Saul Of Tarsus Part 22

"I shall depend on that," Agrippa said decidedly. "For I shall despatch a servant for the man, the instant I can so do!"

"And yet," Cypros insisted, still distressed, "if Vitellius requires him at thy hands, how shalt thou avoid giving him up?"

Flaccus smiled at her with softened eyes.

"O gentle lady, the day the young man should arrive, I shall set the prefect on the Nazarenes in Rhacotis. If he be not found, none without this trustworthy circle shall have cause to believe that I am not in all conscience striving to help a brother proconsul run down a fugitive."

"A shrewd strategy," Lydia said dryly, "but one rather costly for the Nazarenes."

"The Nazarenes! Who wastes tears over them? Thine own straight people condemn them, lady."

"An exhilarating recreation, indeed," she repeated as if to herself, "for the prefect, the rabble Alexandrians and the Nazarenes! O seekers of esthetic sport, that will be a rare occasion! Yield me thy promise, my Lord Agrippa, that thou wilt tell us the day the young man arrives!"

Flaccus' face darkened for a moment, but at that moment the alabarch appeared in the colonnade.

"Here comes our host," said Agrippa. "Hast ordered the garlands, Lysimachus?"

"The feast is prepared," Lysimachus replied, and, turning to Flaccus, continued: "Thou shalt see, now, good sir, how Jews feast. In all thine experiences, thou hast never broken bread with a Jew."

"Not so!" Flaccus retorted, "for I was present at the Lady Cypros'

wedding-feast!"

"Ho! Flaccus remembering a wedding-feast!" Agrippa laughed, as he arose, taking Junia's hand. "Mars, cherishing a confection!"

"Perchance," Cypros ventured, pleased and coloring, "if Mars'

confections were more plentiful and the n.o.ble Flaccus' wedding-feasts less rare, they both might forget the one!"

"Never!" Flaccus declared, "though I were Hymen himself!"

As they proceeded toward the colonnade, Cypros drew closer to him.

"Thou canst not know what service thou hast done us by that promise,"

she said. "It is more than the youth's security; it means my husband's success. For in this young man, we have found Fortune itself!"

The proconsul made no answer, for his gray-brown eyes flickered suddenly as if a candle had been moved close by them.

CHAPTER X

FLACCUS WORKS A COMPLEXITY

Near sunset the following day the alabarch appeared in the porch of the proconsul's mansion,--an incident which would speedily have spread wildly over the Brucheum had not the shrewd Lysimachus come in Roman dress, unostentatiously and hidden by the dusk. The slave who conducted the visitor to the master's presence was suspicious, but he did not lapse from courtesy. If he had prejudices they had to await a popular uproar for expression, and popular uproars at present against the Jews were manifestly in disfavor with the proconsul.

Flaccus received the alabarch in the great gloom of his atrium. The torches had not been lighted, the cancelli admitted only dusk. The shadowy shape of the proconsul, relaxed in his curule, alone and immovable, thus surrounded by meditative atmosphere, suddenly appealed to the alabarch as out of harmony with the legate's blunt nature.

As the Jew drew near, he saw rolls and parcels of linen and parchment, pet.i.tions and memorials, scattered about on the pavement, as if the Roman had let them roll off his table or drop from his hand unconsciously. His elbow rested on the ivory arm of his curule, his cheek on his clenched hand. The undimmed gaze of the Jewish magistrate detected lines in the hard face that he had never seen before.

But Flaccus stirred and drew himself up to attention.

"Come up, Lysimachus," he said. "There is a chair here, for thee."

The alabarch advanced and dropped into the seat that Flaccus had indicated.

"This," he observed, nodding toward the dark torch at the proconsul's side, "would lead me to believe thou art inventing rhymes."

"Or conspiracies. Plots and poetry demand the same exciting dusk.

Well, has the Herod sued?"

"Not he, but his lady."

"His lady! By Hecate, the mystery is solved. Thus it is that he hath been able to borrow every usurer poor from Rome to Damascus!"

"He wins upon her virtue; but withhold thy interpretation of my words until I show thee what they mean. She is beautiful and virtuous; a Herod and married--a conjunction of circ.u.mstances in these days so rare as to be out of nature--therefore, phenomenal. So we toss our yellow gold into her lap in recognition of the entertainment she hath afforded--being unusual."

"Virtuous; that means, faithful to the man she married. No woman is faithful except she loves her love. A just procession in the order of the Furies' reign. The warm of heart, unrewarded; the unworthy, anointed and worshiped."

"This melancholy twilight hath made thee morbid, Avillus. You Romans take womankind too seriously."

"When womankind or a kind of woman can drain the world's purse, methinks she is a serious matter. What sum does she want?"

"Three hundred thousand drachmae."

"O Midas; give her the touch! Let all her possessions be gold! Didst advance it to her?"

"If thou wilt remember, it was thy command that I consult thee, first."

"Temperate Jew! To remember a consular suggestion, while a lovely woman, and a Herod at that, besought thee for the contents of thy purse. Oh, thou art an old, old man, Lysimachus!"

The alabarch laughed and frowned the next moment.

"Beshrew the jest! Men who make light of virtue deserve incontinent wives. And there is this one thing apparent, which should make me serious. The Herod is absolutely penniless, and I can not turn that tender woman and her babes out of doors to take the roads of Egypt."

"Rest thee in that small matter. Thou and I can spare her sesterces enough to ship her back to Judea."

Lysimachus was silent for a moment.

"She would not be satisfied," he said at last. "She wants three talents, though she never had afterward a crust of bread. It seems that they permitted a free-born man to p.a.w.n himself for that sum in Ptolemais and accepted the money from him!"

"Shade of Herod!" the proconsul exclaimed.

"It seems also that the man is in peril of the authorities, having placed himself in jeopardy to save Agrippa from Herrenius Capito, who had run Agrippa to earth for a debt he owes to Caesar--"

"O, that is the way of it! I know of that man! Well, then, perchance it is not so much because she loves her husband as because the debt to the p.a.w.ned one chafes. I hear that he is young and comely."

"Forget the slanderous jest, Flaccus; I am ashamed of it. What shall I do in this matter?"

"Lend her three talents."