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.