Part 2

In the ivory chair sat a man of forty, in a white tunic bordered with a wide stripe of purple, plunged deep in the perusal of a small scroll of papyrus thickly inscribed in the clear rounded characters of Aramaic Greek. An oblong opening in the wall behind him, running from wall to wall of the court-room, gave a view, across an open loggia (where more Roman guards were posted), of the lawns, alleys and fountains of a well-kept garden-enclosure; so that the advantage of light from behind was for the Receiver General of Taxes hearing cases at his table, with the equally desirable boon of fresh air.

No clients thronged to the tribune to-day, vacant were the desks and chairs of his recorders and notaries; the scratch of the ink-filled reed upon the papyrus, the smell of wax tablets virgin of the stylus, the whispering of the clerks and accountants no longer came from the adjoining room....

How pleasantly quiet it was. The reader slightly shifted his feet, shod with _cothurni_ of scarlet leather, ornamented with golden crescents at the instep, upon the dappled leopard-skins that spread beneath his chair. The skins covered a skilfully-concealed trap-door leading down into a strong vault underneath the tribune, where were stored vast sums in gold belonging to the State.

To the man reading and thinking in the ivory chair, and as yet unconscious of the witness on the threshold, the room held no other living creatures save himself and a late butterfly, with peacock wings of gorgeous beauty, that had fluttered in at the window, perhaps attracted by the garlands of wonderfully painted roses forming part of the decorations below the cornice of the wall. A moment the insect wavered to and fro beneath the cornice; mounted--sought to settle--realised the deceit, and would have flown back into the garden, to feast upon the nectar of Truth and Reality--had not a hawking swallow intervened.

There had been no swallows yesterday. To-day, the blue sky above the palms and figs and oleanders, the vine-wreathed sycamores and acacias of the gardens, was alive with the black and white specks of vitality, darting and wheeling, hovering and poising as though sporting with their own swift shadows; hunting their prey of flies, gnats and winged beetles with shrill squeaks of bird-delight--while under the tiled coping of a walled court with a westward aspect, nests were being built in the selfsame spots, from whence they had been dislodged by the gardener's pole earlier in the year.

The swallow's swoop and dart, more rapid than the eye might follow, captured the insect of the jewelled wings. But the man moved; and the startled bird darted upwards towards a brilliant square of blue sky framed in a gilded trellis covered with those deceptive roses, and no less false and treacherous a painted lure than they...

The infinitesimal tragedy was over in a moment. The arrow-like flight cleaved no waves of blue æther, but was arrested by a surface as hard as adamant. The bird dropped close to the foot of Philoremus. He reached down and took it up.

III

It was quite dead, a tiny corpse, a mere pinch of black and white feathers; with its prey--still feebly moving legs and _antennae_--yet held crosswise in the thorn-small, jet-black beak. What lesson would He Whose Divine teaching the Aramaic scroll of the Gospel of Matthew, the Evangelist, set forth,--have drawn from the desire of the insect for the flowers of delusion, the delirious rush of its swift-winged captor for illimitable space and aerial freedom--arrested by that killing crash against a tinted stone?

Poor tiny feathered migrant from--what wild northern homeland? That of the Alamanni, who built and garrisoned forts of mud and tree-boles on their Rhine frontiers; fierce red-haired giants, savage mercenaries of Rome, like the Gauls with their pointed brazen helmets and painted tunics, covered with cuirasses of leather strengthened with plates of iron, adorned with armlets, collars and bracelets of heavy virgin gold, and perched rather than seated on their high wooden saddles, girthed back on the hindquarters of great horses with cropped ears.... Or perhaps the bird came from the freezing steppes of Scythia, peopled by shaggy savages with flat noses, slant eyes, and hairy legs bowed from continually riding their shaggy little beasts. Or from Britain, a province of which country Philoremus had ruled as a pro-consul under Carausius, who, with piratical intentions of his own, had been sent by Maximianus, co-Emperor with Diocletian, to suppress the Saxon pirates and the yellow-haired rovers from Scandinavia.

The swallow, though fully fledged, was young. This must have been its first day in Egypt. How strange, to have crossed continents and seas for such an end! thought the Roman Prætor, and then his glance reverting to the scroll, found there a saying of the Master:

"_Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and not one of them shall fall to the ground without your Father?_"

What bearing had the words with reference to the dead swallow stiffening on his warm, living palm? What Divine purpose could be served by such a waste of effort? What wrong had the innocent creature done in hunting its insect food? He read on:

"_But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. Whosoever, therefore, shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before my Father Who is in Heaven._"

Perhaps the dead swallow had crossed the sea to bring this message to the disgraced public servant. With the thought a reviving warmth crept about his chilly heart. He looked downwards, slightly smiling, from his tribune to a bronze tripod altar placed upon a square of mosaic in the body of the hall. On either side of the altar a Roman sword and spear were planted upright. Upon the tripod stood a silver-gilt chafing-dish containing several sticks of smouldering charcoal. The dish rested upon a pan of pierced pottery, and near it were three small vessels respectively containing corn, wine and incense; also a bowl of lustral water in which was immersed a leafy olive-twig. A Latin inscription beneath the upper ledge of the tripod might thus be translated:

"O HOLY SABUS DIUS FIDIUS SEMIPATER, BE PROPITIOUS!"

It was the altar on which oaths were taken; solemnly reconsecrated to the Sabine deity on each recurring fifth of June. Perhaps if the thoughts behind the broad brow and the blue eyes of the ex-Prætor had been rendered into speech, they would have run thus:

"Yesterday at this hour I was wealthy, powerful and dreaded: To-day I am an outlaw without rights or possessions, waiting the summons to appear before the judges, who are as likely to condemn me to death by torture, as to send me to the mines or accord me banishment. And why has this happened? Answer, Ego of Philoremus! Because something within me revolts from even the semblance of worship offered to the deities of Rome. Revengeful, lustful, treacherous as Man; subject like him to base passions and earthly frailties; stained with unnatural crimes and vices, I know them to be demons; I will no more of them!"

"The Pythagorean teachings, the sugared theories of the Platonists, the philosophy of the Stoics, I have in turn swallowed and rejected in the reversed condition, as the owl deals with infant moles and mice! Vainly I have sought refuge in the Eleusinian Mysteries. If there were but one snake in the sacred basket of the priestess, what a nest of writhing cobras did I not find behind the Veil! Isis lured, and I sought her; after long weeks of trials and austerities I was conducted to the sanctuary. Initiate, O Mother and Queen of Harlots!--only to be again disillusioned! The religious cults of Syria and Asia Minor, the philosophical speculations of the Gymnosophists of Hind beckoned, and I followed, only to be again betrayed! Yet could I not have concealed my doubts and disgusts, made my convictions march with my interests? This Voice, speaking within my bosom, says emphatically No! Some change has taken place in me, some growth has germinated unnoticed, even as the fields of the Delta rush into life and verdure, when the garment of water is withdrawn from the land by the subsidence of the Nile. This is my right hand with the callosity upon the third joint of the third finger--that reminds me of the signet that is missing from it--the thick gold ring--set with a black onyx carved in intaglio with the head of the club-bearing Hercules,--that was a wedding gift from my wife. But the Me within me is changed--since yesterday--as though I had been touched by the living Hand that over three hundred years ago gave sight to the blind, cleansed the leper, and raised up the dead."

* * * * * * *

A deep voice broke upon the muttered soliloquy. It said in shaken accents:

"O my master!--" and broke off. For the light of joy that shone in the clear blue eyes that turned to him was almost too much for Hazaël's sick heart to bear. He crossed the hall in three long strides, bent his knee at the foot of the tribune, mounted its steps, and kissed with his bearded lips the hand that had worn the black onyx intaglio, even as its owner exclaimed:

"Hazaël! The man I most wanted. Welcome back, good friend, to this house that was my home!"

"Now may the Holy One be blessed and praised Who has led me back to Alexandria in time," responded Hazaël, "to serve my most gracious lord! Well has the Prophet said there is no man so virtuous that he shall escape calumny. Even Philoremus, I knew had enemies. But that does not explain--" he gulped,--"the suspension from office, the soldiers placed on guard over their own commander--or read the accursed riddle of those seals upon the door!"

"The answer is very simple, my excellent Hazaël," returned Philoremus with a quizzical smile. He rolled up and thrust the sacred scroll in the breast of his purple-bordered tunic, and motioned the Jew to seat himself on a stool beside his chair. "If suspension from office be public dishonour, at least it means a private leisure seldom enjoyed. Sit and let us talk, nobody will disturb us! I go before the Prefect of Alexandria to answer to mine accuser--but not before to-morrow at the sixth hour."

"Sir--in the name of the Holiest I conjure you to enlighten me! What is this accusation?" burst forth Hazaël. "Who is the accuser whose testimony hath such credit as to blacken so great a personage as yourself in the eyes of men?"

And as the hoarsely-spoken words escaped the Jew's mouth, that was parched with anguish even more than by the acrid dust of the deserts which he had traversed, Philoremus answered:

"It is said that I am a Christian and I may not deny it. For the man who hath accused me is none other than Myself!"

"Woe, woe!" cried the anguish-stricken Hebrew, tearing his beard and striving to rend the tough material of his garment, while great tears brimmed his under-eyelids and made furrows in his dusty face. He checked the violence of his grief, on seeing a slight shade of disgust pass over the delicate patrician features of the Roman, and smeared his tears roughly away with the back of a hairy hand. "Pardon!" he gasped. "Forgive me! ... Pray, tell me more!"

"First drink some of this wine!" said his master, filling a crystal goblet from a golden-lidded crystal flagon that stood upon the table conveniently at hand. "A Prætor suspended is as good as hanged--in the estimation of his slaves and freed-men," went on Philoremus whimsically, as the Jew gulped down the draught of which he stood in sore need: "and I make no doubt that my rascals have been robbing me--from the noon-hour of yesterday--when I received the mandate of Lollius Maxius, until this moment of thy return. Therefore art thou thrice welcome. For since the seals were placed, and my own guards set over me, I have brooded over the trapdoor of this vault that contains the half-year's tax-money of Egypt--like a hen sitting upon an addled egg."

"Yes, all through the night," he added, whimsically smiling at the indignant astonishment of Hazaël, "until this moment. Nor would the fellows bring me a meal--doubtless they have been too busy plundering me to feed me. A lump of cheese, a barley-cake and this flagon of Mareotic, I obtained through one of my Legionaries, who coaxed it out of the cook!" He added, as the breast of Hazaël heaved, and a hoarse sound like a sob escaped him: "Now you are come to take charge of the Egyptian tax-money, O excellent Hazaël! a weight is off my mind. By Hercules and the Twelve, I find it a relief! Come, be not so cast down!"

The Jew choked out with difficulty:

"To find you accused--proscribed--perhaps ruined--suffocates me with indignation!"

"The Gymnosophists," said the ex-Prætor, "who dwelt upon a mountain in Ethiopia nearly two thousand years ago, and are said to dwell there still, would have asked you why you are disturbed at this intelligence? 'Your patron,' they would say, 'who enjoyed the semblance of Happiness for many years, is now to undergo the appearance of Misfortune.' Happiness and Misfortune being equally Illusions, why on earth are you mopping your eyes?"

He drew a perfumed handkerchief of fine Egyptian byssus from a gold-embroidered wallet of gazelle-leather that hung at his girdle, and said with a smile as he tossed it to Hazaël: "Waste no more time in tears for one who sees no cause. We may thank the banquet the Prefect gives to-night for this opportunity for conversation. May he bring as fierce an appetite to his tunny pickled with oysters, his stuffed and roasted sucking-pig and larded quails and ortolans as I brought to bear on my barley-cake and goat's cheese. Come, my good fellow, own the truth! Did you never yet suspect me of coquetting with Christianity? Think! ... Not even when I have gone secretly forth in a sackcloth gown and cowled mask,--plague or fever having broken out in the purlieus of the city--or in a time of scarcity, when famine pinched the poor?"

The Jew shook his shaggy head.

"Whatever I saw was seen and forgotten, not being intended for these eyes. What presumption had it not been, had I ventured to question the movements of my patron; who might, the noble lady his wife being long dead, have entered without grievous sin into some union of the temporary kind. Besides, you forget, O most excellent! that day now fifteen years past, when a certain Roman officer of high rank, disguised as a Frankish traveller, sought adventure in the Jewish quarter of Alexandria."

"I have not forgotten!" Philoremus chuckled. "We had received intimation the previous year that the Jews of Alexandria were prospering exceedingly. Marriages at the synagogues constantly took place. Births--yours is a prolific race!--inevitably followed each union. Immigrations from Ethiopia and the towns of the Upper Nile continually swelled the population.... Trade flourished. Money-bags grew fat,--and the coins, being put to usury, bred like maggots. Yet no Jew was other than poor--when it came to paying the tax."

"Most excellent, I have observed it!" acquiesced Hazaël gravely, wondering that his patron could so forget the present peril in these memories of the past:

"Therefore, O Hazaël! I came disguised into Jewry with the laudable desire to find out for myself the condition of the miserable and oppressed race. It was a Feast Day, and the narrow and winding streets were foul, and stank exceedingly. But wreaths of anemones and violets ornamented the windows, while fat and soot from myriads of twinkling lamps, shed dubious blessings on the heads of the passers-by. Within each house were displayed rich curtains and costly carpets from the looms of Persia and Babylon. The goodwives spread their tables with finest Egyptian linen cloths, and dishes and cups of silver--indeed--I will not take oath that some were not of gold! Rich jewels twinkled in their ears, and decked their wigs and bosoms, and maidens of Israel were among them, gazelle-eyed, ivory-skinned, beautiful as the virgin daughter of Demeter.... Frown not, Hazaël, for even when my blood was young I knew how to respect the virtue of the women of Israel! Later, when I turned about to retrace my steps, I saw an exceedingly unwashed urchin peering in with longing eyes at a window I had quitted a moment previously. No Jewish maid was the object of the young Hazaël's admiration. On the meagrely-spread table were a dish of lentils dressed in oil and a common crockery wine-jug; some bread cakes, and a large flank of tunny in a red pottery dish, swimming in vinegar."

A spark of amusement kindled in the gloomy eyes of Hazaël. The Roman went on:

"Perhaps that Jewish urchin might have reached twelve years. He was small for his age, filthy exceedingly, and meagre. And he hugged his lean stomach, droning a kind of song with the burden: '_I wish!--I wish!_' ... 'And what dost thou wish?' I asked, coming up unseen behind him...."

The stern lips under Hazaël's matted beard were parted now in laughter. He said with a flash of strong white teeth showing in his dark face:

"And I answered: 'I wish it were Sabbath all the week long!--or that I had a stomach like a camel's!' And you asked 'Why?' and I answered, 'Because on Feasts and Sabbaths I may eat my fill at the tables of the Chosen, while on other days I fight with dogs upon the quays for the scraps thrown us by sailors and foreigners. Thus I am empty six days in a week of days, and full to bursting on the Seventh!' Then you, my lord, said to me,--I can hear your voice this moment, 'Come with me, Hazaël, small descendant of Abraham, and thou shalt eat thy fill of lawful food, every day!' And so your greatness took me thence, and placed me in the household of a Jew who served as scribe to you,--and stooped to ask my common, sordid story. And I told thee how, having reached my twelfth year--my good father being a Rab, an interpreter of the sacred books and a pleader before the Courts of my people in the town of Acanthon upon the Lower Nile,--was brought home dead, having been struck upon the forehead by a beam of cedar borne upon the back of a camel led by a Copt.... And that my mother, being a poor widow, had married a cousin of my father. And--that I had found truth in the saying that the breath of a stepfather chills the broth. _My_ broth was not only cold, but salted overmuch with the tears of many beatings. Wherefore I ran away from the village where we dwelt; and begged my way to Alexandria. That was in the third month _Sivan_, and it was well into the seventh month, even _Tishri_, before I found," he gulped, "a friend!"

"And I," said the ex-Prætor, "the most faithful and discreet of servants, if a little too peppery of temper at times for the comfort of my freedmen and slaves. You developed with years a genius for the calling of the scribe, akin to that of Cæsar for the command of armies. The most disorderly rabble of ciphers that ever disgraced the pages of a ledger were transformed beneath the hand of Hazaël into legions worthy of Rome! The advancement for which you thank me came as the reward of your own labours. My disgrace cannot blight you,--my fall cannot bring you toppling. All Alexandria knows my Chief Secretary to be an orthodox Jew and devout Christian-hater! In how many of the old street-riots between the Chosen and the monks of Alexandria,--hast thou not played the warrior to the tune of cracked crowns and broken shin-bones, with that great staff of thine?"

"It is true!" A rush of scarlet invaded the Jew's bearded face, dyeing his forehead and injecting the whites of his eyes. He dropped his head upon his breast and stammered:

"It is verily true! Ever since my father--on whom be Peace!--taught me to stammer Shema I have abominated the Christians. Since his death, and mine oath, I have rejoiced with the rest of the Chosen at the revival of persecution, little dreaming that--"

He broke off, convulsed by a shudder that shook him from head to foot. Then he nerved himself, with an effort that brought sweat-drops starting upon his cheeks, and temples and forehead, for a final appeal. "O my loved patron!" he entreated, "hear me! Break the abominable spell that has--I know not how--constrained you to embrace a religion only fitted for unlearned fishermen, common criminals, slaves or unfortunate persons, publicans and sinners--"

"A Prætor of Taxes is a publican, I imagine!..." the Roman official suggested.

"Even," returned Hazaël, "as Leviathan among the lizards, and the Lantern of the Pharos beside a farthing candle or a glow-worm's light. Shall one so illustrious as yourself bow down to the deity that came out of--Galilee? The son of Joseph the carpenter, speaking Aramæan,--who called himself, in the madness of delusion or the blasphemy of possession--the Son of the Most Holy One, the Lord Who is God! Who preached the sordid creed of poverty, humility and love; love not only to kindred and friends, but to enemies, betrayers, traducers, murderers! Who was abandoned in disgust by those who had followed him, and died a shameful death upon the cross!"

Said the Roman, looking out across the loggia at the blue sky and the darting swallows:

"When the white-robed flamens of Jupiter Capitolinus, standing upon the steps of the portico of the temple, bid the Romans come and celebrate the mysteries of their god, they cry, 'All ye that are pure of heart and clean of hands, come to the sacrifice!' Yet Jupiter is neither a pure nor a particularly clean god. And when the white-robed priestesses of Ceres bear the round basket through the streets of Alexandria, do they not scream like so many peahens? 'Sinners, away, or keep eyes on the ground! Only the Worthy may dare to approach us!' Yet those who participate in the Eleusinian mysteries do not return worthier than they went!"

He poured out a little wine, drank, and said as he set down the emptied goblet:

"When that young wolf in the Christian fold, the evil presbyter Arius, gave me the password and the sign, that disguised in the sackcloth robe and masked cowl of the Parabolani, I might mingle with them in the meetings of their sodalities and penetrate even to the house of the Christian Patriarch--the wretch little knew what a burning curiosity was veiled by my expressed desire for his rascally aid. For the Master to Whom the glory of the world was a transitory spectacle--the Teacher Who revealed Himself to the poor and the humble, and opened His Heart as a Gate of Hope to the sinful and despised--discovers in His teaching such absolute unworldliness as to make it starry clear that He came from beyond the stars...."

The ex-Prætor was silent, but his heart added:

"O Divine Man, if only I had known Thee! O Son of God! Who could take upon Thee the burden of our earthliness!--but to have heard Thy Voice! but to have seen Thy Face! Perhaps an hour may come--not too far distant--"

And so wonderful a radiance shone upon the brow and in the eyes of the speaker, despite the ravages of sleeplessness and anxiety, that Hazaël was stricken dumb.

IV

Suddenly the Jew winced as though stung, exclaiming:

"How could I have forgotten? Your son, Florens?"