CHAPTER XXIV
THE DIGGED PIT
Junia raised herself hastily.
"Call the slaves," she commanded the servant who had announced Marsyas,and, in a moment, half a score of house-slaves rushed in from variousopenings leading into the atrium.
"Away with this and that and that," she exclaimed pointing to thestatue of a bacchante, that had not been visible in the chamber on theoccasion of Marsyas' expected calls; a tray of wine and a tablet with alist of charms and philters sent recently from a haruspex. "Bring me ashawl--close around my neck: curse thee for a blunderer, Iste; thoushalt pay for that scratch! Here, unwind the scarf about my hips andfold it less closely; the amulet, take it off! By Ate! Here:Caligula's note, spread open! Into the brazier with it. Do I smell ofwine? Fetch hither--that fresco! The Pursuit of Daphne! Draw thearras over it! Quick! The unguentarium, I said, snail! The one withthe attar. Now, look about. Is there anything in sight to disturb avestal? If I find it afterward, twenty lashes for you all!"
Mistress and slave looked anxiously over the chamber, but nothingunseemly greeted their eyes. Junia sank back on her couch, not now sorecumbent, but at ease.
"Go fetch the Jew," she said, the languor of her manner combatted bythe fire in her eyes.
A moment later Marsyas appeared in the archway.
She arose and came to meet him. When he took her extended hands, sheled him to the light of the cancelli and inspected him.
"Sit," she said, drawing him down on the divan under the casement."And speak first. Only a word, so I may see if the prologue is indeedas tragic as the mask."
"Let the mask suffice," he answered, "the prologue might beinsufferable."
"_Proh pudor_! Thy friend the Herod hath just been here with paganoaths upon his lips about thy dullness. I tell thee it is hard enoughto make him walk as he should, but a groaning comrade is a gravel inhis shoe. If thou wouldst manage him, be merry. Remember we have thisHerod to crown, though he stood on the Tarpeian Rock and sang sonnetsin dishonor of Caesar."
"By the certainty of Death, I have," he said sententiously.
She looked at him and waited for him to go on, but he seemed to forgether, in his preoccupation.
"I am a generous woman, Marsyas," she said softly. "I do not resentthy lack of confidence in me!"
"Nay!" he exclaimed. "My lack of confidence, lady? What meanest thou?"
"In thy bosom, gentle sir, thou keepest thine own counsel, and wearestsignals of thy self-containment on thy brow. Wherefore, I am informedthou hast thoughts that I may not know!"
"But I spare thee my sorrows, my cynicism, my hopelessness," heprotested earnestly, "my disbelief in humankind."
"O Marsyas, wert thou not Jewish, I should call thee unmanly. Listen!"She laid a warm hand, colored like a primrose, upon his.
"Thou wast an anchorite; thou didst attain manhood's stature and mindas an anchorite; into the world thou camest with all an anchorite'sslander of the poor world in thee. The eye is a spaniel; the tyrantPrejudice controls even its images. I warned thee in Alexandria. Iconfess that there is evil in the world, but it is more the work of anelementary impulse rather than calculation. Flaccus is bad, butbecause he is in love. Agrippa does foolhardy things, because he isambitious. What? Did the preachment afflict thee which I deliveredthe other day upon thy levity and riotous living?"
He shook his head.
"Nay, but this moment's preachment crosses me," he said. "Thouofferest pardon for all the wickedness in the world, and I, sworn topunish one evil deed, am thus constrained, if I harken unto thee, tohold off my hand."
"Now, thou approachest the deep-hidden secret which I may not know.Whom wilt thou punish? Flaccus or Classicus?"
He hesitated. His vital hate of Saul of Tarsus, his fear for Lydia,his love and its deep wound, were things too close to the soul for himwillingly to bring forth and display to this woman who acknowledgedonly a mind, and not a spirit. Yet it seemed unfair to withholdanything, however sacred, from one who had unbosomed so much to him.
"I lead a selfish life and an unhappy one. I am stricken in my loves;one dead, one a murderer, a third faithless; a fourth I use to speed mein mine intents concerning the other two. If I avenge the death ofone, I displease his spirit! If I visit punishment on his murderer, Imake it possible for the destroyer of my love-story to go on. If Iwithhold my hand, I give another, much beloved, unto death. And him Ihelp, I help for mine own use. My life is at cross purposes; my righthand worketh against the left!"
"Thy love?" she repeated softly, with a question in her tone. But hedid not answer it.
"A hopeless tangle," she said at last, "from which our rulingphilosophers, degenerate imitators of Pyrrho, offer but one escape.Turn from it, cease to trouble over it, leave it, cast off all thoughtand memory of it--and begin anew!"
He shook his head, his eyes on the pavement, his hands clasped beforehim. But the primrose hand found his again.
"Thou canst not, by the choicest revenge, force Thanatos to yield upthy dead; thou confessest the evil thou workest in revenge as equal tothe satisfaction; thou complainest that thy love is faithless--whatelse? So many thy pains, I can not remember them all; but in them allthere is not the worth of one of thy sleepless nights. If thou canstnot be a Spartan, be a Stoic; if not an avenger, then a forgetter; ifnot a lover, then a gallant! Above all things, harken unto a pagantruth: love's a lusty wight and can suffer forty mortal wounds and loveagain. None but an ostrich loves but once! Perchance I was right atfirst; thou shouldst have begun thine education in the first of Flora'scelebration."
He winced, but presently raised his head.
"What didst thou when the procession carried me away that night?" hedemanded, searching her face.
"When thou didst go away with the procession?" she laughed. "I wentwith them--of a necessity."
"And how didst thou escape?"
"When they all departed after Flora danced."
Thus beyond doubt assured that she had witnessed the dance of Flora, hewas afraid to inquire further, lest he betray Lydia. But he wantedmightily to know if she had recognized the alabarch's daughter.
The disturbing reflection diverted his line of thought. Many of thenight's events which the greater one had overshadowed came back to him.He saw again the miraculous dance of Brahma on the roof of the Templeof Rannu, fled again with Lydia in his arms into the musky shrine andthence into the city; strove hard to convince himself that if he,sharpened of sight by love, had not recognized Lydia except for thebayadere's note and his acquaintance with Lydia's apostasy and herformer defense of the Nazarenes, others could not have done so. Againhe fought with Flaccus and discovered Agrippa in the dark and abandonedstreet in Alexandria. And now the image of Eutychus becameparticularly distinct.
His brow blackened suddenly and he sprang to his feet.
"It is solved!" he cried, striking the palm of one hand with the other."By the wrath of God, he is Flaccus' emissary. He turned on Agrippa inAlexandria when Flaccus ambushed the prince! He was part of theconspiracy! It was no blind blow that Agrippa struck. And the soul inme nourishes a lie or he meditates more work for the proconsul in this!"
Throughout his intensely confident accusation, Junia had watched himwith changing eyes. She had had to feel her way frequently in thislast hour.
"What?" she asked finally.
In a few and rapid words, Marsyas told her of Eutychus' theft andflight, but his ideas hasted from his narrative to more testimony infavor of his conclusion. He remembered Eutychus' jealousy of Drumah,his ruffian mistreatment of Lydia when the praetor moved against theNazarenes, his attempt to expose her to Justin Classicus because, hisjealousy of Marsyas revived, he had no other way of retaliating; andfinally of his humiliation at Marsyas' hands before Agrippa and Drumah.
"Bitter fool that I was not to understand him in time!" he cried. "Inmy soul, I know that we follow him to a pitfall in this matter!"
Junia slipped her fi
ngers along the gilt grooves in the arm of thedivan. Flaccus was a clumsy villain, of a surety! What overtconspiracies he evolved! A wild boar of the German forests would notmake more clamor at its attacks! A wonder he had not exposed her, erethis. But for his influence, which made her a place in Caesar's house,she had given up his service long ago. Her lips curled with disgustand perplexity.
"Forewarning," she said gloomily, "is a torture when forearming availsnaught."
He caught the depression in her tone and turned to her quickly.
"Agrippa hath been here, Marsyas," she continued. "Yet he was not tobe stopped, I thought, then, that it was only the knave's playing fortime!"
"What dost thou mean?" he demanded. "Tell me!"
"Agrippa was here. Eutychus hath been caught, but Piso notifies theHerod that the prisoner hath appealed to Caesar, claiming to haveinformation against Agrippa which concerns Caesar's life and welfare!"
Marsyas seized her arm.
"What sayest thou?" he cried.
"And since thou hast uncovered Flaccus' hand supporting the villain,Agrippa is in greater peril than I had supposed!"
For a moment the two looked at each other: Junia with uneasiness on herface, and Marsyas transfixed. He saw his plans against Saul of Tarsustumbling; he saw the Pharisee triumphing over Lydia!
"It may still be hoped," she ventured, "that the knave lies!"
"Junia, thou knowest Agrippa! It is my terror lest the knave be armedwith a truth!"
"Out with it all," she went on desperately. "The Herod is convincedthat he is innocent--this time--of any ill-will against Caesar, and hecame here and spent the greater part of an hour, beseeching me to usemy influence to hasten Caesar's hearing of Eutychus!"
"In God's name, answer! Did you refuse him?"
"I did! I besought him to let Caesar follow his own way, since theemperor is notedly slow in hearing charges in these later years. Iassured him that Caesar might be more displeased, urged against hisinclination to hear a stupid slave, than the slave's charge could makehim. But the Herod is more stubborn than the classic steed of Judea.He demanded haughtily of me, if I expected him to treat with aslanderer or beg a truce with a lie. Then I refused him my offices.Wherefore he hath posted off to Antonia!"
"She will not harken to him--!" he cried with sudden desperation.
"O Marsyas, this day I should be exorcised as a fury, bringing evilhappenings. But better the sorry truth than a fair lie. Antonia hathlived out of the world for the last decade, as hast thou. But herseclusion hath achieved the opposite harm, that is hatched bysolitariness. She retired, full of years and honor; the world,approaching her door, comes in fair garments, bringing tokens ofesteem, talks of ancient triumphs, the virtues of Antonia and the greatrespect Caesar hath for her. Wherefore, kindly treated by the world,remembering nothing but the good of the old days and believing in hersweet dotage that she crushed evil when she crushed Sejanus, hernatural strategic sense hath been lost in a great, all-envelopingcharity. Her natural nobility hath outgrown the wariness which aidsyouth, and her dimmed sight sees things of stature, only, or of highrelief. She will see in the prince's desire only a desire to clearhimself of a charge and she will honor him for it! She will do hisbidding!"
Marsyas snatched up his cloak and sprang toward the archway.
"Let me to her!" he cried.
"Wait!" Junia cried. "Be prepared against defeat, though it nevercome! What wilt thou do, if she be immovable, or already gone--forCaesar is in Tusculum to-day?"
Marsyas stopped and his face grew ashen. He saw Lydia again, among thestones of the rabble, and murder leaped into his heart.
"Kill Eutychus!" he declared desperately.
"It would be fatal for Agrippa," she protested.
His hunted ideas turned then upon Caesar. Suddenly he rushed back toJunia and seized her hands.
"Thou art close to Caesar," he said rapidly and with great supplicationin his voice, "and thou art in Caesar's favor! Beseech him and rightAgrippa's mistakes, I implore thee! Help me, Junia! Be my right arm!Promise me thine intercession!"
Her face suffused, and she waited a moment before she could trust hervoice.
"For thy sake, Marsyas," she answered. "I give thee my word!"
He pressed her hands to his lips and ran out of the house. She droppedback on her couch and put her fingers to her temples.
"Save Agrippa, to kill Saul, to save Lydia, for this Judean vestal'ssake?" she speculated to herself. "And where doth Junia profit? Ah!I shall get him in debt, and extort mine own price! Jew or Gentile, hewill not think it exorbitant, for under it all, he is a man! But toTusculum!"
She clapped her hands and ordered her litter.
Saul of Tarsus: A Tale of the Early Christians Page 24