by Edgar Saltus
CHAPTER VI.
VI.
"Are you better?"
The road that skirted the lake had branched to the left, and there an easyascent led to the hill beyond. On both sides were carpets of flowers andof 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, withwhich she darkened them had gone, and with it the alkanet she had used onher cheeks. Her dress was olive, and, contrary to custom, her headuncovered.
"You are not strong, perhaps?"
As Judas spoke, he thought of the episode in the synagogue, and wished heragain unconscious in his arms.
"I have been so weak," she murmured. And after a moment she added: "I amtired; let me sit awhile."
The carpet of flowers and of green invited, and presently Judas dropped ather side. About his waist a linen girdle had been wound many times; fromit a bag of lynx-skin hung. The white garments, the ample turban that hewore, were those of ordinary life, but in his bearing was just thatevanescent charm which now and then the Oriental possesses--the subtletythat 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 youknow. Susannah too. They do what they can; but we need others--we needyou."
"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 wasunreal, 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 glancedat her covertly. She was looking across the lake, over the country of theGadarenes, beyond even that, perhaps, into some infinite veiled to him.
"I remember," he continued, tentatively, "it was there at Tiberias I sawyou first. You were entering the palace. I waited. The sentries ordered meoff; one threw a stone. I went to where the garden is; I thought you mightbe among the flowers. The wall was so high I could not see. The guardsdrove me away. I ran up the hill through the white and red terraces of thegrape. From there I could see the gardens, the elephants with their earspainted, and the oxen with the twisted horns. The wind sung about me likea flute; the sky was a tent of different hues. Something within me hadsprung into life. It was love, I knew. It had come before, yes, often, butnever as then. For," he added, and the gleam of his eyes was as a fanfareto the thought he was about to express, "love returns to the heart as theleaf returns to the tree."
Mary looked at him vacantly. "What was he saying?" she wondered. From asea 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 notappear. Toward evening I questioned a gardener. He said your name wasMary, but he would tell me nothing else. On the morrow was the circus. Imade sure you would be there--with the tetrarch, I thought; and, that Imight be near the tribune, before the sun had set I was at the circusgate. There were others that came and waited, but I was first. I rememberthat 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 passedquickly, but the morning lagged. When the gate was open, I sprang like azemer from tier to tier until I reached the tribune. There, close by, Isat 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 noheed to me. They told me afterward that Scarlet won three times. I did notknow. 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 exitthrough which I knew you must pass. The guards would not let me. The nextday I made friends with a sentry. He told me that you were Mirjam ofMagdala; that Tiberius wished you at Rome, and that you had gone withAntipas to his citadel. In the wine-shops that night men slunk from meafraid. A week followed of which I knew nothing, then chance disentangledits threads. I found myself in a crowd at the base of a hill; a prophetwas preaching. I had heard prophets before; they were as torches in thenight: he was the Day. I listened and forgot you. He called me; Ifollowed. Until Sunday I had not thought of you again. But when youappeared in the synagogue I started; and when you fainted, when I held youin my arms and your eyes opened as flowers do, I looked into them and itall 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 intothoughts of her own with which it was in unison, and she repeated thephrase mechanically, as a child might do. But now as he ceased to speak,perplexed, annoyed too at the inappositeness of her reply, she came backfrom the infinite in which she had roamed, and for a moment both weresilent.
At the turning of the road a man appeared. At the sight of Judas hehalted, then called him excitedly by name.
"It is Mathias," Judas muttered, and got to his feet. The man hurried tothem. He was broad of shoulder and of girth, the jaw lank and earnest. Hiseyes 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, headded: "I have just seen Johanna. Her husband told her that the tetrarchis seeking him; he thinks him John, and would do him harm. We must go fromhere."
Judas assented. "Yes, we must all go. Mary, it may be a penance, but it ishis 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 apenance," she murmured, "what then are his rewards?"