Saul Of Tarsus Part 73

"Enough," Marsyas said slowly. "But by thy leave, lord, we would know what thou wilt say to him."

"A just demand; for thou and not I didst suffer at his hands. I shall tell him that I laid the matter before thee and that thou---"

"Nay, then, lord," Marsyas broke in earnestly, "if thou carest in all earnestness for my suggestion, pray let me make it!"

"But I believe that I antic.i.p.ated it and commanded the answer so to be written."

There was a little regretful silence, and Agrippa leaned toward Marsyas.

"What abideth there, Marsyas?" he asked, touching the young man's forehead.

After a pause, Marsyas raised his head.

"The full length of mine own story leadeth up to the answer," he said.

"Nay, then, speak!"

Asking permission of Cypros with her eyes, Lydia arose from her place on her cushion, and came to Marsyas' side. He put his arm about her and held her hand, and so she stood while he told his story.

Agrippa and Cypros listened with ordinary interest until he began to tell of his ride across the desert in pursuit of Saul. Then Agrippa's excitement-loving instincts stirred, and he sat up and contemplated Marsyas with arrested attention.

At the sighting of the Pharisee far down the road beyond Caucabe, the king's eyes sparkled; when Marsyas rode upon the party at the pool, Agrippa's hand on the arm of his throne had clenched. At Marsyas'

dismounting and approach, the king muttered under his breath.

"But at that instant," the narrator went on, showing the effects of his own story, "a light, such as never before descended upon the earth and will not come again until the Prince of Light cometh, stood among us; at which we all fell to the ground as though stricken by a thunderbolt!"

Agrippa's brows knitted.

"While we lay, thus unable to move or cry out, Saul spoke and said unto the Presence: 'Who art Thou, Lord!' but we heard no answer. And again Saul spoke, as if he had been answered, saying: 'Lord, what is it that Thou wouldst have me to do?' And yet there was silence. But when we took courage and arose, Saul lay on the ground, helpless, blind and bereft of speech!"

Agrippa's face showed impatience and astonishment. This, from the lips of so sane a Jew as Marsyas!

"We took him up," Marsyas continued, after a moment's reflection, "and led him unto Damascus, and to Judas, the Pharisee, who dwelleth in Straight Street. And there Saul lay for three days. Throughout that time, I sought for Lydia, and at the end of the third day, I found her."

He touched his lips to Lydia's hand.

"Under the same roof with her I found Saul of Tarsus, broken and supplicating, changed, heart and soul, as was I. But he was not in ignorance of the fount of our transfiguration as I was. From Lydia's lips, I learned that he had been visited by the Lord; but from Saul, I learned its meaning. If there is change upon my face, lord, I have told thee whence came it!"

Agrippa's eyes were no longer on Marsyas; he had turned his head and was looking at Cypros, as if curious to see if so impossible a tale would find credence in the mind of the simple queen. She looked disturbed and awe-struck, and Agrippa's nostrils fluttered with a soundless laugh.

"_Quantum mutatus ab illo!_" he said, turning to Marsyas. "That I can swear under a dread oath. And perchance, were I an Essene and more than an adopted Pharisee, I could have been visited and borne witness to miracles, also. But thou'lt remember, Marsyas, that this Saul consented unto the death of thy Stephen?"

"I remember, lord; neither hath he forgotten!" answered Marsyas.

"And that through him, great numbers of innocent people fled Judea, among them one Marsyas, that this same Saul might not have their lives; that he pursued thee even unto thy refuge, put thy sweet bride in jeopardy, stained the whole world with persecution, and made an end by bringing up in heresy, after he had begun a journey to Damascus with the avowed purpose of extending his persecutions--even unto the death of thy Lydia! Thou hast not forgotten these things?"

"They are not to be forgotten!"

"And on a certain night, while yet Stephen was unburied, thou camest upon this Saul of Tarsus in Bezetha, and swore to accomplish vengeance upon him; and that same night in the cubiculum in the Praetorium thou didst make me swear to help thee to that revenge, if he should stumble in the Law!"

Marsyas took his arm from about Lydia and arose.

"I am here, O King," he said, "to crave the fulfilment of that oath."

Agrippa smiled, in spite of the serene gravity on Marsyas' face.

"Ask thy boon, Marsyas," he answered.

Marsyas knelt at the king's footstool, and put up his hands as supplicants do before a throne.

"Thou hast remembered thine oath unto me, my King; thou hast published thyself as ready to fulfil thy promise, and hast yielded unto me the choice of the manner of my requital! Thus a.s.sured and believing I make my prayer. Lift not thy hand against Saul of Tarsus!"

Agrippa's brows dropped suddenly; his face was no less displeased than startled. He had meant to have a jest at Marsyas' expense, to try the young man's claim to a change in heart, to bring to the surface human nature through its envelope of religion; but he had not looked for this thing! To behold so strange a perversion of the ancient spirit in a man like Marsyas, and to submit to its demands against his own inclinations weighed heavily on Agrippa's patience. Saul's lapse into apostasy gave him an opportunity to attach to him the loyalty of that fierce party in Judea, which were better propitiated than fought--the Sicarii, anarchists, who would demand the putting away of the heretic.

Marsyas had asked him to sacrifice a potent piece of state-craft.

He glanced at Cypros, and saw resentfully that she was urging him with her eyes to submit. Marsyas' face began to show an expression that compelled him, while it irritated the more. The young man wore the face of one who does not expect defeat, denies it so confidently that it hesitates to exist. Agrippa shifted in his throne, frowned more, wavered, and finally said shortly:

"As Caesar forgot me to mine own safety, I will forget Saul!"

Marsyas' hands dropped softly on the king's, a token of brotherhood.

"Death intervened," he whispered, "to save thee from Caesar!"

Agrippa started and drew his hands away with a prescient terror in the movement.

"I will not pursue the man," he said; "I will not search for him!"

"Thou hast kept thy word, lord," Marsyas said, "and I go hence carrying trust in one more fellow man in my heart. May my G.o.d supply all thy need according to His riches in glory, by Jesus Christ!"

Agrippa's eyes which had all this time rested in fascination on Marsyas' face, flashed now with understanding. Marsyas was a Nazarene!

The admission rea.s.sured him; set aside the astonishment at the young man's unusual behavior; and lessened the fear he had felt in the suggestion that drew a parallel between Caesar's end and his own, to come. But Lydia was now kneeling before him, with glistening eyes, to kiss his hand, and Cypros was speaking.

"But thou gatherest peril yet about thee, Marsyas," she insisted. "Is the hazardous life, then, so inviting that thou hadst liefer be wrong than be safe?"

"No, lady; peace is no sweeter to my brethren, the Essenes, than it is to me. So I have put out my hand and possessed it. Think of us, henceforth, as the children of peace, not peril."

Agrippa shook his head.

"It hath consumed two years to establish it," he said conclusively, "and not until the last moment is it revealed that thou art a dreamer, Marsyas. Thou hast been an Essene, which is too strait an ambition to be practicable; thou didst cherish a love for a man, so deep that its bereavement engendered a hate that no man should feel, unless a woman were won from him or a fortune destroyed; thou wast urged by it into extreme acts--into selling thyself, into following me to the end of the world, into putting thyself between me and death--that I might help thee satisfy that hate! And now, the hour fallen, a new fancy hath engulfed thee, heart, head and soul--which bids thee forget thy rancor, defend thine enemy, and live in perpetual peril of destruction! Thou art a dreamer--though thy front be Jovian and thy steps like Mars!"

Marsyas laid his hand on Lydia's head, as she still knelt beside him.

"In substance, I so accused her once, and Stephen. Perhaps, if thou followest me insomuch, my King, thou wilt walk even as I have walked--into the light at last!"

Agrippa made a motion of dissent.

"I doubt, now, that thou couldst safely govern that pretty little city I had meant to make thee prefect over, here in Judea," he declared.