocean, and destroyed everything that lived. Even
+the gods were afraid. They sought refuge in the heaven of Anu, sovereign
+of the upper realms. As hounds draw in their tails, they seated themselves
+on their thrones, and to them Mylitta, the great goddess, spake: 'The
+world has turned from me, and ruin I have proclaimed.' She wept, and the
+gods on their thrones wept with her.
+
+"On the seventh day Xisuthrus perceived that the storm had abated and that
+the sea had begun to fall. He sent out a dove, it returned; next, a
+swallow, which also returned, but with mud on its feet; and again, a
+raven, which saw the corpses in the water and ate them, and returned no
+more. Then the boat was stayed and settled upon Mount Nasir. Xisuthrus
+went out and worshipped the recovered earth. When his companions went in
+search of him he had disappeared, but his voice called to them saying that
+for his piety he had been carried away; that he was dwelling among the
+gods; and that they were to return to Sepharvaim and dig up the books and
+give them to mankind. Which they did, and erected many cities and temples,
+and rebuilt Babylon and Mylitta's shrine."
+
+"It is simpler in Genesis," Mary said, the first time she heard this
+marvellous tale. For to her, as to Martha and Eleazer, the khazzan, the
+teacher of the synagogue, had read from the great square letters in which
+the Pentateuch was written another account of the commingling of Chaos and
+of Light.
+
+At the mention of the sacred canon, Sephorah would smile with that
+indulgence which wisdom brings, and smooth her scanty plaits, and draw the
+back of her hand across her mouth.
+
+"Burned on tiles in the land of the magi are the records of a million
+years. In the unpolluted tombs of Osorapi the history of life and of time
+is written on the cerements of kings. Where the bells ring at the neck of
+the camels of Iran is a stretch of columns on which are inscribed the
+words of those that lived in Paradise. On a wall of the temple of Bel are
+the chronicles of creation; in the palace of Assurbanipal, the narrative
+of the flood. It is from these lands and monuments the Thorah comes; its
+verses are made of their memories; it gathered whatever it found, and
+overlooked the essential, immortal life."
+
+And Sephorah added in a whisper, "For we are descended from gods, and
+immortal as they."
+
+The khazzan had disclosed to Mary no such prospect as that. To him as to
+all orthodox expounders of the Law man was essentially evanescent; he
+lived his little day and disappeared forever. God alone was immortal, and
+an immortal being would be God. The contrary beliefs of the Egyptians and
+the Aryans were to them abominations, and the spiritualistic doctrine
+inaugurated by Juda Maccabaeus and accepted by the Pharisees, an impiety.
+The Pentateuch had not a word on the subject. Moses had expressly declared
+that secret things belong to the Lord, and only visible things to man. The
+prophets had indeed foretold a terrestrial immortality, but that
+immortality was the immortality of a nation; and the realization of their
+prophecy the entire people awaited. Apart from that there was only Sheol,
+a sombre region of the under-earth, to which the dead descended, and there
+remained without consciousness, abandoned by God.
+
+"Immortal!" Mary, with great wondering eyes, would echo. "Immortal!"
+
+"Yes; but to become so," Sephorah replied, "you must worship at another
+shrine."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+Sephorah answered evasively. Mary would find it in time--when the spring
+came, perhaps; and meanwhile she had a word or two to say of Baal to such
+effect even that Mary questioned the khazzan.
+
+"However great the god of the Gentiles has been imagined," the khazzan
+announced, "he is bounded by the earth and the sky. His feet may touch the
+one, his head the other, but of nature he is a part, and, to the Eternal,
+nature is not even a garment, it is a substance He made, and which He can
+remould at will. It is not in nature, it is in light, He is: in the
+burning bush in which He revealed Himself; in the stake at which Isaac
+would have died; in the lightning in which the Law was declared, the
+column of fire, the flame of the sacrifices, and the gleaming throne in
+which Isaiah saw Him sit--it is there that He is, and His shadow is the
+sun."
+
+Of this Mary repeated the substance to her friend, and Sephorah mused.
+
+"No," she said at last--"no, he is not in light, but in the desert where
+nature is absent, and where the world has ceased to be. The threats of a
+land that never smiled are reflected in his face. The sight of him is
+death. No, Baal is the sun-god. His eyes fecundate."
+
+And during the succeeding months Sephorah entertained Mary with Assyrian
+annals and Egyptian lore. She told her more of Baal, whose temple was in
+Babylon, and of Baaltis, who reigned at Ascalon. She told her of the women
+who wept for Tammuz, and explained the reason of their tears. She told her
+of the union of Ptah, the unbegotten begetter of the first beginning, and
+of Neith, mother of the sun; of the holy incest of Isis and Osiris; and of
+Luz, called by the patriarchs Bethel, the House of God, the foothold of a
+straight stairway which messengers ceaselessly ascended and descended, and
+at whose summit the Elohim sat.
+
+She told her of these things, of others as well; and now and then in the
+telling of them a fat little man with beady eyes would wander in, the
+smell of garlic about him, and stare at Mary's lips. His name was Pappus;
+by Sephorah he was treated with great respect, and Mary learned that he
+was rich and knew that Sephorah was poor.
+
+When the Passover had come and gone, Sephorah detected that Mary had
+ceased to be a child; and of the gods and goddesses with whose adventures
+she was wont to entertain her, gradually she confined herself to Mylitta;
+and in describing the wonderlands which she knew so well, she spoke now
+only of Babylon, where the great tower was, and the gardens that hung in
+the air.
+
+It was all very marvellous and beautiful, and Sephorah described it in
+fitting terms. There was the Temple of the Seven Spheres, where the
+priests offered incense to the Houses of the Planets, to the whole host of
+heaven, and to Bel, Lord of the Sky. There was the Home of the Height, a
+sheer flight of solid masonry extending vertiginously, and surmounted by
+turrets of copper capped with gold. In its utmost pinnacle were a
+sanctuary and a dazzling couch. There the priests said that sometimes Bel
+came and rested. For the truth of that statement, however, Sephorah
+declined to vouch. She had never seen him; but the hanging gardens she had
+seen, long before they were demolished. She had walked in them, and she
+described their loveliness, and related that they were erected to pleasure
+a Persian princess whose eyes had wearied of the monotony of the
+Babylonian plain.
+
+Once when Pappus was present--and latterly he had been often there--she
+passed from the gardens to the grove where the temple of Mylitta stood. At
+the steps of the shrine, she declared, were white-winged lions, and
+immense bulls with human heads. Within were dovecotes and cisterns, the
+emblems of fecundity, and a block of stone which she did not describe.
+Without, among the terebinths and evergreens, were little cabins and an
+avenue bordered by cypress trees, in which men with pointed hats and long
+embroidered gowns passed slowly, for there the maidens of Babylon sat,
+chapleted with cords, burning bran for perfume, awaiting the will of the
+first who should toss a coin in their lap and in the name of Mylitta
+invite them to perform the sacred rite.
+
+"That," said Sephorah, "is the worship Mylitta exacts." As she spoke she
+drew herself up, her height increased, an unnatural splendor filled her
+eyes. "I," she continued, "am her priestess. I sacrificed at Byblus, but
+you may sacrifice here. There is a dovecote, yonder is a cistern, beyond
+are the cypress and the evergreens that she loves. Mary, do you wish to be
+immortal? Do you see the way?"
+
+Mary smiled vaguely, and with the serenity of one worshipping a divinity
+she suffered the fat Jerusalemite to take her in his arms.
+
+And now as she lay on her great couch these things returned to her, and
+subsequent episodes as well. There had been the lamentable grief of
+Martha, the added pathos in her brother's eyes. The estate of her father
+had been divided, and the castle of Magdala had fallen to her share.
+Meanwhile she had been at Jerusalem, and from there she had journeyed to
+Antioch, where she had heard the beasts roar in the arena. She had looked
+on blood, on the honey-colored moon that effaced the stars, and everywhere
+she had encountered love.
+
+Since then her hours had been grooved in revolving circles of alternating
+delights, and delights to which no shadow of regret had come. To her,
+youth had been a chalice of aromatic wine. She had drained it and found no
+dregs. Day had been interwoven with splendors, and night with the rays of
+the sun. Where she passed she conquered; when she smiled there were slaves
+ready-made. There had been hot brawls where she trod, the gleam of white
+knives. Men had killed each other because of her eyes, and women had wept
+themselves to death. For her a priest had gone mad, and a betrothed had
+hid herself in the sea. In Hierapolis the galli had fancied her Ashtaroth;
+and at Capri, where Tiberius lounged, a villa awaited her will.
+
+Her life had indeed been full, yet that morning its nausea had mounted to
+her heart. At the words of the rabbi the horizon had expanded, the dream
+of immortality returned. It had been forgot long since and abandoned, but
+now, for the first time since her childhood, something there was which
+admonished her that perhaps she still might stroll through lands where
+dreams come true. The path was not wholly clear as yet, and as in her
+troubled mind she tried to disentangle the past from the present the sun
+went down behind the castle, the crouching shadows elongated and possessed
+the walls.
+
+An echo came to her, Repent, and the prophecy continuing danced in her
+ears; yet still the way was obscure. In the echo she divined merely that
+the past must be put from her like a garment that is stained. The rest was
+vague. Then suddenly she was back again in Machaerus, and she heard the
+ringing words of John. Could this be the Messiah her nation awaited? was
+there a kingdom coming, and immortality too?
+
+Her thoughts entangled and grew confused. There was a murmur of harps in
+the distance, and she wondered whence it could come. Some one was
+speaking; she tried to rouse herself and listen. The room was filled with
+bats that changed to butterflies. The murmur of harps continued, and
+through the wall before her issued a litter in which a woman lay.
+
+A circle of slaves surrounded her. She was pale, and her eyes closed
+languorously. "I am Indolence," she said. "Sleep is not softer than my
+couch. My lightest wish is law to kings. I live on perfumes; my days are
+as shadows on glass. Mary, come with me, and I will teach you to forget."
+
+She vanished, and where the litter had been stood a eunuch. "I am Envy,"
+he said, and his eyes drooped sullenly. "I separate those that love; I
+dismantle altars and dismember nations. I corrode and corrupt; I destroy,
+and I never rebuild. My joy is malice, and my creed false-witnessing.
+Mary, come with me, and you will learn to hate."
+
+He disappeared, and where his slime had dripped stood a being with fingers
+intertwisted and a back that bent. "I am Greed," it said. "I sap the veins
+of youth; I drain the hearts of women; I bring contention where peace
+should be. I make fathers destroy their sons, and daughters betray their
+mother. I never forget, and I never release. I am the master. Mary, come
+with me, and you shall own the world."
+
+The fetor of the presence went, and in its place came one whose footsteps
+thundered. "I am Anger," he declared. "I exterminate and rejoice. I batten
+on blood. In my heart is suspicion, in my hand is flame. It is I that am
+war and disaster and regret. My breath consumes, and my voice affrights.
+Mary, come with me, and you will learn to quell."
+
+He dissolved, and in the shadows stood one whose hands were ample, and
+whose wide mouth laughed. "I am Gluttony," he announced, and as he spoke
+his voice was thick. "I fatten and forsake. I offer satrapies for one new
+dish. I invite and alienate, I welcome and repel. It is I that bring
+disease and disorders. I am the harbinger of Death. Mary, come with me,
+and you shall taste of Life."
+
+He also disappeared, and two heralds entered with trumpets on which they
+blew, and one exclaimed, "Make way for Assurbanipal, ruler of land and of
+sea." Then, with horsemen riding royally, Sardanapalus advanced through
+the fissure in the wall. On his head a high and wonderful tiara shone with
+zebras that had wings and horns. His hair was long, and his beard curled
+in overlapping rings. His robe dazzled, and the close sleeves were
+fastened over his knuckles with bracelets of precious stones. In one hand
+he held a sceptre, in the other a chart.
+
+"I," he cried--"I am Assurbanipal; the progeny of Assur and of Baaltis, son
+of the great king Riduti, whom the lord of crowns, in days remote
+prophesying in his name, raised to the kingdom, and in the womb of his
+mother created to rule. The man of war, the joy of Assur and of Istar, the
+royal offspring, am I. When the gods seated me on the throne of the father
+my begetter, Bin poured down his rain, Hea feasted the people. My enemies
+I destroyed, and their gods glorified me before my camp. The god of their
+oracles, whose image no man had seen, I took, and the goddesses whom the
+kings worshipped I dishonored."
+
+He paused and looked proudly about, then he continued:
+
+"That which is in the storehouse of heaven is kindled, and to the city of
+cities my glory flies. The queens above and below proclaim my glory. I am
+Glory, and I am Pride. Mary, come with me, and you shall disdain the sky."
+
+But Mary gave no sign. The clattering horses vanished, and two men dressed
+in women's clothes appeared. They bowed to the ground and chanted:
+
+"The holy goddess, our Lady Mylitta, whose sacrificants we are."
+
+Then came a form so luminous that Mary hid her face and listened merely.
+
+"I," said a voice--"I am Desire. In Greece I am revered, and there I am
+Aphrodite. In Italy I am Venus; in Egypt, Hathor; in Armenia, Anaitis; in
+Persia, Anahita; Tanit in Carthage; Baaltis in Byblus; Derceto in Ascalon;
+Atargatis in Hierapolis; Bilet in Babylon; Ashtaroth to the Sidonians; and
+Aschera in the glades of Judaea. And everywhere I am worshipped, and
+everywhere I am Love. I bring joy and torture, delight and pain. I appease
+and appal. It is I that create and undo. It is I that make heaven and
+people hell. I am the mistress of the world. Without me time would cease
+to be. I am the germ of stars, the essence of things. I am all that is,
+will be, and has been, and my robe no mortal has raised. I breathe, and
+nations are; in my parturitions are planets; my home is space. My lips are
+blissfuller than any bloom of bliss; my arms the opening gates of life.
+The Infinite is mine. Mary, come with me, and you shall measure it."
+
+When Mary ventured to look again the vision had gone. They had all gone
+now. She had made no effort to detain them. They were tempters of which
+she was freed, in which she believed, and which were real to her. The wall
+through which they had come and departed was vague and in the darkness
+remote, but presently it dissolved again, and afar in the beckoning
+distance was one breathing a soul into decrepit rites. "Come unto me, all
+ye that sorrow and are heavy-laden," she heard him say; and, as with a
+great sob of joy she rose to that gracious summons, night seized her. When
+she awoke, a newer dawn had come.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+                                   IV.
+
+
+In the gardens of the palace the tetrarch mused. The green parasols of the
+palms formed an avenue, and down that avenue now and then he looked. Near
+him a Syrian bear, quite tame, with a sweet face and tufted silver fur,
+gambolled prodigiously. Up and down a neighboring tree two lemurs chased
+with that grace and diabolic vivacity which those enchanting animals alone
+possess. Ringed-horned antelopes, the ankles slender as the stylus, the
+eyes timid and trustful, pastured just beyond; and there too a black-faced
+ape, irritated perhaps by the lemurs, turned indignant somersaults, the
+tender coloring of his body glistening in the sun.
+
+"It is odd that Pahul does not return," the tetrarch reflected; and then,
+it may be for consolation's sake, he plunged his face in a jar of wine
+that had been drained, in accordance with a recipe of Vitellius, through
+cinnamon and calamus, and drank abundantly.
+
+Long since he had deserted Machaerus. The legends that peopled its
+corridors had beset him with a sense of reality which before they had
+never possessed. The leaves of the baaras glittered frenetically in the
+basalt, and in their spectral light a phantom with eyes that cursed came
+and went. At night he had drunk, and in the clear forenoons he paced the
+terrace fancying always that there, beyond in the desert, Aretas prowled
+like a wolf. Machaerus was unhealthy; men had gone mad there, others had
+disappeared entirely. It was a haunt of echoes, of memories, of ghosts
+also, perhaps too of reproach. And so, with his court, he returned to his
+brand-new Tiberias, where the air was serener, and nature laughed.
+
+And yet in the gardens that leaned to the lake the tranquillity he had
+anticipated eluded and declined to be detained. Rumors that Herodias
+collected came to him with the stamp of Rome. One of his brothers was
+plotting against him; another, though in exile, was plotting too. It was
+the Herod blood, his wife said; and, with the intemperance of a woman
+whose ambition has been deceived, she taunted him with his plebeian
+descent. "Your grandfather was a sweep at Ascalon, a eunuch at that," she
+had remarked; and the tetrarch, by way of reply, had been obliged to
+content himself by asking how, in that case, he could have been
+grandfather at all.
+
+But latterly a new source of inquietude had come. At Magdala, Capharnahum,
+Bethsaida, there, within the throw of a stone, was a Nazarene going about
+inciting the peasants to revolt. It was very vexatious, and he told
+himself that when an annoyance fades another appears. Life, it occurred to
+him, was a brier with renascent thorns. And now, as he gargled the wine
+that left a pink foam on his lips, even that irritation lapsed in the
+perplexing absence of Pahul.
+
+Pahul was a butler of his, a Greek whom he had picked up one adventurous
+night in Rome, who had made himself useful, whom he had attached to his
+household, whom he consulted, and on whom he relied. Early that day he had
+sent him off with instructions to run the demagogue to earth, to listen,
+to question if need were, and to hurry back and report. But as yet he had
+not returned. The day was fading, and on the amphitheatre which the hills
+made the sun seemed to balance itself, the disk blood-red. The lemurs had
+tired, perhaps; their yellow eyes and circled tails had gone; the bear had
+been led away; only the multicolored ape remained, gnawing now with little
+plaintive moans at a bit of fruit which he held suspiciously in his
+wrinkled hand.
+
+Presently a star appeared and quivered, then another came, and though
+overhead were streaks of pink, and, where the sun had been, a violence of
+red and orange, the east retained its cobalt, night still was remote--an
+echo of crotals from the neighboring faubourg, the cry of elephants
+impatient for their fodder, alone indicating that a day was dead.
+
+In the charm of the encroaching twilight the irritation of the tetrarch
+waned and decreased. He lost himself in memories of the princess who had
+been his bride, and he wondered were it possible that, despite the
+irrevocable, he was never to see, to speak, to hold her to him again.
+Truly her grievance was unmeasurable, the more so even that she had not
+deigned to utter so much as a reproach. At the rumor of his treachery she
+had betaken herself to the solitudes, where Aretas her father was king,
+and had there remained girt in that unmurmuring silence which nobility
+raises as a barrier between outrage and itself, and which the desert is
+alone competent to suggest.
+
+"It is he!"
+
+The tetrarch started so abruptly that he narrowly missed the jar at his
+side. On noiseless sandals Pahul had approached, and stood before him
+nodding his head with an air of assured conviction. The ape had fled and a
+stork stepped gingerly away.
+
+"It is he," the Greek repeated--"John the Baptist."
+
+Antipas plucked at his beard. "But he is dead," he gasped; "I beheaded
+him. What nonsense you talk!"
+
+"It is he, I tell you, only grown younger. I found him in the synagogue."
+
+"Where? what synagogue?"
+
+Pahul made a gesture. "At Capharnahum," he answered, and gazed in the
+tetrarch's face. He was slight of form and regular of feature. As a lad he
+had crossed bare-handed from Cumae to Rhegium, and from there drifted to
+Rome, where he started a commerce in Boetican girls which had so far
+prospered that he bought two vessels to carry the freight. Unfortunately
+the vessels met in a storm and sank. Then he became a hanger-on of the
+circus; in idle moments a tout. It was in the latter capacity that Antipas
+met him, and, pleased with his shrewdness and perfect corruption, had
+attached him to his house. This had occurred in years previous, and as yet
+Antipas had found no cause to regret the trust imposed. He was a useful
+braggart, idle, familiar, and discreet; and he had acquired the dialect of
+the country with surprising ease.
+
+"There were any number of people," Pahul continued. "Some said he was the
+son of Joseph, the son of----"
+
+"But he, what did he say? How tiresome you are!"
+
+"Ah!" And Pahul swung his arms. "Who is Mammon?"
+
+"Mammon? Mammon? How do I know? Plutus, I suppose. What about him?"
+
+"And who is Satan?"
+
+"Satan? Satan is a--He's a Jew god. Why? But what do you mean by asking me
+questions?"
+
+Pahul nodded absently. "I heard him say," he continued, "that no man could
+serve God and Mammon. At first I thought he meant you. It was this way. I
+got into conversation with a friend of his, a man named Judas. He told me
+any number of things about him, that he cured the sick----"
+
+"Bah! Some Greek physician."
+
+"That he walks on the sea----"
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"That he turns water into wine, feeds the multitude, raises the dead----"
+
+"Raises the dead!" And the tetrarch added in the _sotto voce_ of thought,
+"So did Elijah."
+
+"That he had been in the desert----"
+
+"With Aretas?"
+
+"No; I questioned him on that point. He had never heard of Aretas, but he
+said that in the desert this Satan had come and offered him--what do you
+suppose? _The empire of the earth!_"
+
+Antipas shook with fright. "It must have been Aretas."
+
+"But that he had refused."
+
+"Then it is John."
+
+"There, you see." And Pahul dandled himself with the air of one who is
+master of logic. "That's what I said myself. I said this: 'If he can raise
+the dead, he can raise himself.' "
+
+"It _is_ John," the tetrarch repeated.
+
+"I am sure of it," the butler continued. "But he did not say so. Judas
+didn't either. On the contrary, he declared he was not. He said John was
+not good enough to carry his shoes. I saw through that, though," and Pahul
+leered; "he knew whom I was, and he lied to protect his friend. I of
+course pretended to believe him."
+
+"Quite right," said the tetrarch.
+
+"Yes, I played the fool. H'm, where was I? Oh, I asked Judas who then his
+friend was, but he went over to where a woman stood; he spoke to her; she
+moved away. Some of the others seemed to reprove him. I would have
+followed, but at that moment his friend stood up; a khazzan offered him a
+scroll, but he waved it aside; then some one asked him a question which I
+did not catch; another spoke to him; a third interrupted; he seemed to be
+arguing with them. I was too far away to hear well, and I got nearer; then
+I heard him say, 'I am the bread of life.' Now, what did he mean by that?"
+
+Antipas had no explanation to offer.
+
+"Then," Pahul continued, "he said he had come down from heaven. A man near
+me exclaimed, 'He is the Messiah;' but others----"
+
+"The Messiah!" echoed the tetrarch. For a moment his thoughts stammered,
+then at once he was back in the citadel. On one side was the procurator,
+on the other the emir of Tadmor. In front of him was a drunken rabble,
+wrangling Pharisees, and one man dominating the din with an announcement
+of the Messiah's approach. The murmur of lutes threaded through it all;
+and now, as his thoughts deviated, he wondered could that announcement
+have been the truth.
+
+"But others," Pahul continued, "objected loudly. For a little I could not
+catch a word. At last they became quieter, and I heard him repeat that he
+was the bread of life, adding, 'Your fathers ate manna and are dead, but
+this bread a man may eat of and never die.' At this there was new
+contention. A woman fainted--the one to whom Judas had spoken. They carried
+her out. As she passed I could see her face. It was Mary of Magdala. Judas
+held her by the waist, another her feet."
+
+Antipas drew a hand across his face. "It is impossible," he muttered.
+
+"Not impossible at all. I saw her as plainly as I see you. The man next to
+me said that the Rabbi had cast from her seven devils. Moreover, Johanna
+was there--yes, yes, the wife of Khuza, your steward; it was she, I
+remember now, who had her by the feet. And there were others that I
+recognized, and others that the man next to me pointed out: Zabdia, a
+well-to-do fisherman whom I have seen time and again, and with him his
+sons James and John, and Salome his wife. Then, too, there were Simon
+Barjona and Andrew his brother. Simon had his wife with him, his children,
+and his mother-in-law. The man next to me said that the Rabbi called James
+and John the Sons of Thunder, and Simon a stone. There was Mathias the
+tax-gatherer, Philip of Bethsaida, Joseph Barsaba, Mary Clopas, Susannah,
+Nathaniel of Cana, Thomas, Thaddeus, Aristian the custom-house officer,
+Ruth the tax-gatherer's wife, mechanics from Scythopolis, and Scribes from
+Jerusalem."
+
+The fingers of Antipas' hand glittered with jewels. He played with them
+nervously. The sky seemed immeasurably distant. For some little time it
+had been hesitating between different shades of blue, but now it chose a
+fathomless indigo; Night unloosed her draperies, and, with the prodigality
+of a queen who reigns only when she falls, flung out upon them uncounted
+stars.
+
+Pahul continued: "And many of them seemed to be at odds with each other.
+They wrangled so that often I could not distinguish a word. Some of them
+left the synagogue. The Rabbi himself must have been vexed, for in a lull
+I heard him say to those who were nearest, 'Will you also go away?' Judas
+came in at that moment, and he turned to him: 'Have I not chosen twelve,
+and is not one of you a devil?' Judas came forward at once and protested.
+I could see he was in earnest, and meant what he said. The man next told
+me that he was devoted to the Rabbi. Then Simon Barjona, in answer to his
+question, called out, 'To whom should we go? Thou art Christ, the Son of
+God.' "
+
+Antipas had ceased to listen. At the mention of the Messiah the dream of
+Israel had returned, and with it the pageants of its faith unrolled.
+
+Behind the confines of history, in the naked desert he saw a bedouin,
+austere and grandiose, preparing the tenets of a nation's creed; in the
+remoter past a shadow in which there was lightning, then the splendor of
+that first dawn where the future opened like a book, and in the grammar of
+the Eternal the promise of an age of gold.
+
+Through the echo of succeeding generations came the rumor of that initial
+impulse which drew the world in its flight. The bedouin had put the desert
+behind him, and stared at another. Where the sand had been was the sea. As
+he passed, the land leapt into life. There were tents and passions, clans
+not men, an aggregate of forces in which the unit disappeared. For
+chieftain there was Might; and above, the subjects of impersonal verbs,
+the Elohim from whom the thunder came, the rain, light and darkness, death
+and birth, dream too, and nightmare as well. The clans migrated. Goshen
+called. In its heart Chaldaea spoke. The Elohim vanished, and there was El,
+the one great god, and Isra-el, the great god's elect. From heights that
+lost themselves in immensity the ineffable name, incommunicable and never
+to be pronounced, was seared by forked flames on a tablet of stone. A
+nation learned that El was Jehovah, that they were in his charge, that he
+was omnipotent, and that the world was theirs.
+
+They had a law, a covenant, a future, and a god; and as they passed into
+the lands of the well-beloved, leaving tombs and altars to mark their
+passage, they had battle-cries that frightened and hymns that exalted the
+heart. Above were the jealous eyes of Jehovah, and beyond was the
+resplendent to-morrow. They ravaged the land like hailstones. They had the
+whirlwind for ally; the moon was their servant; and to aid them the sun
+stood still. The terror of Sinai gleamed from their breastplates; men
+could not see their faces and live. They encroached and conquered. They
+had a home, they made a capitol, and there on a rock-bound hill Antipas
+saw David founding a line of kings, and Solomon the city of god.
+
+It was in their loins the Messiah was; in them the apex of a nation's
+prosperity; in them glory at its apogee. And across that tableau of might,
+of splendor, and of submission for one second flitted the silhouette of
+that dainty princess of Utopia, the Queen of Sheba, bringing riddles,
+romance, and riches to the wise young king.
+
+She must have been very beautiful, Antipas with melancholy retrospection
+reflected; and he fancied her more luminous than the twelve signs of the
+zodiac, lounging nonchalantly in a palanquin that a white elephant with
+swaying tail balanced on his painted back. And even as she returned, with
+a child perhaps, to the griffons of the fabulous Yemen whence she came,
+Antipas noted a speck on the horizon that grew from minim into mountain,
+and obscured the entire sky. He saw the empire split in twain, and in the
+twin halves that formed the perfect whole, a concussion of armies,
+brothers appealing against their kin, the flight of the Ideal.
+
+Unsummoned before him paraded the regicides, convulsions, and anarchies
+that deified Hatred until Vengeance incarnate talked Assyrian, and
+Nebuchadnezzar loomed above the desert beyond. His statue filled the
+perspective. With one broad hand he overturned Jerusalem; with another he
+swept a nation into captivity, leaving in derision a pigmy for King of
+Solitude behind, and, blowing the Jews into Babylon, there retained them
+until it occurred to Cyrus to change the Euphrates' course.
+
+By the light of that legend Antipas saw an immense hall, illuminated by
+the seven branches of countless candelabra, and filled with revellers
+celebrating a monarch's feast. Beyond, through retreating columns, were
+cyclopean arches and towers whose summits were lost in clouds that the
+lightning rent. At the royal table sat Belsarazzur, laughing mightily at
+the enterprise of the Persian king; about him were the grandees of his
+court, the flower of his concubines; at his side were the sacred vases
+filled with wine. He raised one to his lips, and there on the frieze
+before him leapt out the flaming letters of his doom, while to the
+trumpetings of heralds Cyrus and his army beat down the city's gates.
+
+It passed, and Antipas saw Jerusalem repeopled, the Temple rebuilt, peace
+after exile, the joy of bondage unloosed. For a moment it lasted--a century
+or two at most; and after Alexander, in chasing kings hither and thither,
+had passed with his huntsmen that way, Isis and Osiris beckoned, and the
+descendants of the bedouin belonged to Goshen again, and so remained until
+Syria took them, lost them, reconquered them, and might have done with
+them utterly had not Juda Maccabaeus flaunted his banner, and the Roman
+eagles pounced upon their prey. Once more the Temple was rebuilt, superber
+than ever, and from the throne of David, Antipas saw the upstart that was
+his father rule Judaea.
+
+With him the panorama and the kaleidoscope of its details abruptly ceased.
+But through it all the voices of the prophets had rung more insistently
+with each defeat. The covenant in the wilderness was unforgetable; in the
+chained links of slavery they saw the steps of a throne, the triumph of
+truth over error, peace over war, Israel pontiff and shepherd of the
+nations of the world.
+
+The expectation of a liberator who should free the bonds of a people and
+definitively re-create the land of the elect possessed them utterly; his
+advent had been constantly awaited, obstinately proclaimed; the faith in
+him was unshakeable. Palestine was filled with believers praying the
+Eternal not to let them die before the promise was fulfilled; the
+atmosphere itself was charged with expectation.
+
+And as the visions rushed through his mind, Antipas fell to wondering
+whether that covenant was as meaningless as he had thought, or whether by
+any chance this rabbi who had been arguing at Capharnahum could be the
+usher of Israel's hope. If he were, then indeed he might say good-bye to
+his tetrarchy, to his dream of a kingdom as well.
+
+"Yes," Pahul repeated, "the Son of God!"
+
+Antipas had been so far away that now he started as one does whom the
+touch of a hand awakes. To recover himself he leaned over and plunged his
+face in the jar. The wine brought him courage.
+
+He must be suppressed, he decided.
+
+"But," the butler continued, "I----"
+
+The frontal of the palace was set with lights. The parasols of the palms
+had turned from green to black, the stars seemed remoter, the sky more
+dark. From beyond came the call and answer of the sentinels.
+
+Antipas stood up. A fringe of his tunic was detained by a rivet of the
+bench on which he had sat; he stooped to loose it; something moist touched
+his fingers, and as he moved to the palace the black-faced ape sprang at
+his side and nibbled at the jewels on his hand.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+
+
+                                    V.
+
+
+The house of Simon Barlevi was gray, and in shape an oblong. It had a flat
+roof laid with a plaster of lime, about which was a fretwork of open
+tiles. Beneath, for doorway, was a recess, surmounted by an arch and
+covered with a layer of mud. On each side was a room.
+
+In the recess, sheltered from the sun and visited by the breeze, Simon
+stood. His garments were white, and where they were not they had been
+neatly chalked. On the border of his skirt and sleeves were the regulation
+fringes, and on his forehead and about his left arm the phylacteries which
+Pharisees affect. He was not pleasant to the eye, but he was virtuous and
+a strict observer of the Law.
+
+In the room at his left were mats and painted stools, set in the manner
+customary when guests are awaited. For on that day Simon Barlevi was to
+give a little feast, to which he had bidden his friends and also a rabbi
+whom he had listened to in the synagogue, and with whose ideas he did not
+at all agree. Save for the mats and stools, and a lamp of red clay, the
+room was bare.
+
+In front of the house was a bit of ground enclosed by a hedge of stones;
+and now as Simon stood in the recess a guest appeared.
+
+"Reulah!" he exclaimed, "the Lord be with you."
+
+And Reulah answering, as etiquette required, "Unto you be peace, and to
+your house be peace, and unto all you have be peace," the two friends
+clasped hands raised them as though to kiss them, then each withdrawing
+kissed his own hand, and struck it on his forehead.
+
+Singularly enough, host and guest looked much alike. Simon had the
+appearance of one conscious of and strong in his own rectitude, while
+Reulah seemed humbler and more effaced. Otherwise there was not a pin to
+choose between them.
+
+To Simon's face had come an expression of perplexity in which there was
+zeal.
+
+"I was thinking, Reulah," he announced, "of the rabbi who is to break
+bread with us to-day. His teaching does not comfort me."
+
+Reulah was unlatching his shoes. "Nor me," he interjected.
+
+"On questions of purity and impurity he seems unscrupulously negligent. I
+have heard that he is a glutton and a wine-bibber. I have heard that he
+despises the washing of the hands."
+
+"Whoso does," Reulah threw back, "will be rooted out of the world."
+
+Simon nodded; a smile of protracted amiability hovered in the corners of
+his mouth. For a moment he played with his beard.
+
+"I think," he added, "that he will find here food in plenty, and counsel
+as well."
+
+Reulah closed his eyes benignly, and Simon, in a falsetto which he
+affected when he desired to impress, continued in gentle menace:
+
+"But I have certain questions to put to him. Whether water from an unclean
+vessel defiles that which is clean. Whether the flesh of a dead body alone
+defiles, or the skin and bones as well. I want to see how he will answer
+that. Then I may ask his opinion on points of the ritual. Should the
+incense be lighted before the high-priest appears or as he does so. Is or
+is not the Sabbath broken by the killing of the Paschal lamb? Why is it
+lawful to take tithe of corn and wine and oil, and not of anise, cummin,
+and peppers? In swearing by the Temple, should one not first swear by the
+gold on the Temple? and in swearing by the altar, should one or should one
+not first swear by the sacrifices on it? These things, since he preaches,
+he must know. If he does not----"
+
+And Simon looked at his friend as who should say: What is there wanting in
+me?
+
+"If I may be taught another duty I will observe it," said Reulah, sweetly.
+
+At this evidence of meekness Simon grunted. Two other guests were
+approaching. On the edges of their tallith were tassels made of four
+threads which had been drawn through an eyelet and doubled to make eight.
+Seven of these threads were of equal length, but the eighth was longer,
+and, twisted into five knots, represented the five books of the Law. The
+right hand on the left breast, they saluted their host, and placing in
+turn a hand under his beard, they kissed it. A buzz of inquiries followed,
+interrupted by the coming and embracing of newer guests, the unloosing of
+sandals, the washing of feet.
+
+As they assembled, one drew Simon aside and whispered importantly. Simon's
+eyes dilated, astonishment lifted him, visibly, like a lash, and his hands
+trembled above his head.
+
+"Have you heard," he exclaimed to the others--"have you heard that the
+Nazarene whom I invited here, and who pretends to be a prophet, allowed
+his followers to pluck corn on the Sabbath, to thresh it even, and
+defended and approved their violation of the Law? Have you heard it? Is it
+true?"
+
+Reulah quaked as one stricken by palsy. "On the Sabbath!" he moaned. "On
+the Sabbath! Why, I would not send a message on Wednesday, lest perchance
+it should be delivered on the Sabbath day. Surely it cannot be."
+
+But on that point the others were certain. They were all aware of the
+scandal; one had been an eye-witness, another had heard the Nazarene
+assert that he was "Lord of the Day."
+
+"This is monstrous!" Simon cried.
+
+"He declared," the eye-witness continued, "that the Sabbath was made for
+man, and not man for the Sabbath."
+
+"It is monstrous!" Simon repeated. "The command to do no manner of work is
+absolute and emphatic. The killing of a flea on the Sabbath is as heinous
+as the butchering of a bullock. The preservation of life itself is
+inhibited. Moses had the son of Shelomith stoned to death for gathering
+sticks on it. Shammai occupied six days of the week in thinking how he
+could best observe it. It is unlawful to wear a false tooth on the
+Sabbath, and if a tooth ache it is unlawful to rinse the mouth with
+vinegar."
+
+"Yet," objected Reulah, "it is lawful to hold the vinegar in the mouth
+provided you swallow it afterward."
+
+No one paid any attention to him. Simon's indignation increased. Of the
+thirty-nine Abhoth he quoted twelve; he showed that the Nazarene had
+violated each one of these prohibitions against labor; he showed, too,
+that by his subsequent speech and bearing he had practically scoffed at
+the Toldoth, at the synagogue which had drawn it up as well.
+
+"If the Sadducees were not in power, Jerusalem should hear of this. As it
+is----"
+
+Whatever resolution he may have intended to express remained unuttered. A
+silence fell upon his lips; his guests drew back. At the step stood the
+Nazarene, behind him his treasurer, Judas of Kerioth. For a second only
+Jesus hesitated. He stooped, undid his shoes, and moved to where Simon
+stood. The latter bowed constrainedly.
+
+"Master," he said, "we awaited you."
+
+At this his friends retreated into the little room. Reulah reached the
+middle seat of the central mat first and held it, his nostrils quivering
+at the envy of the others.
+
+Preceded by their host, Jesus and Judas found places near together, and,
+the usual ablutions performed, the customary prayers recited, lay, the
+upper part of the body supported by the left arm, the head raised, the
+limbs outstretched.
+
+On the stools were dishes of stewed lentils, milk, and cakes of mashed
+locusts. Reulah ate with the tips of his lips, greedily, like a goat.
+Judas, too, ate with an air of hunger. The Master broke bread absently,
+his thoughts on other things. These thoughts Simon interrupted.
+
+"Rabbi"--and to his wide mouth came the sneer of one propounding a riddle
+already solved--"it is not meet, is it, to thresh on the Sabbath day? Yet
+since you permit your followers to do so, how are we to distinguish
+between what is lawful and what is not?"
+
+The Master raised his eyes. The dawn was in them, high noon as well.
+
+"Show yourself a tried money-changer. Choose that which is good metal,
+reject that which is bad."
+
+Simon blinked as at a sudden light.
+
+"But," he persisted, "in seeking to observe the Law, there is not a jot or
+tittle in it that can be rejected."
+
+With an acquiescence that was both vague and melancholy, Jesus looked the
+Pharisee in the face.
+
+"Seek those things that are great, and little things will be added unto
+you----"
+
+He would have said more, perhaps, but a woman who had entered from the
+recess approached circuitously, and kneeling beside him let a tear, long
+as a pearl, fall upon his unsandalled feet.
+
+Judas' heart bounded; he glared at her, his eyes dilating like a leopard
+preparing to spring. At once he was back in the circus, gazing into the
+perils and the splendors of a woman's face, telling himself with
+reiterated insistence that to hold her to him would be the birthday of his
+life; and here, within reach of his hand, was she whom in the din of the
+chariots he had recognized as the one woman in all the world, and who for
+one moment the day before had lain unconscious in his arms.
+
+Reulah sat motionless, his mouth agape, a finger extended. "The paramour
+of Pandera," he stammered at last; and lowering his eyes, he looked at her
+covetously from beneath the lids.
+
+Simon, too, sat motionless. There was rage in his expression, hate
+even--that hatred which the beautiful excites in the base. Time and again
+he had seen her; she was a byword with him; from the height of her
+residence she looked down on his mean gray walls; her luxury had been an
+insult to his abstinence; and with that zest which a small nature takes in
+the humiliation of its superior, he determined, in spite of her manifest
+abjection, to humiliate her still more.
+
+"If this man," he confided to his neighbor, "has in him anything of that
+which goes to the making of a prophet, he will divine what manner of woman
+she is. If he does not, I will denounce them both." And nourishing his
+hate he waited yet a while.
+
+The Master seemed depressed. The great secret which in all the world he
+alone possessed may have weighed with him. But he turned to Mary and
+looked at her. As he looked she bent yet lower. The marvel of her hair was
+unconfined; it fell about her in tangling streams of gold and flame, while
+on his feet there fell from her tears such as no woman ever shed before.
+In the era of primitive hospitality the daughters of kings had not
+disdained to unlatch the sandals of their fathers' guests; but now, at the
+feet of Mercy, for the first time Repentance knelt. And still the tears
+continued, unstanched and undetained. Grief, something keener still
+perhaps, had claimed her as its own. She bent lower. Then Misery looked up
+at Compassion.
+
+The Master stretched his hand. For a moment it rested on her head. She
+quivered and clutched at her throat; and as he withdrew that hand, in
+which all panaceas were, from her gown she took a little box, opened it,
+and dropping the contents where the tears had fallen, with a sudden
+movement she caught her hair and poured its lava on his feet.
+
+An aroma of beckoning oases filled the small room, passed into the recess,
+mounted to the roof, pervaded and penetrated it, and escaped to the sky
+above.
+
+And still she wept. Judas no longer saw her tears, he heard them. They
+fell swiftly one after another, like the ripple of the rain. A sob broke
+from her, but in it was something which foretokened peace, the sob which
+comes to those who have conceived a despairing hope, and suddenly
+intercept its fulfilment. Her hands trembled; the little box fell from her
+and broke. The noise it made exorcised the silence.
+
+The Master turned to his host. "I have a word to say to you."
+
+Simon stroked his beard and bowed.
+
+"There was once a man who had two debtors. One owed him five hundred
+pence, the other fifty. Both were poor, and because of their poverty the
+debt of each he forgave."
+
+For an instant Jesus paused and seemed to muse; then, with that indulgence
+which was to illuminate the world, "Tell me, Simon," he inquired, "which
+was the more grateful?"
+
+Simon assumed an air of perplexity, and glanced cunningly from one guest
+to another. Presently he laughed outright.
+
+"Why, the one who owed the most, of course."
+
+Reulah suppressed a giggle. By the expression of the others it was patent
+that to them also the jest appealed. Only Judas did not seem to have
+heard; he sat bolt upright, fumbling Mary with his violent eyes.
+
+The Master made a gesture of assent, and turned to where Mary crouched.
+She was staring at him with that look which the magnetized share with
+animals.
+
+"You see her?"
+
+Straightening himself, he leaned on his elbow and scrutinized his host.
+
+"Simon, I am your guest. When I entered here there was no kiss to greet
+me, there was no oil for my head, no water for my feet. But this woman
+whom you despise has not ceased to embrace them. She has washed them with
+her tears, anointed them with nard, and dried them with her hair. Her
+sins, it may be, are many, but, Simon, they are forgiven----"
+
+Simon, Reulah, the others, muttered querulously. To forgive sins was
+indeed an attribute which no one, save the Eternal, could arrogate to
+himself.
+
+"--for she has loved much."
+
+And turning again to Mary, who still crouched at his side, he added:
+
+"Your sins are forgiven. Go now, and in peace."
+
+But the fierce surprise of the Pharisees was not to be shocked into
+silence. Reulah showed his teeth; they were pointed and treacherous as a
+jackal's. Simon loudly asserted disapproval and wonder too.
+
+"I am amazed----" he began.
+
+The Master checked him:
+
+"The beginning of truth is amazement. Wonder, then, at what you see; for
+he that wonders shall reign, and he that reigns shall rest."
+
+The music of his voice heightened the beauty of the speech. On Mary it
+fell and rested as had the touch of his hand.
+
+"Messiah, my Lord!" she cried. "In your breast is the future, in your
+heart the confidence of God. Let me but tell you. There are those that
+live whose lives are passed; the tombs do not hold all of those that are
+dead. I was dead; you brought me to life. I had no conscience; you gave me
+one, for I was dead," she insisted. "And yet," she added, with a little
+moan, so human, so sincere, that it might have stirred a Caesar, let alone
+a Christ, "not wholly dead. No, no, dear Lord, not wholly dead."
+
+Again her tears gushed forth, profuser and more abundant than before; her
+frail body shook with sobs, her fingers intertwined.
+
+"Not wholly dead," she kept repeating. "No, no, not wholly dead."
+
+Jesus touched his treasurer.
+
+"She is not herself. Lead her away; see her to her home." And that the
+others might hear, and profit as well, he added, in a higher key,
+"Deference to a woman is always due."
+
+And to those words, which were to found chivalry and banish the boor,
+Judas led Mary from the room.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+                                   VI.
+
+
+"Are you better?"
+
+The road that skirted the lake had branched to the left, and there an easy
+ascent led to the hill beyond. On both sides were carpets of flowers and
+of green, and slender larches that held their arms and hid the sky. Above,
+an eagle circled, and on the lake a sail flapped idly.
+
+"Yes, I am better," Mary answered.
+
+From her eyes the perils had passed, but the splendors remained,
+accentuated now by vistas visible only to herself. The antimony, too, with
+which she darkened them had gone, and with it the alkanet she had used on
+her cheeks. Her dress was olive, and, contrary to custom, her head
+uncovered.
+
+"You are not strong, perhaps?"
+
+As Judas spoke, he thought of the episode in the synagogue, and wished her
+again unconscious in his arms.
+
+"I have been so weak," she murmured. And after a moment she added: "I am
+tired; let me sit awhile."
+
+The carpet of flowers and of green invited, and presently Judas dropped at
+her side. About his waist a linen girdle had been wound many times; from
+it a bag of lynx-skin hung. The white garments, the ample turban that he
+wore, were those of ordinary life, but in his bearing was just that
+evanescent charm which now and then the Oriental possesses--the subtlety
+that subjugates and does not last.
+
+"But you must be strong; we need your strength."
+
+Mary turned to him wonderingly.
+
+"Yes," he repeated, "we need your strength. Johanna has joined us, as you
+know. Susannah too. They do what they can; but we need others--we need
+you."
+
+"Do you mean----"
+
+Something had tapped at her heart, something which was both joy and dread,
+and she hesitated, fearing that the possibility which Judas suggested was
+unreal, that she had not heard his words aright.
+
+"Do you mean that he would let me?"
+
+"He would love you for it. But then he loves everyone, yet best, I think,
+his enemies."
+
+"They need it most," Mary answered; but her thoughts had wandered.
+
+"And I," Judas added--"I loved you long ago."
+
+Then he too hesitated, as though uncertain what next to say, and glanced
+at her covertly. She was looking across the lake, over the country of the
+Gadarenes, beyond even that, perhaps, into some infinite veiled to him.
+
+"I remember," he continued, tentatively, "it was there at Tiberias I saw
+you first. You were entering the palace. I waited. The sentries ordered me
+off; one threw a stone. I went to where the garden is; I thought you might
+be among the flowers. The wall was so high I could not see. The guards
+drove me away. I ran up the hill through the white and red terraces of the
+grape. From there I could see the gardens, the elephants with their ears
+painted, and the oxen with the twisted horns. The wind sung about me like
+a flute; the sky was a tent of different hues. Something within me had
+sprung into life. It was love, I knew. It had come before, yes, often, but
+never as then. For," he added, and the gleam of his eyes was as a fanfare
+to the thought he was about to express, "love returns to the heart as the
+leaf returns to the tree."
+
+Mary looked at him vacantly. "What was he saying?" she wondered. From a
+sea of grief she seemed to be passing onto an archipelago of dream.
+
+"The next day I loitered in the neighborhood of the palace. You did not
+appear. Toward evening I questioned a gardener. He said your name was
+Mary, but he would tell me nothing else. On the morrow was the circus. I
+made sure you would be there--with the tetrarch, I thought; and, that I
+might be near the tribune, before the sun had set I was at the circus
+gate. There were others that came and waited, but I was first. I remember
+that night as never any since. I lay outstretched, and watched the moon;
+your face was in it: it was a dream, of course. Yes, the night passed
+quickly, but the morning lagged. When the gate was open, I sprang like a
+zemer from tier to tier until I reached the tribune. There, close by, I
+sat and waited. At last you came, and with you new perfumes and poisons.
+Did you feel my eyes? they must have burned into you. But no, you gave no
+heed to me. They told me afterward that Scarlet won three times. I did not
+know. I saw but you. Once merely an abyss in which lightning was.
+
+"Before the last race was done I got down and tried to be near the exit
+through which I knew you must pass. The guards would not let me. The next
+day I made friends with a sentry. He told me that you were Mirjam of
+Magdala; that Tiberius wished you at Rome, and that you had gone with
+Antipas to his citadel. In the wine-shops that night men slunk from me
+afraid. A week followed of which I knew nothing, then chance disentangled
+its threads. I found myself in a crowd at the base of a hill; a prophet
+was preaching. I had heard prophets before; they were as torches in the
+night: he was the Day. I listened and forgot you. He called me; I
+followed. Until Sunday I had not thought of you again. But when you
+appeared in the synagogue I started; and when you fainted, when I held you
+in my arms and your eyes opened as flowers do, I looked into them and it
+all returned. Mary, kiss me and kill me, but kiss me first."
+
+"Yes, he is the Day."
+
+Of the entire speech she had heard but that. It had entered perhaps into
+thoughts of her own with which it was in unison, and she repeated the
+phrase mechanically, as a child might do. But now as he ceased to speak,
+perplexed, annoyed too at the inappositeness of her reply, she came back
+from the infinite in which she had roamed, and for a moment both were
+silent.
+
+At the turning of the road a man appeared. At the sight of Judas he
+halted, then called him excitedly by name.
+
+"It is Mathias," Judas muttered, and got to his feet. The man hurried to
+them. He was broad of shoulder and of girth, the jaw lank and earnest. His
+eyes were small, and the lids twitched nervously. He was out of breath,
+and his garments were dust-covered.
+
+"Where is the Master?" he asked; and at once, without waiting a reply, he
+added: "I have just seen Johanna. Her husband told her that the tetrarch
+is seeking him; he thinks him John, and would do him harm. We must go from
+here."
+
+Judas assented. "Yes, we must all go. Mary, it may be a penance, but it is
+his will."
+
+Mathias gazed inquiringly at them both.
+
+"It is his will," Judas repeated, authoritatively.
+
+Mary turned away and caught her forehead in her hands. "If this is a
+penance," she murmured, "what then are his rewards?"
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+                                   VII.
+
+
+On the floor of a little room Mary lay, her face to the ground. In her
+ears was the hideousness of a threat that had fastened on her abruptly
+like a cheetah in the dark. From below came the sound of banqueting.
+Beyond was the Bitter Sea, the stars dancing in its ripples; and there in
+the shadow of the evergreens was the hut in which that Sephorah lived to
+whom long ago Martha had forbidden her to speak. Through the lattice came
+the scent of olive-trees, and with it the irresistible breath of spring.
+
+In its caress the threat which had made her its own presently was lifted,
+and mingling with other things fused into them. The kaleidoscope of time
+and events which visits those that drown possessed her, and for a second
+Mary relived a year.
+
+There had been the sudden flight from Magdala, the first days with the
+Master, the gorges of the Jordan, the journey to the coast, the glittering
+green scales of that hydra the sea. Then the loiterings on the banks of
+the sacred Leontes, the journey back to Galilee, the momentary halt at
+Magdala, the sail past Bethsaida, Capharnahum, Chorazin, the fording of
+the river, the trip to Caesarea Philippi, the snow and gold of Hermon, the
+visit to Gennesareth, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the return to
+Bethany.
+
+Her recollections intercrossed, scenes that were trivial ousted others
+that were grave; the purple limpets of Sidon, the shrine of Ashtaroth, the
+invective at Bethsaida, the transfiguration on the mountain height, the
+cure of lepers, and the presence that coerced. Yet through them all
+certain things remained immutable, and of these, primarily her contact
+with the Christ.
+
+To her, Jesus was not the Son of man alone, he was the light of this
+world, the usher of the next. When he spoke, there came to her a sense of
+frightened joy so acute that the hypostatical union which left even the
+disciples perplexed was by her realized and understood. She had the faith
+of a little child. And on the hills and through the intervales over which
+they journeyed, in the glare of the eager sun or beneath the wattled
+boughs, the emanations of the Divine filled her with transports so
+contagious that they affected even Thomas, who was skeptical by birth; and
+when, after the descent from Hermon, two or three of the disciples mused
+together over the spectacle which they had seen, the rhyme of her lips
+parted ineffably. She too had seen him aureoled with the sun, dazzling as
+the snow-fields on the heights. To her it was ever in that aspect he
+appeared, with a radiance so intense even that there had been moments in
+which she had veiled her eyes as from a light that only eagles could
+support. To her, marvels were as natural as the escape of night. At
+Beth-Sean she had heard him speak to dumb beasts, and never doubted but
+that they answered him. At Dan she had seen a short-eared hare rush to him
+for refuge, and follow him afterwards as a dog might do. At Kinnereth he
+had called to a lark that from a tree-top was pouring its heart out to the
+morning, and the lark had fluttered down and nestled in his hand. At
+Gadara he had tamed wild doves, and a swarm of bees had stopped and
+glistened in his hair. At Caesarea, when he began to speak, the thrushes
+that had been singing ceased; and when the parables were delivered, began
+anew, louder, more jubilant than before, and continued to sing until he
+blessed them, when they mounted in one long ascending line straight to the
+zenith above. At his approach the little gold-bellied fish of the Leontes
+had leaped from the stream. In the suburbs of Sidon the jackals had fawned
+at his feet. The underbrush had parted to let him pass, and where he
+passed white roses came and the tenderness of anemones. At times he seemed
+to her immaterial as a shadow in a dream, at others appalling as the
+desert; and once when, in prayer, she entered with him into the intimacy
+of the infinite, she caught the shiver of an invisible harp whose notes
+seemed to fall from the night. And as she journeyed, her love expanded
+with the horizon. She loved with a love no woman's heart has transcended.
+In its prodigality and ascending gammes there was place for nothing save
+the Ideal.
+
+The little band meanwhile lived as strangers on earth. Out of her abundant
+means their simple wants were supplied. She was less a burden than a
+sustenance; her faith bridged many a doubtful hour; and when, as often
+occurred, they disputed among themselves concerning their future rank and
+precedence, Mary dreamed of a paradise more pure.
+
+One evening, near the rushes of Lake Phiala, where the Jordan leaps anew
+to the light, a Greek merchant who had refused them shelter at Seleucia
+ambled that way on an ass, and would have stopped, perhaps, but one of the
+band scoffed him, and he rode on, and disappeared in the haze of the
+hills.
+
+Unobserved, the Master had seen and heard; presently he called them to
+where he stood.
+
+"Do not think," he admonished--"do not think that because you imitate the
+Pharisees you are perfecting your lives. They fast, they pray, they weep,
+and they mortify the flesh; but to them one thing is impossible, charity
+to the failings of others. Whoso then shall come to you, be he friend or
+foe, penitent or thief, receive him kindly. Aid the helpless, console the
+unfortunate, forgive your enemy, and forget yourselves--that is charity.
+Without it the kingdom of heaven is lost to you. There, there is neither
+Greek nor Jew, male nor female; nor can it come to you until the garment
+of shame is trampled under foot, until two are as one, and the body which
+is without is as the soul within."
+
+Thereat, with a gesture of exquisite indulgence, he turned and left them
+to the stars.
+
+Mary had heard, and in the palingenesis disclosed she saw space wrapped in
+a luminous atmosphere, such as she fancied lay behind the sun. There,
+instead of the thrones and diadems of the elect, was an immutable realm in
+which there was neither death nor life, clear ether merely, charged with
+beatitudes. And so, when the disciples disputed among themselves, Mary
+dreamed of diaphanous hours and immaculate days that knew no night, and in
+this wise lived until from the terrace of Jerusalem's Temple the Master
+bade her return to Bethany and wait him there.
+
+Obedience to that command was bitter to her. She did not murmur, however.
+"Rabboni," she cried, "let me but do your will on earth, and afterwards
+save me or destroy me as your pleasure is."
+
+With that she had gone to her sister's house, and to the bewildered Martha
+poured out her heart anew. There could be no question of forgiveness now,
+of penitence even; her sins, such as they were, had been remitted by one
+to whom pardon was an attribute. And this doubtless Martha understood, for
+she took her in her arms unreproachfully and mingled her tears with hers.
+
+Where all is marvel the marvellous disappears. To the accounts which Mary
+gave of her journeys with the little band that followed the Master, Martha
+listened with an attention which nothing could distract. With her she
+sailed on the lovely lake; with her she visited cities smothering in the
+scent of cassia and of sugar-cane; with her she passed through glens where
+panthers prowled, and bandits crueller than they. With her eyes she saw
+the listening multitudes, with her ears she heard again the words of
+divine forgiveness; and, the lulab and the citron in her hands, she
+assisted at the Feast of the Tabernacles, and watched the vain attempt to
+charm the recalcitrant Temple and captivate the inimical town.
+
+For in Jerusalem, in place of the reassuring confidence of peasants, was
+the irritable incredulity of priests; instead of meadows, courts. Besides,
+was not this prophet from Galilee, and what good had ever come from there?
+Then, too, he was not an authorized teacher. He belonged to no school. The
+followers of Hillel, the disciples of Shammai, did not recognize him. He
+was merely a fractious Nazarene trained in the shop of a carpenter; one
+who, by repeating that it was easier for a camel to pass through a
+needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, flattered
+basely the mob of mendicants that surrounded him. The rabble admired, but
+the clergy stood aloof. When he was not ignored he was disdained. Save the
+pleb, no one listened.
+
+Presently he spoke louder. Into the grave music of the Syro-Chaldaic
+tongue he put the mutterings of thunder. Where he had preached, he
+upbraided; in place of exquisite parables came sonorous threats. He
+blessed but rarely, sometimes he cursed. That mosaic, the Law, he treated
+like a cobweb; and to the arrogant clergy a rumor filtered that this
+vagabond, who had not where to lay his head, declared his ability to
+destroy the Temple, and to rebuild it, in three days, anew.
+
+A rumor such as that was incredible. Inquiries were made. The rumor was
+substantiated. It was learned that he healed the sick, cured the blind;
+that he was in league, perhaps, with the Pharisees.
+
+The Sanhedrim took counsel. They were Sadducees every one. The Pharisees
+were their hereditary foes. Both were militant, directing men and things
+as best they could. The Sadducees held strictly to the letter of the Law;
+the Pharisees held to the Law, and to tradition as well. But the Sadducees
+were in power, the Pharisees were not. The former endeavored in every way
+to maintain their authority over the people; and against that authority,
+against the aristocracy, the priesthood, and the accomplices of foreign
+dominion, the Pharisees ceaselessly excited the mob. In their inability to
+overthrow the pontificate, they undermined it. With microscopic attention
+they examined and criticised every act of the clergy; and, with a view of
+showing the incompetence of the priests, they affected rigid theories in
+regard to ritualistic points. Every detail of the ceremonial office was
+watched by them with eyes that were never pleased. They asserted that the
+rolls of the Law from which the priests read the Pentateuch were made of
+impure matter, and, having handled them, the priests had become impure as
+well. The manner in which the incense was made and offered, the minutiae
+governing the sacrifices, the legality of hierarchal decisions--on each and
+every possible subject they exerted themselves to show the unworthiness of
+the officiants, insinuating even that the names of the fathers of many of
+the priests were not inscribed at Zipporim in the archives of Jeshana. As
+a consequence, many of those whose rights the Pharisees affected to uphold
+saw in the hierarchy little more than a body of men unworthy to approach
+the altar, a group of Herodians who in religion lacked every requisite for
+the service of God, and who in public and in private were bankrupts in
+patriotism, morality, and shame.
+
+The possibility, therefore, that this fractious demagogue had found favor
+with the Pharisees was grave. He was becoming a force. He threatened many
+a prerogative. Moreover, Jerusalem had had enough of agitators. People
+were drawn by their promises into the solitudes, and there incited to
+revolt. Rome did not look upon these things leniently. If they continued,
+Tiberius was quite capable of putting Judaea in a yoke which it would not
+be easy to carry. Clearly the Nazarene was seditious, and as such to be
+abolished. The difficulty was to abolish him and yet conciliate the mob.
+
+It was then that the Sanhedrim took counsel. As a result, and with the
+hope of entrapping him into some blasphemous utterance on which a charge
+would lie, they sent meek-eyed Scribes to question him concerning the
+authority that he claimed. He routed the meek-eyed Scribes. Then, fancying
+that he might be seduced into some expression which could be construed as
+treason, they sent young and earnest men to learn from him their duty to
+Rome. The young and earnest men returned crestfallen and abashed.
+
+The elders, nonplussed, debated. A levite suspected that the casuistry and
+marvellous cures of the Nazarene must be due to a knowledge of the
+incommunicable name, Shemhammephorash, seared on stone in the thunders of
+Sinai, and which to utter was to summon life or beckon death. Another had
+heard that while in Galilee he was believed to be in league with
+Baal-Zebub, Lord of Flies.
+
+To this gossip no attention was paid. Annas, merely--the old high-priest,
+father-in-law of Caiaphas, who officiated in his stead--laughed to himself.
+There was no such stone, there was no such god. Another idea had been
+welcomed. A festival was in progress; there was gayety in the
+neighborhood, drinking too; and as over a million of pilgrims were herded
+together, now and then an offence occurred. The previous night, for
+instance, a woman had been arrested for illicit commerce.
+
+Annas tapped on his chin. He had the pompous air of a chameleon, the same
+long, thin lips, the large, protruding eyes.
+
+"Take her before the Galilean," he said. "He claims to be a rabbi; he must
+know the Law. If he acquit her, it is heresy, and for that a charge will
+lie. Does he condemn her he is at our mercy, for he will have alienated
+the mob."
+
+A smile of perfect understanding passed like a vagrant breeze across the
+faces of the elders, and the levites were ordered to lead the prisoner to
+the Christ.
+
+They found him in the Woman's Court. From a lateral chamber a priest,
+unfit for other than menial services because of a carbuncle on his lip,
+dropped the wood he was sorting for the altar and gazed curiously at the
+advancing throng, in which the prisoner was.
+
+She must have been very fair, but now her features were distorted with
+anguish, veiled with shame. The blue robe she wore was torn, and a sleeve
+rent to the shoulder disclosed a bare white arm. She was a wife, a mother
+too. Her name was Ahulah; her husband was a shoemaker. At the Gannath
+Gate, where her home was, were two little children. She worshipped them,
+and her husband she adored. Some hallucination, a tremor of the flesh, the
+flush of wine, and there, circled by a leering crowd, she crouched, her
+life disgraced, irrecoverable for evermore.
+
+The charge was made, the usual question propounded. The Master had glanced
+at her but once. He seemed to be looking afar, beyond the Temple and its
+terraces, beyond the horizon itself. But the accusers were impatient. He
+bent forward and with a finger wrote on the ground. The letters were
+illegible, perhaps, yet the symbol of obliteration was in that dust which
+the morrow would disperse. Again he wrote, but the charge was repeated,
+louder, more impatiently than before.
+
+Jesus straightened himself. With the weary indulgence of one to whom
+hearts are as books, he looked about him, then to the dome above.
+
+"Whoever is without sin among you," he declared, "may cast the first
+stone."
+
+When he looked again the crowd had slunk away. Only Ahulah remained, her
+head bowed on her bare white arm. From the lateral chamber the priest
+still peered, the carbuncle glistening on his lip.
+
+"Did none condemn you?" the Master asked.
+
+And as she sobbed merely, he added: "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin
+no more."
+
+To the elders this was very discomforting. They had failed to unmask him
+as a traitor to God, to Rome even, or yet as a demagogue defying the Law.
+They did not care to question again. He had worsted them three times. Nor
+could they without due cause arrest him, for there were the Pharisees.
+Besides, a religious trial was full of risk, and the cooeperation of the
+procurator not readily to be relied on. It was that cooeperation they
+needed most, for with it such feeling as might be aroused would fall on
+Rome and not on them. As for Pilate, he could put a sword in front of what
+he said.
+
+In their enforced inaction they got behind that wall of prejudice where
+they and their kin feel most secure, and there waited, prepared at the
+first opportunity to invoke the laws of their ancestors, laws so
+cumbersome and complex that the Romans, accustomed to the clearest
+pandects, had laughed and left them, erasing only the right to kill.
+
+At last chance smiled. Into Jerusalem a rumor filtered that the Nazarene
+they hated so had raised the dead, that the suburbs hailed him as the
+Messiah, and that he proclaimed himself the Son of God. At once the
+Sanhedrim reassembled. A political deliverer they might have welcomed, but
+in a Messiah they had little faith. The very fact of his Messiahship
+constituted him a claimant to the Jewish throne, and as such a pretender
+with whom Pilate could deal. Moreover--and here was the point--to claim
+divinity was to attack the unity of God. Of impious blasphemy there was no
+higher form.
+
+It were better, Annas suggested, that a man should die than that a nation
+should perish--a truism, surely, not to be gainsaid.
+
+That night it was decided that Jesus and Judaism could not live together;
+a price was placed upon his head, and to the blare of four hundred
+trumpets excommunication was pronounced.
+
+Of all of these incidents save the last Mary had been necessarily aware.
+In company with Johanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Mary, wife of
+Clopas, and Salome, mother of Zebedee's children, she had heard him
+reiterate the burning words of Jeremiah, and seen him purge the Temple of
+its traffickers; she had heard, too, the esoteric proclamation, "Before
+Abraham was, I am;" and she had seen him lash the Sadducees with
+invective. She had been present when a letter was brought from Abgar
+Uchomo, King of Edessa, to Jesus, "the good Redeemer," in which the
+potentate prayed the prophet to come and heal him of a sickness which he
+had, offering him a refuge from the Jews, and quaintly setting forth the
+writer's belief that Jesus was God or else His Son. She had been present,
+also, when the charge was made against Ahulah, and had comforted that
+unfortunate in womanly ways. "Surely," she had said, "if the Master who
+does not love you can forgive, how much more readily must your husband who
+does!" Whereupon Ahulah had become her slave, tending her thereafter with
+almost bestial devotion.
+
+These episodes, one after another, she related to Martha; to Eleazer, her
+brother; to Simon, Martha's husband; to anyone that chanced that way. For
+it was then that the Master had bade her go to Bethany. For a little space
+he too had forsaken Jerusalem. Now and then with some of his followers he
+would venture in the neighborhood, yet only to be off again through the
+scorched hollows of the Ghor before the sun was up.
+
+These things it was that paraded before her as she lay on the floor of the
+little room, felled by the hideousness of a threat that had sprung upon
+her, abruptly, like a cheetah in the dark. To Martha and to the others on
+one subject alone had she been silent, and now at the moment it dominated
+all else.
+
+From the day on which she joined the little band to whom the future was to
+give half of this world and all of the next, Judas had been ever at her
+ear. As a door that opens and shuts at the will of a hand, his presence
+and absence had barred the vistas or left them clear. At first he had
+affected her as a scarabaeus affects the rose. She knew of him, and that
+was all. When he spoke, she thought of other things. And as the blind
+remain unawakened by the day, he never saw that where the wanton had been
+the saint had come. To him she was a book of ivory bound in gold, whose
+contents he longed to possess; she was a book, but one from which whole
+chapters had been torn, the preface destroyed; and when his increasing
+insistence forced itself upon her, demanding, obviously, countenance or
+rebuke, she walked serenely on her way, disdaining either, occupied with
+higher things. It was of the Master only that she appeared to think. When
+he spoke, it was to her as though God really lived on earth; her eyes
+lighted ineffably, and visibly all else was instantly forgot. At that time
+her life was a dream into whose charmed precincts a bat had flown.
+
+These things, gradually, Judas must have understood. In Mary's eyes he may
+have caught the intimation that to her now only the ideal was real; or the
+idea may have visited him that in the infinite of her faith he disappeared
+and ceased to be. In any event he must have taken counsel with himself,
+for one day he approached her with a newer theme.
+
+"I have knocked on the tombs; they are dumb."
+
+Mary, with that grace with which a woman gathers a flower when thinking of
+him whom she loves, bent a little and turned away.
+
+"Have you heard of the Buddha?" he asked. "Babylon is peopled with his
+disciples. One of them met Jesus in the desert, and taught him his belief.
+It is that he preaches now, only the Buddha did not know of a heaven, for
+there is none."
+
+And he added, after a pause: "I tell you I have knocked on the tombs;
+there is no answer there."
+
+With that, as a panther falls asleep, his claw blood-red, Judas nodded and
+left her to her thoughts.
+
+"In Eternity there is room for everything," she said, when he came to her
+again.
+
+"Eternity is an abyss which the tomb uses for a sewer," he answered. "Its
+flood is corruption. The day only exists, but in it is that freedom which
+waves possess. Mary, if you would but taste it with me! Oh, to mix with
+you as light with day, as stream with sea, I would suck the flame that
+flickers on the walls of sepulchres."
+
+She shuddered, and he saw it.
+
+"You have taught me to love," he hissed; "do not teach me now to hate."
+
+Mary mastered her revolt. "Judas, the day will come when you will cease to
+speak as you do."
+
+"You believe, then, still?"
+
+"Yes, surely; and so do you."
+
+"The day will come," he muttered, "when you will cease to believe."
+
+"And you too," she answered. "For then you will _know_."
+
+The dialogue with its variations continued, at intervals, for months.
+There were times, weeks even, when he avoided all speech with her. Then,
+abruptly, when she expected it least, he would return more volcanic than
+before. These attacks she accustomed herself to regard as necessary,
+perhaps, to the training of patience, of charity too, and so bore with
+them, until at last Jerusalem was reached. Meanwhile she held to her trust
+as to a fringe of the mantle of Christ. To her the past was a grammar, its
+name--To-morrow. And in the service of the Master, in the future which he
+had evoked, she journeyed and dreamed.
+
+But in Jerusalem Judas grew acrider. He had fits of unnecessary laughter,
+and spells of the deepest melancholy. He quarrelled with anyone who would
+let him, and then for the irritation he had displayed he would make amends
+that were wholly slavish. His companions distrusted him. He had been seen
+talking amicably with the corrupt levites, the police of the Temple, and
+once he had been detected in a wine-shop of low repute. The Master,
+apparently, noticed nothing of this; nor did Mary, whose thoughts were on
+other things.
+
+At Bethany one evening Judas came to her. The sun, sinking through clouds,
+placed in the west the tableau of a duel to the death between a titan and
+a god. There was the glitter of gigantic swords, and the red of immortal
+blood.
+
+"Mary," he began, and as he spoke there was a new note in his voice--"Mary,
+I have watched and waited, and to those that watch how many lamps burn
+out! One after another those that I tended went. There was a flicker, a
+little smoke, and they had gone. I tried to relight them, but perhaps the
+oil was spent; perhaps, too, I was like the blind that hold a torch. My
+way has not been clear. The faith I had, and which, I do not know, but
+which, it may be, would have been strengthened, evaporated when you came.
+The rays of the sun I had revered became as the threads of shadows,
+interconnecting life and death. In them I could see but you. In the jaw of
+night, in the teeth of day, always I have seen you. Mary, love is a net
+which woman throws. In casting yours--there! unintentionally, I know--you
+caught my soul. It is yours now wholly until time shall cease to be. Will
+you take it, Mary, or will you put it aside, a thing forever dead?"
+
+Mary made no answer. It may be she had not heard. In the west both titan
+and god had disappeared. Above, in a field of stars, the moon hung, a
+scythe of gold. The air was still, the hush of locusts accentuating the
+silence and bidding it be at rest. In a house near by there were lights
+shining. A woman looked out and called into the night.
+
+Then, as though moved by some jealousy of the impalpable, Judas leaned
+forward and peered into her face.
+
+"It is the Master who keeps you from me, is it not?"
+
+"It is my belief," she answered, simply.
+
+"It was he that gave it to you. Mary, do you know that there is a price
+upon his head? Do you know that if I cannot slake my love, at least I can
+gorge my hate? Do you know that, Mary? Do you know it? Now choose between
+your belief and me; if you prefer the former, the Sanhedrim will have him
+to-morrow. There, your sister is calling; go--and choose."
+
+It was with the hideousness of this threat in her ears that Mary escaped
+to the little room where her childhood had been passed and flung herself
+on the floor. From beyond came the sound of banqueting. Martha was
+entertaining the Lord, his disciples as well; and Mary knew that her aid
+was needed. But the threat pinioned and held her down. To accede was
+death, not of the body alone, but of the soul as well. There was no clear
+pool in which she might cleanse the stain; there could be no forgiveness,
+no obliteration, nothing in fact save the loss never to be recovered of
+life in the diaphanous hours and immaculate days of which she had dreamed
+so long.
+
+For a little space she tried to comfort herself. Perhaps Judas was not in
+earnest; perhaps even he had lied. And if he had not, was there not time
+in plenty? The desert was neighborly. She could follow the Master there,
+and minister to him till the sky opened and the kingdom was prepared. And
+the threat, coupled with that perspective, charmed, and for the moment had
+for her that enticement which the quarrels and kisses of children equally
+possess. She would warn him secretly, she decided, for surely as yet he
+did not know; she would warn him, and before the sun was up he could be
+beyond the Sanhedrim's reach, and she preparing to follow. For a moment
+she lost herself in anticipation; then, the threat loosening its hold, she
+stood up, her face very white in the starlight, her eyes brave and alert.
+Already her plan was formed; and, taking a vase that she had brought with
+her from Magdala, she hurried to the room below.
+
+The Master; the disciples; Eleazer, her brother; Simon, her sister's
+husband, were all at meat. Martha was serving, and as Mary entered Judas
+stood up. She moved to where the Master was, and on him poured the
+contents of the vase. Thomas sniffed delightedly, for now the room was
+full of fragrance. The Master turned to her and smiled; the homage
+evidently was grateful. Mary bent nearer. Thomas and Bartholomew joined in
+loud praises of the aroma of the nard, and under cover of their voices she
+whispered, "Rabboni, the Sanhedrim has placed a price on----"
+
+The whisper was drowned and interrupted. Judas had shoved her away. "To
+what end is this waste?" he asked; and as Mary looked in his face she saw
+by the expression in it that her purpose had been divined and her warning
+overheard.
+
+"It is absurd," he continued, with affected anger. "Ointment such as that
+has a value. It might better have been saved for the poor."
+
+Thomas chimed in approvingly; placed in that light it was indeed an
+extravagance, unnecessary too, and he looked about to his comrades for
+support. Eleazer and Peter seemed inclined to view the matter differently.
+A discussion would have arisen, but the Master checked it gently, as was
+his wont.
+
+"The poor are always with you, but me you cannot always have."
+
+As he spoke he turned to Judas with that indulgence which was to be a
+heritage.
+
+Could he _know_? Judas wondered. Had he heard what Mary said? And, the
+Master's speech continuing, he glanced at her and left the room.
+
+The moon had mowed the stars, but the sky was visibly blue. Behind the
+shoulder of Olivet he divined the silence of Jerusalem, the welcome of the
+Sadducees, the joy of hate assuaged. There was but one thing now that
+might deter; and as his thoughts groped through that possibility, Mary
+stood at his side.
+
+"Judas----"
+
+He wheeled, and, catching her by the wrists, stared into her eyes.
+
+"Is it yes?"
+
+A shudder seized her. There was dread in it, anguish too, and both were
+mortal. He had not lied, she saw, and the threat was real.
+
+"Is it yes?" he repeated.
+
+There may be moments that prolong, but there are others in which time no
+longer is; and as Mary shrank in the blight of Judas' stare, both felt
+that the culmination of life was reached.
+
+"No!"
+
+The monosyllable dropped from her lips like a stone, yet even as it fell
+the banner of Maccabaeus unfurled and flaunted in her face; the voice of
+Esther murmured, and a vision of Judith saving a nation visited her, and,
+continuing, made spots on the night.
+
+Judas had flung her from him. She reeled; the violence roused her. Who was
+she to consider herself when the security of the Master was at stake? How
+should it matter though she died, if he were safe?
+
+"It is my soul you ask," she cried. "Take it. If I had a thousand souls, I
+would give each one for Him."
+
+But she cried to the unanswering night. Where the road curved about the
+shoulder of the Mount of Olives, for one second she saw a white robe
+glisten. Agonized, she called again, but there was no one now to hear.
+
+A little later, when the followers of the Lord issued from the house, Mary
+lay before the door, her eyes closed, her head in the dust. They touched
+her. She had fainted.
+
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+                                  VIII.
+
+
+"They have him, they are taking him to Pilate."
+
+It was Eleazer calling to his sister from the turn of the road. In a
+moment he was at her side, dust-covered, his sandals torn, his pathetic
+eyes dilated. He was breathless too, and, in default of words, with a
+gesture that swept the Mount of Olives, he pointed to where the holy city
+lay.
+
+To Mary the morrow succeeding her swoon was a pall. Love, it may be, is a
+forgetfulness of all things else, but despair is very actual. It takes a
+hold on memory, inhabits it, and makes it its own. And during the day that
+followed, Mary lay preyed upon by the acutest agony that ever tortured
+woman yet. Early in the night, before her senses returned, the Master had
+gone without mentioning whither. His destination may have been Ephraim,
+Jericho even, or further yet, beyond the hollows of the Ghor. Then, again,
+he might have loitered in the neighborhood, on the hill perhaps, in that
+open-air solitude he loved so well, and for which so often he forsook the
+narrowness of roofs and towns. But yet, in view of the Passover, he might
+have gone to Jerusalem, and it was that idea that tortured most.
+
+It was there the keen police, the levites, were, and their masters the
+Sadducees, who had placed a price on his head. Did he get within the
+walls, then surely he was lost. At the possibilities which that idea
+evoked her thoughts sank like the roots of a tree and grappled with the
+under-earth. To her despair, regret brought its burden. A moment of
+self-forgetfulness, and, however horrible that forgetfulness might have
+been, in it danger to him whom she revered would have been averted, and,
+for the time being at least, dispersed utterly as last year's leaves. It
+had been cowardice on her part to let Judas go; she should have been
+strong when strength was needed. There were glaives to be had; the head of
+Holofernes could have greeted his. The legend of Judith still echoed its
+reproach, and recurring, pointed a slender finger of disdain.
+
+To the heart that is sinking, hope throws a straw. Immaterial and
+caressing as a shadow, came to her the fancy that if the Master were in
+the neighborhood, at any moment he might appear. In that event it was
+needful that she should be prepared to aid him at once beyond the confines
+of Judaea. Were he already beyond them, presently she must learn it, and
+then could warn him of the danger of return. But meanwhile, for security's
+sake, had he gone by any chance to Jerusalem, some one must be there to
+warn him of the plot. She thought of her sister, and dismissed her. Martha
+was too feather-headed for an errand such as that. She thought of Ahulah,
+but some of those well-intentioned friends that everyone possesses had
+told of the misadventure to her husband, and the latter, cruel as a woman,
+had spat upon her, and now through the suburbs she wandered, distraught,
+incompetent to aid. Her brother occurred to her. It was on him she could
+rely. His devotion was surpassed only by her own. Thereupon she sought him
+out, instructed him in his duty, and sent him forth to watch and warn.
+
+The green afternoon faded in the hemorrhages of the setting sun. Twilight
+approached like a wolf. Night unfurled her great black fan; the moon came,
+fumbling the shadows, checkering the underbrush with silver spots. Once a
+caravan passed, and once from the hillside came the bark of a dog, caught
+up and repeated in some farm beyond; otherwise the night was unstirred;
+and as Mary stared into the immensities where lightning wearies and
+subsides, a lethargy beset her, her body was imprisoned; but her soul was
+free, and in a moment it mounted sheerly to a fringe of the heavens and
+bathed in space.
+
+When it descended, another day had come, and Eleazer was calling to her
+from the turn of the road. At once she was on earth and on her feet, and
+as the brother gasped for breath the sister's strength returned. There
+must be no more weakness now, she knew; it was time to act. She got drink,
+water for the feet; then Eleazer, refreshed, continued:
+
+"I ran through the ridge and up to where the two cedars are. I looked
+among the cypresses beyond, in the pines where the descent begins, through
+the olive groves below and the booths and tents beneath. There was no
+trace of him anywhere. I crossed the brook and sat awhile at the Shushan
+gate, watching those that entered. The crowd became so dense that it was
+impossible to distinguish. I thought I might hear of him in the Temple.
+The porch was thronged. I roamed through the Mountain of the House into
+the Woman's Court, and out of it on the Chel. But they were all so filled
+with pilgrims that had he been there only accident could have brought me
+to him. It was on that I counted, and I went out on Zion and Acra, where
+the crowd was less. It was getting late. Beth-horon was dim. I could see
+lights in Herod's palace. Some one said that the tetrarch of Galilee was
+there, the guest of the procurator. I went back by way of Antonia to
+Birket Israil and the Red Heifer Bridge. I had given up; it seemed to me
+useless to make further attempt. Suddenly I saw Judas in the angle of the
+porch. With him was a levite. I got behind a pillar, near where they
+stood, and listened. The only thing I distinctly heard was the name of
+Joseph of Haramathaim. I fancied, though I was not certain, that Judas
+spoke as though he had just left his house. They must have moved away
+then, for when I looked they had gone. I knew that Joseph was a friend of
+the Master's, and it struck me that he might be at his house. It is in the
+sook of the Perfumers, back of Ophel. I ran there as fast as I could. It
+was unlighted. I beat on the door: there was no answer. I felt that I had
+been mistaken, anyway that I could do no more. I went down again into the
+valley, crossed the Kedron, and would have returned here at once perhaps,
+but I was tired, and so, on the slope where the olive-presses are, I lay
+down and must have fallen asleep, for I remembered nothing till there came
+a tramping of men. I crouched in the underbrush. They passed very close;
+some had torches, some had spears. Judas was leading, and as an ape
+munches a flower he was muttering the Master's name."
+
+Eleazer paused and looked at his sister. She was standing erect, her face
+wan, the brow contracted, the rhymes of her lips tight-pressed. Then, with
+a glance at Olivet, he continued:
+
+"For a little space I waited. They had ascended the slope and halted.
+There was a shout, the waving of torches, then a silence. In it I heard
+the Master's voice, followed by a cry of pain. I hurried to where they
+were. They had him bound when I got there. I saw a soldier raising a hand
+to his ear and looking at the palm; it was red. Peter was running one way,
+Thomas another. I got nearer. Some one, a levite I think, caught me by the
+coat. I freed myself from it and escaped up the hill.
+
+"From there I looked down. They were going away. When they had gone, I
+went back and found my cloak. While I was putting it on, John appeared.
+'They are taking him to Caiaphas,' he said; 'I shall follow. Come with me
+if you wish.' I went with him. On the way we met Peter; he joined us. We
+walked single-file, John leading. Beyond I could see the lights of the
+torches, the glint of steel. No one spoke. Peter whimpered a little. We
+crossed the Kedron and got up into the city. The soldiers went directly to
+where Annas lives; they entered in a body, and the door closed. John
+rapped: it was opened. He said something to the doorkeeper, who admitted
+him. The door closed again. Peter and I waited a little, not knowing where
+to turn. Presently the door reopened, and John motioned us to come in. In
+the court was a fire; about it were servants and khazzans. I stopped a
+moment to warm my hands; Peter did the same. John had disappeared. I heard
+one of the khazzans say that they had taken the Master to Annas, and the
+others discuss what he would probably do. While I stood there listening,
+and wondering what had become of John, I saw the Master being led across
+the court to the Lishcath ha-Gazith. I left Peter, and followed. In the
+hall were the elders, ranged in a semicircle about Caiaphas. They must
+have been prepared beforehand, for the clerks of acquittal and of
+condemnation were there, the crier too, and a group of levites and
+Scribes. In a corner were some of Annas' servants. I got among them and
+stood unnoticed.
+
+"The Master's hands were bound. On either side of him was a soldier.
+Caiaphas was livid. He looked him from head to foot.
+
+" 'You are accused,' he said, 'of inciting sedition, of defying the Law,
+of blasphemy, and of breaking the Sabbath day. What have you to answer?'
+
+"The Master made no reply.
+
+"Caiaphas pointed to the levites. 'Here,' he continued, 'are witnesses.'
+
+"He motioned; one of them stepped forward and spoke.
+
+" 'I testify that this man has incited to sedition by denouncing the
+members of this reverend council as hypocrites, wolves in sheep's
+clothing, blind leaders of the blind; and I further testify that he has
+declared no one should follow them.'
+
+" 'What have you to say to that?' Caiaphas snarled. But the Master said
+nothing.
+
+"The first levite moved back, and at a gesture from the high-priest
+another stepped forward.
+
+" 'I testify that I have seen that man eat, in defiance of the Law, with
+unwashed hands, and consort with publicans and people of low repute.'
+
+" 'And what have you to say to that?' Caiaphas asked again. But still the
+Master said nothing.
+
+"The second levite moved back, and a third advanced.
+
+" 'I testify that I have heard that man blaspheme in calling God his
+father, and in declaring himself to be one with Him.'
+
+" 'Is that blasphemy or is it not?' Caiaphas bawled. But the Master's lips
+never moved.
+
+"The third levite gave way to a fourth.
+
+" 'I testify that that man has broken the Sabbath in healing the sick on
+that day, and further that he has seduced others to break it. On the
+Sabbath I have heard him order a cripple to take up his bed and carry it
+to his home. I have heard him also declare that he could destroy the
+Temple and rebuild it, in three days, anew.'
+
+"Caiaphas turned to the Master. 'Do you still refuse to answer?' he asked.
+'Do you think that silence can save you? Have you heard these witnesses?'
+
+"And as the Master still made no reply, Caiaphas lifted his hand and
+cried, 'I adjure you by the Eternal to answer, Are you the Messiah, the
+Son of God?'
+
+"In the breathless silence Jesus raised his eyes. He looked at the
+high-priest, at the levites, the Scribes. 'You have said it,' he murmured,
+and smiled with that air he has.
+
+"Caiaphas grew purple. He caught his gown at the throat and ripped it from
+neck to hem. The elders started. I heard them mutter, '_Ish maveth_.' The
+high-priest glanced toward them. 'You have heard this ragged blasphemy?'
+he exclaimed; and, turning to where the Scribes stood, 'What,' he asked,
+'does the Law decree concerning the Sabbath-breaker?'
+
+"One of them, the book unrolled in his hand, advanced and read:
+
+" 'Ye shall keep the Sabbath holy. Whoso does any work thereon shall be
+cut off from his people.'
+
+" 'And what of blasphemy?'
+
+"The Scribe glanced at the roll and repeated from memory: 'He that
+blasphemeth the name of the Lord shall be put to death. The congregation
+shall stone him, as well the stranger as he that was born in the land.'
+
+"Caiaphas closed the fingers on the palm of his left hand, and, raising
+it, turned again to the elders. '_Ish maveth_,' they repeated, closing
+their fingers as he had done.
+
+"I knew then that he was condemned. After all"--and Eleazer looked wearily
+to the ground--"it was legal enough. Each moment I expected him to give
+some sign, but, save to affirm the charge of blasphemy, during the entire
+time he kept silent. Yes, it was legal enough. From where I stood I heard
+the Scribes say that he would be sentenced at sunrise, and then Pilate
+would have a word with him. I could do nothing. Caiaphas still fumed. I
+went out in the court again. In the corridor was Judas. Peter was
+wrangling with the servants. I did not wait for more. I got away and into
+the valley and up again on the hill. A cock was crowing, and I saw the
+dawn. O Mary, the pity of it!"
+
+He looked at his sister. There was no weakness now in her face, nor beauty
+either. Age must have passed her in the night.
+
+"And I will have a word with Pilate too," she said.
+
+As a somnambulist might, she drew her mantle closer, and, moving to the
+wayside, ascended the hill. The silver and green of the olives closed
+around her, and with them the branching dates. Above, a star left by the
+morning glimmered feebly. In a myrtle a bird began to sing, and a lizard
+that had come out to intercept the sun scurried as she passed. Upward and
+onward still she went, and, the summit reached, for a moment she stopped
+and rested.
+
+To the east the Dead Sea lay, a stretch of silk. At its edge was the
+flutter of ospreys feasting on the barbels and breams of the Jordan, which
+as they enter, die. Beyond was a glitter of white and gold, the scarp of
+Moriah and its breast of stone, the Tyrian bevel of Solomon, the porphyry
+of Nehemiah, the marble that Herod gave; ascending terraces, engulfing
+porticoes, the splendor of Jerusalem at dawn. Between the houses nearest
+was the dimness that shadows cast; those further away had a scatter of
+pink; about it all was a wall surmounted by turrets; beneath was a ravine
+in which was a brook, and a city of booths and tents, grazing camels and
+fat-tailed sheep.
+
+Through the pines and cypresses Mary passed down to where the olives were.
+The brook sent a message to her; the blood that had flowed from the
+sacrifices was in it, and in the fresh morning it reeked a little, as such
+brooks do. It was here, she thought, the Master had been taken, and for a
+second she stopped again. The sun now was rising behind her; the color of
+the sky shifted. Beyond Jerusalem a mountain was melting in excesses of
+vermilion, and the ravine that had been gray was assuming the tenderest
+green. The star had disappeared, but from each tree broke the greeting of
+a bird.
+
+A rustle of the leaves near by startled her, and she looked about,
+fearful, as women are, of some beast of prey. A white robe was there, a
+white turban, and beneath it the swart face of one whom she had known.
+
+To her eyes came massacres. "Judas!" she exclaimed, and looked up in that
+roof of her world where day puts its blue and night puts its black.
+"Judas!" she repeated. Her small hands clenched, and the rhymes of her
+mouth grew venomous.
+
+Then the woman spoke in her. "Why did you not kill me first?"
+
+Judas swayed like an ox hit on the forehead. The motion distracted and
+irritated her. "Can't you speak," she cried, "or does hell hold you,
+tongue and all?"
+
+He raised a hand as though he feared another blow. The gesture was so
+human and yet so humble that Mary looked into his face. Time, which turns
+the sweet-eyed girl into a withered spectre, must have touched him with
+its thumb. His eyes were ringed and cavernous, his cheeks empty.
+
+"You have heard, then?" he said; but he evinced no curiosity. He spoke
+with the apathy of one who takes everything for granted, one with whom
+fate is to have its will. "I have just come from there," he added, with a
+backward gesture. "I never thought that such a thing could be. No, I swear
+it, I never did." Then, in answer perhaps to some inner twinge, perhaps
+also because of the expression of Mary's lips, he continued: "If there is
+a new oath, one that has never been used before, prompt me, and I will
+swear again, I never did. I thought----"
+
+Mary interrupted him savagely: "There are ten kinds of hypocrisy. You have
+nine of them; you will develop the tenth and invent a new one besides."
+
+At this Judas made a pass with his hands and stared absently at the
+ground. "Mary," he said, "life is a book which man reads when he dies.
+During the last hour I have been unrolling it. In its scroll I found
+existence a wine-shop where the guest fares so badly that he would go at
+once were it not that he fears to call for the reckoning. The reckoning,
+Mary, is death. I have called for it. I am about to pay. Let me tell you.
+I have no excuse to offer, no forgiveness now to await. My heart was a
+meadow: you made it stone. There were well-springs in it: you dried them,
+Mary. When I first saw you, you were a dream fulfilled. Others had brought
+echoes of life; you brought its song. It was then that I heard the Master
+speak. I followed him, and tried to forget. It must be that I failed, for
+when I saw you in Capharnahum my blood danced, and when you spoke I
+trembled. It was love, Mary; and love, when it is not death, is life. It
+was that I sought at your side. You would not listen. Innocence is a
+garment. You seemed to have wrapped it about you. I tried to tear it away.
+There was my fault, and this my punishment. Your right was inflexible as a
+prison-door, and yet always behind it was the murmur of a mysterious
+Perhaps. The others turned to me; I turned to you. I forgot again, but
+this time it was my duty, my allegiance, and my faith. Mary, I loved the
+Master more wholly even than I loved you. He was the Spirit; you were the
+flesh. In him was the future; in you the tomb. I thought to conquer both.
+While I mixed my darkness with his light, I pursued you as night pursues
+the day. On the light I have cast a shadow, and to you I have brought a
+blight. But, Mary, both will disappear. The one consolation I cling to now
+is that belief. When I delivered him up, it was myself I betrayed, not
+him. I am forever dead, and he forever living. While I bargained with the
+priests and pretended that my aim was coin, when I led the levites and the
+Temple-guard just here to where he stood, during all the hours since I
+left you, I tried to escape from that cage we call Fate. Mary, there is
+something about us higher than our will. The revenge I sought on you
+forsook me before I reached the city's gate. It is the intangible that has
+brought me where I am. I have sworn to you I never thought this thing
+could be. I swear it now again. In carrying out the threat I made, I
+thought to make you fear my hate and make him greater than he was. His
+enemies, I had seen, were many. Those that had believed in him grew daily
+less. In Jerusalem his miracles had ceased, and I thought that, when the
+levites and the Temple-guard approached, he would speak with Samuel's
+thunder, answer with Elijah's flame. I thought the stars would shake, the
+moon grow red; that he would produce the lost Urim, the vanished Ark, and
+so forever silence disbelief. I was wrong, and he was right. Belief is in
+the heart, not in the senses; the visible contradicts, but faith is not to
+be confuted. No, Mary, the tombs are not dumb. I said so once, I know, but
+they answer, and mine will speak. On it perhaps a caricature may be
+daubed, and about it prejudice will uncoil. I deserve it. Yet though you
+think me wholly base, remember no man is that. Since I met you my life has
+been a battle-field in which I have fought with conscience. It has
+conquered. I am its slave; it commands, and I obey."
+
+He drew a breath as though he had more to add, and turned to where she
+stood. There was no one there. From an olive-branch a red-start piped to
+the morning; over the buds of a pomegranate a bee buzzed its delight;
+across the leaves of a myrtle a blue spider was busy with its web, but
+Mary was no longer there. He peered through the underbrush, and wandered
+to the grove beyond. There was no one. He looked to the hill-top: there
+was the advancing sun. He looked in the valley: there were the pilgrims'
+booths, the grazing camels and fat-tailed sheep.
+
+"She has gone," he told himself. "She would not even listen."
+
+He bent his head. For the first time since boyhood the tears rolled down
+his face.
+
+"She might at least have heard me," he thought, and brushed the tears
+away. Others came and replaced them. When they had fallen, there were
+more.
+
+"Yes, she might at least have listened. If I had no excuse to offer, at
+least I had regret." For a moment he fancied her, cruel as only woman is,
+hurrying to some unknown goal. The tears he had tried to stanch ceased now
+abruptly. "She is right," he mused. "She has left me to conscience and to
+death."
+
+He turned again and went back to where he had stood before. As he crossed
+the intervening space he unloosed the long girdle which he wore, and from
+which still hung the treasury of the twelve. The bag that held it fell
+where the bee was buzzing. One end of the girdle he tossed over a branch;
+the red-start spread its wings and fled. He looked about. There was a
+stone near by; he got it and with a little labor rolled it beneath the
+branch. Then he made a noose, very carefully, that it might not come
+undone, and settling it well under the chin, he tied the other end of the
+girdle to it and swung himself from the stone.
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+                                   IX.
+
+
+In the apartment of Claudia Procula, Mary and the wife of the procurator
+stood face to face.
+
+The apartment itself overlooked Jerusalem. Beneath was an open space tiled
+with little oblong stones, red, yellow, and blue; the blue predominating.
+On either side the colossal white wings of the palace stretched to a park,
+very green in the sunlight, cut by colonnades in which fountains were, and
+surrounded by a marble wall that was starred with turrets and fluttered
+with doves. The Temple, which, from its cressets, radiated to the hills
+beyond a glare of gold, was not as fair nor yet as vast as this. Within
+its gates an army could manoeuvre; in its banquet-hall a cohort could have
+supped. It was Herod's triumph, built subsequent to the Temple, to show
+the world, perhaps, that to surpass a masterpiece he had only to conceive
+another.
+
+To it now and then, for a week or more, the procurator descended from his
+residence by the sea. He preferred the latter; the day was freer there,
+life less cramped. But during festival times, when the fanatic Jews were
+apt to be excited and need the chill of a curb, it was well for him and
+his soldiery to be on hand. And so on this occasion he had come, and with
+him his wife, Claudia Procula, and the tetrarch Antipas, who had joined
+them on the way.
+
+Antipas and his retinue occupied the AEgrippeum, the north wing of the
+palace, while in the Caesareum, the wing that leaned to the south, was
+Pilate, his wife and body-guard.
+
+And now on this clear morning the sweet-faced patrician, Claudia Procula,
+with perfectly feminine curiosity was looking into the drawn features of
+the Magdalen, and wondering whence her rumored charm could come.
+
+"I will do my best," she said, at last, in answer to an anterior request.
+And calling a servant, she wrote on a tablet a word for Pilate's eye.
+
+Mary moved to the portico. The variegated tiles of the quadrangle were
+nearly covered now. A flight of wide, low steps led to the main entrance
+of the palace, and there a high seat of enamelled ebony had been placed.
+In it Pilate sat, in his hand the staff of office. Beside him were his
+assessors, members of his suite, and Calcol, a centurion. On one of the
+steps Caiaphas stood, near him the elders of the college. Below was the
+Christ, bound and guarded. Across the quadrangle was a line of soldiery,
+behind it a mob.
+
+The helmets, glancing mail, short skirts, and bare legs of the Romans
+contrasted refreshingly with the blossoming garments, effeminate girdles,
+frontlets, and horned blue bonnets of the priesthood. And in the riot of
+color and glint of steel the Christ, bound as he was, looked, in the
+simplicity of his seamless robe, the descendant of a larger sphere. Above,
+to the left, Antipas, aroused by the clamor, leaned from a portico.
+Opposite where the sunlight fell Mary held her cloak about her.
+
+Caiaphas, a hand indicating Jesus, his head turned to Pilate, was
+formulating a complaint. Not indeed that the prisoner had declared himself
+a divinity. There were far too many gods in the menagerie of the Pantheon
+for a procurator to be the least disturbed at the rumor of a new one. It
+was the right to rule, that attribute of the Messiah, on which he intended
+the gravamen of the charge should rest. But he began circuitously, feeling
+the way, in Greek at that, with an accent which might have been improved.
+
+"And so," he concluded, "in many ways he has transgressed the Law."
+
+"Why don't you judge him by it, then?" asked Pilate, grimly.
+
+A servant approached with a tablet. The procurator glanced at it, looked
+up at the man, and motioned him away.
+
+"My lord governor, we have. The Sanhedrim, having found him guilty, has
+sentenced him to death. But the Sanhedrim, as you know, may not execute
+the sentence. The Senate has deprived us of that right. It is for you, as
+its legate, to order it done."
+
+Pilate sneered. "I can't very well, until I know of what he is guilty.
+What crime has he committed--written a letter on the Sabbath, or has he
+been caught without his phylacteries?"
+
+"He has declared himself Israel's king!"
+
+"Ah!" And Pilate smiled wearily. "You are always expecting one; why not
+take him?"
+
+"Why not, my lord? Because it is treason to do so."
+
+Pilate nodded with affected approval. "I admire your zeal." And with a
+glance at the prisoner, he added: "You have heard the accusation; defend
+yourself. What!" he continued, after a moment, "have you nothing to say?"
+
+Caiaphas exulted openly. The corners of his mouth had the width and
+cruelty, and his nostrils the dilation, of a wolf.
+
+"My lord," he cried, "his silence is an admission."
+
+"Hold your tongue! It is for me to question." And therewith Pilate gave
+the high-priest a look which was tantamount to a knee pressed on the
+midriff. He glanced again at the tablet, then at the prisoner.
+
+"Tell me, do you really claim to be king?"
+
+"Is it your idea of me?" the Christ asked; and in his bearing was a
+dignity which did not clash with the charge; "or have others prompted
+you?"
+
+"But I am not a Jew," Pilate retorted. "The matter only interests me
+officially. It is your hierarchy that bring the charge. Why have they?
+What have you done? Tell me," he continued, in Latin, "do you think
+yourself King?"
+
+"_Tu dixisti_," Jesus answered, and smiled as he had before, very gravely.
+"But my royalty is not of the earth." And with a glance at his bonds, one
+which was so significant that it annulled the charge, he added, still in
+Latin, "I am Truth, and I preach it."
+
+Pilate with skeptical indulgence shook his head. Truth to him was an
+elenchicism, an abstraction of the Platonists, whom in Rome he had
+respected for their wisdom and avoided with care. He turned to Caiaphas.
+The latter had been regretting the absence of an interpreter. This
+amicable conversation, which he did not understand, was not in the least
+to his liking, and as Pilate turned to him he frowned in his beard.
+
+"I am unable to find him guilty," the procurator announced. "He may call
+himself king, but every philosopher does the same. You might yourself, for
+that matter."
+
+"A philosopher, this mesith!" Caiaphas gnashed back. "Why, he seduces the
+people; he incites to sedition; he is a rebel to Rome. It is for you, my
+lord, to see the empire upheld. Would it be well to have another complaint
+laid before the Caesar? Ask yourself, is this Galilean worth it?"
+
+The thrust was as keen and as venomous as the tooth of a rat. Pilate had
+been rebuked by the emperor already; he had no wish to incur further
+displeasure. Sejanus, the emperor's favorite, to whom he owed his
+procuratorship, had for suspected treason been strangled in a dumb dungeon
+only a little before. Under Tiberius there was quiet, a future historian
+was to note; and Pilate was aware that, should a disturbance occur, the
+disturbance would be quelled, but at his expense.
+
+An idea presented itself. "Did I understand you to say he is a Galilean?"
+he asked.
+
+"Yes," Caiaphas answered, expecting, perhaps, the usual jibe that was
+flung at those who came from there. "Yes, he is a Nazarene."
+
+"Hm. In that case I have no jurisdiction. The tetrarch is my guest; take
+your prisoner to him."
+
+"My lord," the high-priest objected, "our law is such that if we enter the
+palace we cannot officiate at the Passover to-night."
+
+Pilate appeared to reflect. "I suppose," he said at last, "I might ask him
+whether he would care to come here. In which case," he added, with a
+gesture of elaborate courtesy, "you may remain uncontaminated where you
+are. Ressala!"
+
+An official stepped forward; an order was given; he disappeared. Presently
+a massive throne of sandalwood and gold was trundled out. Caiaphas had
+seen it before, and in it--Herod.
+
+"The justice that comes from there," he muttered, "is as a snake that
+issues from a tomb."
+
+His words were drowned in the clamors of the crowd. The sun had crossed
+the zenith; in its rays the waters that gushed from the fountain-mouths of
+bronze lions fell in rainbows and glistened in great basins that glistened
+too. There was sunlight everywhere, a sky of untroubled blue, and from the
+Temple beyond came a glare that radiated from Olivet to Bethlehem.
+
+Pilate was bored. The mantle which Mary wore caught his eye, and he looked
+at her, wondering how she came in his wife's apartment, and where he had
+seen her before. Her face was familiar, but the setting vague. Then at
+once he remembered. It was at Machaerus he had seen her, gambling with the
+emir, while Salome danced. She was with Antipas, of course. He looked
+again; she had gone.
+
+The Sanhedrim consulted nervously. The new turn of affairs was not at all
+to their liking. The clamors of the mob continued. Once a fanatic pushed
+against a soldier. There was a thud, a howl, and a mouth masked with
+liquid red gasped to the sun and was seen no more.
+
+Behind the procurator came a movement. The officials massed about the
+entrance parted in uneven ranks, and in the great vestibule beyond,
+Antipas appeared. Pilate rose to greet him. The elders made obeisance. The
+tetrarch moved forward and seated himself in his father's throne. At his
+side was Pahul, the butler, balancing himself flamingowise on one leg, his
+bold eyes foraging the priests.
+
+Caiaphas formulated the complaint anew, very majestically this time, and,
+thinking perhaps to overawe the tetrarch, his voice assumed the authority
+of a guardian of the keys of heaven, a chamberlain of the sceptres of the
+earth.
+
+Antipas ignored him utterly. He plucked at his fan-shaped beard, and
+stared at the Christ. He could see now he bore no resemblance to Iohanan.
+There was nothing of the hyena about him, nor of the prophet either.
+Evidently he was but a harmless vagabond, skilled in simples, if report
+were true; perhaps a thaumaturge. And it was he whom he had feared and
+fancied might be that Son of David for whom a star was created, whom the
+magi had visited, whom his father had sought to destroy, and whom now from
+his father's own throne he himself was called upon to judge! He shook his
+head, and in the sunlight the indigo with which his hair was powdered made
+bright blue motes.
+
+"I say----"
+
+Just beyond, where the assessors stood, Mary suddenly appeared. He stopped
+abruptly; for more than a year he had not seen her. Pahul had told him she
+had gone to Rome. If she had, he reflected, the journey had not improved
+her appearance. Then for the moment he dismissed her, and returned to the
+Christ.
+
+"See here: somebody the other day told me you worked miracles. I have
+wanted to see one all my life. Gratify me, won't you? Oh, something very
+easy to begin with. Send one of the guards up in the air, or turn your
+bonds into bracelets."
+
+The Christ did not seem to hear. Pahul laughed and held to the throne for
+support. Antipas shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He looks harmless enough," he said. "Why not let him go?"
+
+Caiaphas glowered, and his fingers twitched. "He claims to be king!"
+
+At this statement the tetrarch laughed too. He gave an order to Pahul, who
+vanished with a grin.
+
+"He has jeered at the Temple your father built," Caiaphas continued. "He
+has declared he could destroy it and rebuild a better one, in three days
+at that."
+
+"He is king, then, but of fools."
+
+"And he has called you a fox," Caiaphas added, significantly.
+
+"He doesn't claim to be one himself, does he?"
+
+"He is guilty of treason, and it is for you, his ruler, to sentence him."
+
+"Not I. The blood of kings is sacred. Pahul, make haste!"
+
+The butler, reappearing, held in his hand the glittering white vestment of
+a candidate. The tetrarch took it and held it in air.
+
+"Here, put this on him, and let his subjects admire him to their hearts'
+content."
+
+"Antipas, you disgrace your purple!"
+
+At the exclamation, the Sanhedrim, the guards, the assessors, the
+officials, Pilate himself, everyone save the prisoner, turned and looked.
+On the colored pavement Mary stood, her face very pale.
+
+The tetrarch flushed mightily; anger mounted into his shifting eyes. For a
+moment the sky was blood-red; then he recovered himself and answered
+lightly:
+
+"It seems to me, my dear, that you take things with a high hand. It may be
+that you forget yourself."
+
+"I take them from where I am," she cried. "As for forgetfulness, remember
+that my grandfather was satrap of Syria, my father after him, while
+yours----"
+
+"Yes, yes, I dare say. He is not in power now; I am."
+
+"Not here, Antipas, nor in Rome. I appeal to Pilate."
+
+The tetrarch rose from the throne. The elders whispered together. Pilate
+visibly was perplexed. Remembering Mary as he did, he looked upon the
+incident as a family quarrel, one in which it would be unseemly for him to
+interfere, and which none the less disturbed the decorum of his court.
+
+Caiaphas edged up to the tetrarch, but the latter brushed him aside.
+
+"The hetaira is right," he exclaimed. "I am not in power here. If I were,
+she should be lapidated."
+
+And, preceded by the butler, Antipas passed through the parting ranks to
+the vestibule beyond.
+
+The perplexity of the procurator increased. He did not in the least
+understand. To him Mary stood in the same relation to Antipas that
+Cleopatra had to Herod. There had been a feud between the tetrarch and
+himself, one recently mended, and which he had no wish to renew. Yet
+manifestly Antipas was aggrieved, and his own path in the matter by no
+means clear.
+
+"Bah!" he muttered, in the consoling undertone of thought, "what are their
+beastly barbarian manners to me?"
+
+These reflections Caiaphas interrupted.
+
+"We are waiting, my lord, for the sentence to be pronounced."
+
+The tone he used was not, however, indicative of patience, and in
+conjunction with the incident that had just occurred it irritated and
+jarred. Besides, Pilate did not care to be prompted. It was for him to
+speak first. He strangled an oath, and, gathering some fringe of the
+majesty of Rome, he announced very measuredly:
+
+"You have brought this man before me as a rebel. I have examined him and
+find no ground for the charge. His ruler, the tetrarch, has also examined
+him, and by him too he has been acquitted. But in view of the fact that he
+appears to have contravened some one or another of your laws I order him
+to be scourged and to be liberated."
+
+With that he turned to the prisoner. During the entire proceedings the
+attitude of Jesus had not altered. He stood as a disinterested spectator
+might--one whom chance had brought that way and there hemmed in--his eyes on
+remote, inaccessible horizons, the tongue silent, the head a little
+raised.
+
+"Scourging, my lord," Caiaphas interjected, "is fit and proper, but," he
+continued, one silk-gloved hand uplifted, "our law prescribes death. Only
+an enemy to Tiberius would prevent it."
+
+At the veiled menace Pilate gnawed his under lip. He had no faith at all
+in the loyalty of the hierarch; at any other time the affection the latter
+manifested for the chains he bore would have been ludicrous and nothing
+else. But at the moment he felt insecure. There were Galileans whom he had
+sacrificed, Judaeans whom he had slaughtered, Samaritans whom he had
+oppressed, an embassy might even now be on its way to Rome; he thought
+again of Sejanus, and, with cause, he hesitated. Yet of the inward
+perturbation he gave no outward sign.
+
+"On this day," he said at last, "it is customary that in commemoration of
+your nation's delivery out of Egypt I should release a prisoner to you.
+There are three others here, among them Jesus Barabba."
+
+Then, for support perhaps, he looked over at the clamoring mob.
+
+"I will leave the choice to the people."
+
+A wind seemed to raise the elders; they scattered through the court like
+leaves. "Have done with the Nazarene," cried one. "He would lead you
+astray," insinuated another. "He has violated the Law," exclaimed a third.
+
+And, filtering through the soldiery into the mob without, they exhorted
+and prayed and coerced. "Ask for Barabba; denounce the blasphemer. Trust
+to the Sanhedrim. We are your guides. Let him atone for his crimes. The
+God of your fathers commands that you condemn. Demand Barabba; uphold your
+nation. To the cross with the Nazarene!"
+
+"Whom do you choose?" shouted Pilate.
+
+And the pleb of Jerusalem shouted back as one man, "Barabba!"
+
+At the moment Pilate fancied himself in an amphitheatre, the arena filled
+with beasts. There were the satin and stripes of the panther, the yellow
+of treacherous eyes, the gnash of fangs, the guttural rumble, the
+deafening yell, the scent of blood, and above, the same blue tender sky.
+
+"What of the prisoner?" he called.
+
+A roar leapt back. "Sekaph! Sekaph! Let him be crucified."
+
+Pilate had fronted a rabble before, and in two minutes had turned that
+rabble into so many dead flies, the legs in the air. He shook his head,
+and told himself he was not there to be coerced.
+
+"Release Barabba," he ordered. "And as for the prisoner, take him to the
+barracks and have him scourged."
+
+"Brute!" cried a voice that lifted him as a blow might from his ebony
+chair. "Pilate, though you are a plebeian, why show yourself a slave?"
+
+And Mary, with the strength of anger, brushed through the encircling
+officials and towered before him, robed in wrath.
+
+"Ah, permit me," he answered; "you are singularly unjust."
+
+"Prove me so, and countermand the order that you gave."
+
+As she spoke she adjusted her mantle, which had become disarranged, and
+looked him from head to foot, measuring him as it were, and finding him,
+visibly, very small.
+
+Already the prisoner had been led away, and beyond, in the barracks, was
+the whiz of jagged leather that lacerated, rebounded, and lacerated again.
+
+"I will not," he answered. "What I have ordered, I have ordered. As for
+you----"
+
+There had come to her that look which sibyls have. "Pilate," she
+interrupted, "you are powerful here, I know, but"--and her hand shot out
+like an arrow from a bow--"over there vultures are circling; in your power
+is a corpse. What the vultures scent, I see."
+
+So abrupt and earnest was the gesture that unconsciously Pilate found
+himself looking to where she seemed to point. He lowered his eyes in
+vexation. Wrangling with a woman was not to his taste.
+
+"There, there," he said, much as one might to a fretful child; "don't
+throw stones."
+
+"I have but one; it is Justice, and that I keep to hurl at you."
+
+The procurator's mouth twitched ominously. "My dear," he said, "you are
+too pretty to talk that way; it spoils the looks. Besides, I have no time
+to listen."
+
+"Tiberius has and will."
+
+Pilate nodded; it was the third time he had heard the threat that day.
+
+"There are many rooms in his palace," he answered, with covert
+significance.
+
+"Yes, I know it. There are many, as you say. But there is one I will
+enter. On the door stands written The Future, and behind it, Pilate, is
+your death."
+
+The Roman, goaded to exasperation, sprang to his feet. An expression which
+Antipas had used occurred to him. "Away with the hetaira," he cried; and
+he was about, it may be, to order her to be tossed to the fierce wild
+swine in the paddocks of the park when the prisoner and his guards
+reappeared on the tessellated pavement, and Mary, already dragged from
+him, was instantly forgot.
+
+A tattered sagum, which had once been scarlet, but which had faded since,
+hung, detained at the shoulder by a rusty buckle, and bordered by a
+laticlave, loosely about his form. In his hand a bulrush swayed; on his
+head was a twisted coil of bear's-breech, in which, among the ruffled
+leaves, one bud remained; it was white, the opening edges flecked with
+pink, perhaps with blood, for from the temples and about the ear a rill
+ran down and mixed with the purple of the laticlave below. And in this red
+parody of kingship the Christ stood, unmoved as a phantom, but in his face
+and eyes there was a projecting light so luminous, so intangible, and yet
+so real, that the skeptical procurator started, the staff of office
+pendent in his grasp.
+
+"Ecce homo!" he exclaimed. Instinctively he drew back, and, wonderingly,
+half to himself, half to the Christ, "Who are you?" he asked.
+
+"A flame below, a soul above," Jesus answered, yet so inaudibly that the
+guards beside him did not catch the words.
+
+To Pilate his lips had barely moved, and his wonderment increased. "Why do
+you not answer?" he said. "You must know that I have the power to condemn
+and to acquit."
+
+With that gentleness that was the flower of his parables Jesus raised his
+voice. "No," he replied, "you can have no power against me unless it come
+from above."
+
+Again Pilate drew back. Unsummoned to his lips had sprung the words,
+"Behold the man!" and now he exclaimed, "Behold the king!"
+
+But to the mob the vision he intercepted was lost. They saw the jest
+merely, and with it the stains that torture leaves. The sight of blood is
+heady; it inebriates more surely than wine. The mob, trained by the
+elders, and used by them as a body-guard, fanatic before, were intoxicated
+now. With one accord they shrieked the liturgy again.
+
+"Sekaph! Sekaph! Let him be crucified."
+
+In that gust of hatred Pilate recovered. He turned to Caiaphas:
+
+"I have released one prisoner; I will release another too."
+
+"My lord, be warned by one who is your elder."
+
+"One whom I can remove."
+
+"No doubt, my lord; but suffer him while he may to warn you not to cause a
+revolution on the day of the Paschal feast. You hear that multitude. Then
+be warned."
+
+"But your feast is one of mercy."
+
+The high-priest gazed curiously at his silk-gloved hands. You would have
+said they were objects he had never seen before. Then he returned the
+procurator's stare.
+
+"We know of no such god."
+
+"Ah!" And the procurator drew a long breath of understanding. "It is that,
+I believe, he preaches."
+
+"And it is for that," Caiaphas echoed, "that he must die. Yes, Pilate, it
+is for that. There is no such doctrine in the Pentateuch. We have done our
+duty. We have convicted a rebel of his guilt. We have brought him to you,
+and we demand his sentence. Pilate, it is not so very long ago you had
+hundreds massacred without judgment, without trial either, and for
+what?--for one rebellious cry. You must have a reason for the favor you
+show this man. It would interest me to learn it; it would interest
+Tiberius as well. Listen to that multitude. If you pay no heed to our
+accusation nor yet to their demand, on you the consequences rest. We are
+absolved."
+
+"He is your king," the procurator objected, meditatively.
+
+Caiaphas wheeled like a feather a breeze has caught. One hand outstretched
+he held to the mob, with the other he pointed to the Christ.
+
+"Our king!" he cried. "The procurator says he is our king!"
+
+As the thunder peals, a roar surged back:
+
+"We have no other king than Caesar."
+
+"Think of Sejanus," the high-priest suggested. The thrust was so well
+timed it told.
+
+Pilate looked sullenly about. "Fetch me water," he ordered.
+
+A silver bowl was brought, and borrowing a custom from the Jews he
+loathed, he dipped his fingers in it.
+
+"I wash my hands of it all," he muttered.
+
+Caiaphas looked at the elders and sighed with infinite relief. He had
+conquered. For the first time that day he smiled. He became gracious also,
+and he bowed.
+
+"The blood be upon us, my lord, and on our children. Will you give the
+order?"
+
+"Calcol!"
+
+The centurion approached. An order was given him in an undertone, and as
+he turned to the guards, Pilate drew the staff of office across his knee,
+snapped it in two, tossed the pieces to the ground, and through the ranks
+of his servitors passed on into the great blue vestibule beyond.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X.
+
+
+                                    X.
+
+
+In a sook near the Gannath Gate Mary stood. In the distance the palace of
+Herod defied the sun. Beyond the gate lay the Hennom Valley, the Geia
+Hennom, contracted by the people into Ge' Hennom, or Gehenna, and
+converted by them into a sewer, a place where carrion was thrown, and the
+filth of a great city. In earlier days children had been immolated to
+Moloch there, human victims had been burned; it was a place accursed, and
+to purify the air, as a safeguard against pestilence, the offal was
+consumed by bonfires that were constantly renewed and never extinguished.
+At its extremity was an elevation, a hilly contour which to the popular
+fancy suggested a skull. To the west it fell steeply away. It was called
+Guelgolta.
+
+The sook in which Mary stood was affected by shoemakers. Against the
+dwelling of one of them she leaned. The mantle was gone from her now, and
+the olive robe had a rent, but the splendor of her hair fell unconfined,
+the perils of her eyes had increased; yet in their depths where love had
+been was hate. One arm lay along the resisting stone, the other hung at
+her side; her face was turned to the palace, her thin nostrils quivering,
+her breath coming and going with that spasmodic irregularity which the
+consciousness of outrage brings. She laid it all to Judas; he must have
+returned to Kerioth, she thought. The sook itself was silent, stirred
+merely by some echo of the uproar in the palace beyond.
+
+From a grilled lattice near by an old man peered out. He had the restless
+eyes of a ferret, and a white beard that was very long. He too was looking
+toward the palace. Now and then he muttered inaudibly in Aramaic to
+himself. In the shadow of a neighboring house a woman appeared; he shook
+at the lattice as an ape does at the bars of a cage, and spat a bestial
+insult at her. The woman shrank back. Instinctively Mary turned. In the
+retreating figure she recognized Ahulah, and at once, without conscious
+effort, she divined that the dwelling against which she leaned was that of
+Baba Barbulah, the husband of the woman whom the Master had declined to
+condemn.
+
+But other things possessed her--the outrage to the Christ, perplexity as to
+how the trial would result, more remotely the indignity to herself, the
+slurs of the tetrarch and of the procurator; and with them, sapping her
+heart as fever might, was that thirst for reparation, unquenchable in its
+intensity, which comes to those who have seen their own life wrecked and
+its ideals dispersed.
+
+Already Ahulah was forgot. On the wings of vagabond fancy she was in Rome,
+demanding vengeance of Tiberius, wresting it from him by the sheer force
+of entreaty, and with it exulting in the death-throes of the procurator.
+Oh, to see his nails pulled out, his outer skin removed, his tongue
+severed, his eyes seared with irons, his wrists slowly twisted till they
+snapped! to hear him cry for mercy! to promise it and not fulfil!--dear
+God, what joy was there!
+
+From the alley into which Ahulah had shrunk a man issued. He was sturdy as
+a bludgeon, and he had a growth of thick black hair that curled about an
+honest face. In his hand was a basket. At the sight of Mary his steps
+hesitated, and his eyes followed hers to where the palace lay. Then he
+crossed the zigzag of the intervening space, but he had to touch her
+outstretched arm before she noticed him.
+
+"Simon!" she exclaimed, with that start one has when suddenly awaked.
+
+"Yes, Simon indeed;" and through the silence of the sook his clear laugh
+rang. "I frightened you, did I not?"
+
+Mary interrupted him. "Haven't you heard? Has not Eleazer told you----"
+
+"When I left Bethany he was sleeping with both fists closed. Martha----"
+
+"The Master is arrested. Last night he was before the Sanhedrim; he is
+before the procurator now."
+
+Hurriedly Mary gave an account of what had occurred. As the recital
+continued, Simon's expression grew darker than his curling hair, he
+clutched at the basket which he held, so tightly that the handle severed,
+the basket fell, and fruit that imprisoned the sunlight rolled on the
+ground.
+
+"They were for the Master," he said. "I thought he would sup with us
+to-night."
+
+"He may do so yet," she answered. "Perhaps----"
+
+"Never!" cried a voice from the lattice. "They are leading him to Guelgolta
+now."
+
+Beyond, through the palace gate, a mass undulated, the body elongated,
+expanding as it moved. It was black, but at the sides was the glisten that
+cobras have. About it dust circled, and from it came the rumble of thunder
+heard afar. As the bulk increased, the roar deepened; the black lessened
+into varying hues. To the glisten came the glint of steel; the cobra
+changed into a multitude, the escort of a squad of soldiery, fronted by a
+centurion and led by the banner of Imperial Rome.
+
+Behind the centurion, Jesus, in his faded sagum, staggered, overweighted
+by the burden of a cross. Two comrades in misery were at his side, but
+they moved with steadier step, bearing their crosses with the brawn of
+muscular and untired arms. The soldiers marched impassibly, preceding the
+executioners--four stalwart Cypriotes, distinguishable by the fatness of
+their calves--while behind was the Sanhedrim, and, extending indefinitely
+to the rear, the rabble of yelling Jews.
+
+In a cobra's coils is death, its eyes transfix. Neither Mary nor Simon had
+spoken, and now, as the soldiery was upon them, they leaned yet nearer the
+wall. For a moment Mary hid her face. At her feet the Christ had fallen,
+and from her came one wail, choked down at once. She stooped to aid him,
+but he stood up unassisted and reached to the wall for support.
+
+The bars of the lattice shook; the old man peered out.
+
+"Don't touch my house, you vagabond! Move on!" he cried.
+
+Calcol had turned to Simon, who was raising the cross. "Carry it for him,"
+he commanded.
+
+Baba Barbulah still shook at the lattice. "Move on!" he repeated. "Seducer
+of the people, remitter of sins, upholder of adultery, move on; don't
+touch my house, it will fall down on you! Move on, I say!"
+
+Calcol's command Simon had anticipated. He shouldered the cross. It was
+heavier to him than to the Christ, not in weight, perhaps, but in purpose.
+In the narrowness of the sook the crowd was impeded, but from the rear
+they pushed, surprised at the halt.
+
+Mary sprang at the lattice. "It is you that shall move on," she cried;
+"yes, you; and forever. The desert will call to you, 'March;' and the sea
+will snarl, 'Further yet.' The gates of cities will deny you, and the
+doors of hamlets be closed. The eagles may return to their eyrie, the
+panthers retreat to their lair, but you will have no home, no rest, and,
+till time dies, no tomb."
+
+The old man gnashed back at her an insult more bestial than he used
+before, and spat at her through the bars. But Mary had turned to the
+Christ. He was surrounded now by some women who had filtered through the
+alley above. Johanna, Mary Clopas, the wife of Zebdia, and Bernice, a
+fragile girl newly enrolled. The latter was wiping from his face the
+stains of blood and dust. The others were beating their breasts, crying
+aloud.
+
+Of the disciples there was no trace, nor yet of any of those who had
+greeted him as the Messiah. It may be that the admiring throngs that had
+gathered about him had faded before a superior force. It may be they had
+lost heart, belief perhaps as well. Invective never propitiates. Recently
+he had omitted to prophesy, he argued. The exquisite parables with which
+he had been wont to charm even the recalcitrant seemed to have been put
+aside, and with them those wonders which rumor held him to have worked.
+But now that pathos and grace which endeared, that perfection of sentiment
+and expression which exalted the heart, returned to him, accentuated
+perhaps by the agonies he had endured.
+
+"Weep for me no more," he entreated. "But weep for yourselves and for your
+children. The days are coming," he added, with a gesture at the impatient
+mob--"the days are coming in which they shall say to the mountains, Fall on
+us; to the hills, Cover us. For if these things are done in the green
+tree, what will be done in the dry?"
+
+And in this entreaty, in which he exhorted them to view disaster otherwise
+than from the external and evanescent aspect, the voice of the prophet
+rang once more.
+
+Mary as yet had not realized the full portent of the soldiery and the mob.
+When it was approaching it had occurred to her that it might be another
+triumphal escort, such as she had once seen surround him on his way to a
+feast. As it advanced, the roar bewildered, and she had ceased to
+conjecture; then the Master had fallen, and the old Jew had vomited his
+slime. At the moment it was that, and that only, which had impressed her,
+and she had answered with the force of that new strength which suddenly
+she had found. But now at the sight of the women beating their breasts,
+and the blood-stained face of the Master, an inkling came to her; she
+stared open-mouthed at the cross, at Calcol, and at the executioners that
+were there.
+
+Then immediately that horrible longing to know the worst beset her, and
+she darted to where the centurion stood.
+
+"What is it?" she gasped. "What are you to do with him?"
+
+By way of answer Calcol extended his arms straight out from either side,
+his head thrown back. He was a good-natured ruffian, with clear and
+pleasant eyes.
+
+"Not crucify?" she cried. "Tell me, it is not that?"
+
+Calcol nodded. To him one Jew more, one Jew less, was immaterial, provided
+he had his pay, and the prospect of a return to Rome was not too long
+delayed. Yet none the less in some misty way he wondered why this woman,
+with her splendid hair and scorching eyes, should have upbraided the
+tetrarch and abused the procurator because of the friendless Galilean whom
+he was leading to the cross. Woman to him, however, was, as she has been
+to others wiser than he, an enigma he failed to solve. And so he nodded
+merely, not unkindly, and smiled in Mary's face.
+
+The horrible longing now was stilled. She knew the worst; yet as the
+knowledge of it penetrated her being, it seemed to her as though it could
+not be true, that she was the plaything of some hallucination, her mind
+inhabited by a nightmare from which she must presently awake. The howl of
+the impatient mob undeceived her. It was real; it was actual; it was life.
+She stared at Calcol, her fair mouth agape. There were many things she
+wanted to say; her thoughts teemed with arguments, her mind with
+persuasions; but she could utter nothing; she was as one struck dumb; and
+it was not until the centurion smiled that the spell dissolved and the
+power of speech returned.
+
+"Ah, _that_ never; you shall kill me first!" she cried. And already she
+saw herself circumventing the centurion, blinding the soldiery, defying
+the mob, and leading the Master through byways and underground passages
+out of the accursed city into the fresh glades of Gethsemane, over the
+hill, down the hollows to the Jordan, and into the desert beyond. There
+was one spot she knew very well; one that only a bird could find; one that
+she would mention to no one, but to which she could take him and keep him
+hidden there in the brakes till night came, and the fording of the river
+was safe.
+
+"That never!" she cried. And brushing Bernice off, she caught the Master
+by the cloak. "Come with me," she murmured. "I know a way----"
+
+And she would have dragged him perhaps, regardless of the others, but the
+centurion had her by the arm.
+
+"See here, my pretty friend, your place is not here."
+
+With a twist he sent her spinning back to Baba Barbulah's wall.
+
+"March!" he ordered.
+
+The soldiery, disarranged, fell in line. The two robbers picked up their
+burden. The Master turned to Mary, to the others as well, with that
+expression which he alone possessed, that look which both promised and
+assuaged, and, it may be, would have said some word of encouragement, but
+Mary was at his side again, her hand upon his cloak.
+
+"It shall never be," she repeated. "They must kill me first."
+
+Calcol wheeled. His short sword glistened, reversed, and her cheek was
+laid open by the hilt. She staggered back. The soldiery moved on. The
+women surrounded her and stanched the wound. To her the blow held the
+difference between a cut and a cancer; she knew that it could never heal;
+and, as the blood poured down her face, for the first time she divined the
+uselessness of revolt.
+
+Presently a wave of the mob caught her, separating her from the other
+women, and carrying her in its eddy through the gate, into the valley and
+on to the hillock beyond. On one side were the glimmer of fires, the smell
+of smoke, of offal too. On the infrequent trees vultures perched. To the
+right was a nest of gardens and of tombs.
+
+In the eddies Mary lost foothold and lagged a little to the rear. When she
+reached Guelgolta the soldiery had formed three sides of a square. In it
+were the executioners, the prisoners, and the centurion. At the place
+where a fourth side might have been a steep decline began.
+
+Within the square three crosses lay; before them the prisoners stood,
+stripped of their clothing now, and naked.
+
+The Sanhedrim was grouped about that side of the square which leaned to
+the south, the horned bonnet of Caiaphas towering its lacework above the
+others. To the wide and cruel corners of his mouth had come the calm of a
+cheetah devouring its prey. At the outer angle, to the right, the standard
+of the empire swayed; and from an oak two vultures soared with a scream
+into the air, their eyes fixed on the vision of bare white flesh.
+
+Through the ranks an elder passed. In his hand was a gourd, which he
+offered to one of the thieves.
+
+"Drink of it, Dysmas," he invited. "In it grains of frankincense have been
+dissolved."
+
+To the rear Annas nodded his approval. His lean, lank jaws parted. "Give
+strong drink," he announced, authoritatively; "give strong and heady drink
+to those about to die, and wine to those that sorrow."
+
+Dysmas drank abundantly of the soporific, and held the gourd to his
+comrade.
+
+"Take it, Stegas."
+
+As the second thief raised it to his lips, with a motion of arm and knee
+an executioner caught Dysmas beneath the chin, behind the leg, and the
+thief lay on a cross. In a second his wrists were bound, his feet as well.
+There was the blow of a hammer on a nail, a spurt of blood from the open
+hand; another blow, another spurt; and the cross, upraised, settled in a
+cavity already prepared, a beam behind it for support.
+
+Stegas, his thirst slaked, fell as Dysmas had, and the elder caught the
+gourd and offered it to the Christ. If he had been tempted in the desert,
+as rumor alleged, the temptation could have been as nothing in comparison
+to the enticements of that cup. It held relief from thought, from the
+acutest pain that flesh can know, from life, from death.
+
+He waved it aside. The executioner started with surprise; but he had his
+duty to perform, and, recovering himself, he caught the Christ, and in a
+moment he too was down, his hands transfixed, the cross upraised. The
+blood dripped leisurely on the sand beneath. Across his features a shadow
+passed and vanished. His lips moved.
+
+"Father," he murmured, "forgive them; they know not what they do."
+
+Calcol gave an order. Over the heads of Dysmas and of Stegas the sanis
+were affixed, wooden tablets smeared with gypsum, bearing the name of the
+crucified and with it the offence. They were simple and terse; but above
+the Christ appeared a legend in three tongues, in Aramaic, in Greek, and
+in Latin:
+
+                       [Aramaic: Malka di Jehudaje]
+
+                        _{~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH VARIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMEGA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}._
+
+                              Rex Judaeorum.
+
+Caiaphas sprang back as from the point of a sword.
+
+"Malka di Jehudaje!" he bellowed. "King of the Jews! It is a blasphemy, an
+iniquity, and an outrage. Centurion, tear it down."
+
+Calcol shrugged his shoulders, and pointed to the palace. "What the
+procurator has written he has written," he answered.
+
+In the tone, in the gesture that preceded it, and in its impertinence
+Caiaphas read Pilate's one yet supreme revenge, the expression of his
+absolute contempt for the whole Sanhedrim and the nation that it ruled.
+
+From the rear the mob jumped at the title as at a catchword. To them the
+irony of the procurator presumably was lost.
+
+"King of the Jews!" they shouted. "Malka di Jehudaje, come down from your
+cross!"
+
+It was a great festival, and as they jeered at Jesus they enjoyed
+themselves hugely.
+
+In their vast delight the voice of Stegas was drowned.
+
+"I am a Roman citizen," he kept repeating, his head swaying, and
+indicating with his eyes the wounds in his hands, the torture he endured.
+"Kill me," he implored. And finding entreaty idle, he reviled the
+centurion, cursed the soldiery, and would have spat at them, but to his
+burning throat no spittle came.
+
+The tongue of Dysmas lolled from his mouth. He had not the ability to
+speak, even if in speech relief could come. Flame licked at his flesh, his
+joints were severing, each artery was a nerve exposed, and something was
+crunching his brain. He could no longer groan; he could suffer merely,
+such suffering as hell perhaps has failed to contrive, that apogee of
+agony which it was left for man to devise.
+
+Stegas, catching the refrain the mob repeated, turned his eyes from the
+soldiery to the adjacent cross.
+
+"If you are as they say," he cried, "save yourself and us."
+
+As a taunt to Caiaphas, Calcol echoed, "Behold your king!" and raising a
+stalk of hyssop, on which was a sponge that he had dipped in the posca,
+the thin wine the soldiers drink, he offered it to the Christ.
+
+The sun was nearing the horizon. Caiaphas gathered his ample folds about
+him. He had seen enough. The feast, wretchedly embittered, was nearly
+done. There was another at which he must officiate: the shofa presently
+would sound; the skewering of the Paschal lamb it was needful for him to
+superintend. It was time, he knew, to return to the Temple; and as he gave
+a last indignant look at the placard, the lips of the Christ parted to one
+despairing cry:
+
+"Eli, Eli, lemah shebaktani?"
+
+Caiaphas, nodding to the elders, smiled with satisfaction.
+
+At last the false pretender was forced to acknowledge the invalidity of
+his claims. The Father whose son he vaunted himself to be had disowned him
+when his recognition was needed, if ever it had been needed at all. And
+so, with the smile of one whose labor has had its recompense, Caiaphas
+patted his skirt, and the elders about him strolled back through the
+Gannath Gate to the Temple that awaited him.
+
+The multitude meanwhile had decreased. To the crowd also the Temple had
+its attractions, its duties, and its offices. Moreover, the spectacle was
+at an end. With a blow of the mallet the legs of the thieves had been
+broken. They had died without a shriek, a thing to be regretted. The
+Galilean too, pierced by the level stroke of a spear, had succumbed
+without a word. Sundown was approaching. Clearly it was best to be within
+the walls where other gayeties were. The mob dispersed, leaving behind but
+the dead, the circling vultures, a group of soldiers throwing dice for the
+garments of the crucified, and, remotely, a group of women huddled beneath
+a protecting oak.
+
+During the hour or two that intervened, the force which had visited Mary
+evaporated in strength overtaxed. She was conscious only that she
+suffocated. The words of the women that had drawn her to them were empty
+as blanks in a dream; the jeers of the mob vacant as an empty bier. To but
+one thing was she alive, the fact that death could be. Little by little,
+as the impossible merged into the actual, the understanding came to her
+that the worst that could be had been done, and she ceased to suffer. The
+departing hierarchy, the dispersing mob, retreating before encroaching
+night, left her unimpressed. To her the setting sun was Christ.
+
+The soldiers passed. She did not see them. Calcol called to her. She did
+not hear. The women had gone from her; she did not notice it. She stood as
+a cataleptic might, her eyes on the cross. Once only, when the Christ had
+uttered his despairing cry, she too had cried in her despair. In the roar
+of the mob the cry was lost as a stone tossed in the sea. Since then she
+had been dumb, sightless also, existing, if at all, unconsciously, her
+life-springs nourished by death.
+
+Though she gazed at the cross, she had ceased to distinguish it. A little
+group that had reached it before the soldiery left had been unmarked by
+her. On the platform of her dream a serpent had emerged. In its coils were
+her immortal hopes. It was that she saw, and that alone. Those moments of
+agony in which the imagination oscillates between the past and the future,
+devouring the one, fumbling the other, had been endured, and resignation
+failed to bring its balm. She had believed with a faith so firm that now
+in its demolition there was nothing left--an abyss merely, where light was
+not.
+
+A hand touched her, and she quivered as a leaf does at the wing of a bird.
+"Mary, come with us," some one was saying; "we are taking him to a tomb."
+
+Just beyond were men and women whom she knew. Joseph of Haramathaim, a
+close follower of the Master; Nikodemon, the richest man in all Judaea;
+Johanna, Mary Clopas, Salome, Bernice, and the servants of the opulent
+Jew. It was Ahulah who had touched her; and as Mary started she saw before
+her a coffin which the others bore.
+
+"Come with us," Ahulah repeated; and Mary crossed the intervening ridge to
+where the gardens were and the tombs she had already passed.
+
+At the door of a sepulchre the brief procession halted. Within was a room,
+a little grotto furnished with a stone slab and a lamp that flickered,
+surmounted by an arch. The coffin, placed on the slab, routed a bat that
+flew to the arch, and a lizard that scurried to a crevice. In the coffin
+the Christ lay, his head wrapped in a napkin, the body wound about by
+broad bands of linen that were secured with gum and impregnated with
+spices and with myrrh. The odor of aromatics filled the tomb. The bat
+escaped to the night. A stone was rolled before the opening, the brief
+procession withdrew, and Mary was left with the dead.
+
+The momentary exertion, the bier, the sepulchre, the sight of the Christ
+in his cerements, the brooding quiet--these things had roused her. Her mind
+was nimbler, and thought more active. One by one the stars appeared. They
+would vanish, she told herself, as her hopes had done. Only they would
+reappear, and belief could not. It had come as a rainbow does, and
+disappeared as vaporously, little by little, before the full glare of
+might. For a minute, hours perhaps, she stood quite still, interrogating
+the past in which so much had been, gauging the future in which so much
+was to be. The one retreated, the other fled. Thoughts came to her
+evanescently, and faded before they were wholly formed. At one moment she
+was beckoning the unicorns from the desert, the winged lions from the
+yonderland, commanding them to bear her to the home of some immense
+revenge. At others she was asking her way of griffins, propounding the
+problem to the Sphinx. But the unicorns and lions took flight, the
+griffins spread their wings, the Sphinx fell asleep. There was no answer
+to her appeal.
+
+Behind the sepulchre the moon rose; it dropped a beam near by. There is
+light somewhere, it seemed to say; and in that telegram from Above, she
+thought of Rome. She remembered now, in Rome was Tiberius, and in him
+Revenge. She smiled at her own forgetfulness. Yes, it was there. She would
+go to him, she would exact reparation; there should be another
+crucifixion. Pilate should be nailed to the cross, Judas on one side,
+Caiaphas on the other. Only it would be at Rome where there was no
+Passover to interfere with the torture they endured. Things were done
+better there. Men were crucified, not with the head up, but with the feet;
+and so remained, not for hours, but for days; and died, not of their
+wounds alone, but of hunger too.
+
+A chariot of dream caught her, and, borne across the intervening space,
+she saw herself in a palace where there were gods and monsters, columns of
+transparent quartz, floors of malachite, roofs of gold. And there, on a
+dais, the Caesar lay. Behind him a fan, luminous as a peacock's tail,
+oscillated to the tinkling of mysterious keys. In his crown was the
+lividity of uncolored dawns, in his sceptre the dominion of the world. An
+ulcer devoured his face, and in his ear a boy repeated the maxims of
+Elephantis. Mary threw herself at his feet, her tears fell on them as rain
+on leaves. "Vengeance," she implored; but he listened merely to the boy at
+his side. "Death is your servant," she cried. "You command, it obeys." The
+ulcer oozed, the face grew vague, he gave no answer. She stood up and
+menaced him. "Behind you spectres crouch; you may not see them. I do;
+their name is To-morrow." The murmurs of the boy were her sole reply. The
+roof crumbled, the flooring disappeared, the emperor faded, and Mary
+stared into space.
+
+The moon that had struck aslant the tomb had gone, but where its beams had
+fallen the message remained. There is light somewhere, it repeated. Across
+the heavens a meteor shot like a bee. In the air voices whispered
+confusedly. It is not in Rome, one seemed to say. It is not on earth,
+another called.
+
+Mary clutched at her beating breast. The sky now was an opening rose. What
+the sunset had sown the dawn would reap. In the night that had enveloped,
+day raised a lattice, and through it came a gust of higher thought. It is
+not in revenge, a voice whispered. It is not in regret, another called.
+
+"I know it," Mary gasped. "Yes, yes, I know it now. It is in faith."
+
+"And in abnegation of self."
+
+The stone which stood before the sepulchre had rolled away. At her side
+the Christ stood. In his eyes were golden parables, in his face Truth
+shone revealed. She stared, dumb with the unexpected joy of belief
+confirmed, blinded by the sudden light, while he who had rent the bonds of
+death passed on into the budding day.
+
+When the brief procession of the night before returned to the tomb, it was
+empty. At the door Mary lay, her arms outstretched and vacant.
+
+
+                               FINIS MARIAE.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                            TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
+
+
+The table of contents has been added in the electronic version.
+
+The following changes have been made to the text:
+
+      page 36, "forget" changed to "forgot", "Hew" changed to "Her"
+      page 38, "a" added before "sword"
+      page 46, period added following "roof"
+      page 108, "surperber" changed to "superber"
+      page 118, "is" changed to "it"
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARY MAGDALEN***
+
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