“Hast thou no mercy?” cried Barabbas in an agony, “Not even at this hour?”
“Not at this hour nor at any hour!” responded Peter with fierce triumph lighting up his features, “ God forbid that I should show any mercy to the wicked!”
“There spoke the first purely human Christian!” murmured a low satirical voice, and the picturesque form of Melchior shadowed itself against a marble column whitened by the moon— “Verily, Petrus, thou shalt convey to men in a new form the message of Love Divine!”
But the disciple heeded not these words. He strode forward to where Judith lay half prone across her brother’s corpse, still busying herself with efforts to untie the suicidal noose at the throat, that was now darkly moist with blood.
“What doest thou there, Judith Iscariot?” he demanded—” Thou canst never unfasten that hempen necklet, ’tis not of pearls or sparkling gems such as thy soul loveth, — and Judas himself hath knotted it too closely for easy severance. Let be, let be, — weep and lament for thine own treachery, — for behold a curse shall fall upon thee, never to be lifted from thy life again!”
She heard, — and raising her eyes which were dry and glittering with fever, smiled at him. So wildly beautiful did she look, that Peter, though wrought up to an exaltation of wrath, was for a moment staggered by the bewildering loveliness of her perfect face showered round by its wealth of red-gold hair, and hesitated to pronounce the malediction that hovered on his lips.
“Never again, — never again” — she murmured vaguely—” See!” And she showed him her blood-stained fingers— “Life lingers in him yet! — ah, prithee, friend” — and she gazed up at him appealingly—” Undo the cruel cord! — if Judas tied it,... didst thou not tell me Judas tied it?... how could that be?” — She paused, — a puzzled look knitting her brows, — then a sudden terror began to shake her limbs.
“Father!” she exclaimed.
He hastened to her, and, lifting her up, pressed her against his breast, the tears raining down his face.
“What does it mean?” she faltered, gazing at him alarmedly— “Tell me, — it is not true,... it cannot be true, — Judas was ever brave and bold, — he did not wreak this violence upon himself?”
Iscariot strove to answer her, but words failed him, — the wonted calmness of his austerely handsome features was completely broken up by misery and agitation. She, however, gazing fully at him, understood at last, — and, wrenching herself out of his arms, stood for a moment immovable and ghastly pale, as though suddenly turned to stone. Then, lifting her incardined hands in the bright moon-rays, she broke into a discordant peal of delirious laughter.
“O terrible Nazarene!” she cried—” This is thy work! Thy sorceries have triumphed! — thou hast thy victory! Thou art avenged in full, thou pitiless, treacherous Nazarene!”
And with a sharp shriek that seemed to stab the stillness with a wound, she fell forward on the pavement in a swoon, as lost to sense and sight as the body of Judas, that with its fixed wide-open eyes stared blindly outward into nothingness and smiled.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THEY carried her to her own chamber and left her to the ministrations of her women, who wept for her as women will often weep when startled by the news of some tragic event which does not personally concern them, without feeling any real sympathy with the actual cause of sorrow. Her haughty and arrogant disposition had made her but few friends among her own sex, and her peerless beauty had ever been a source of ill-will and envy to others less dazzlingly fair. So that the very maidens who tended her in her fallen pride and bitter heartbreak, though they shed tears for pure nervousness, had little love in their enforced care, and watched her in her deep swoon with but casual interest, only whispering vague guesses one to another as to what would be her possible condition when she again awoke to consciousness.
Meanwhile her brother’s corpse was reverently placed on two carved and gilded trestles set in an arched recess of the open court, and draped with broideries of violet and gold. In stern silence and constrained composure, the unhappy father of the dead man gave his formal instructions, and fulfilled in every trifling particular the duties that devolved upon him, — and when all had been done that was demanded of him for the immediate moment, he turned towards those three who had brought home the body of his son between them, — Barabbas, Melchior, and the disciple Peter.
“Sirs,” he said in a low voice broken by emotion—” I have to thank ye for the sorrowful service ye have rendered me, — albeit it hath broken my heart and hath visited upon our house such mourning as shall never cease. Only one of ye am I in any sort acquainted with, — and that is Barabbas, lately the prisoner of the law. In former days he hath been welcomed here and deemed a worthy man and true, and now, despite his well-proved crimes and shame of punishment, I can but bear in mind that once he was my son’s companion in the house of El-Shadeen.” Here his accents faltered, but he controlled himself and went on— “Wherefore, excusing not his faults, I yet would say that even as the people have released him, I cannot visit him with censure, inasmuch as he hath evident pity for my grief and did appeal for my beloved child against the mercilessness of this stranger.” Pausing, he turned his eyes upon Peter, who met his gaze boldly.
Stranger I truly am from henceforth to the Jews” — said the disciple, “ Naught have I in common with their lives, spent in the filthy worship of Mammon and the ways of usury. Nevertheless I compassionate thy fate, Iscariot, as I compassionate the fate of any wretched man stricken with woes innumerable through his own blindness and unbelief; — and as for mercilessness whereof thou dost accuse me, thou shalt find the Truth ever as a sword inclement, sharp to cut away all pleasingly delusive forms. When thou dost speak of thy beloved child, thou dost betray the weakness of thy life, for from thy nest of over-pampering and indulgent love hath risen a poison snake to sting and slay! A woman left unguarded and without authority upon her is even as a devil that destroys, — a virgin given liberty of will is soon deflowered. Knowest thou not thy Judith is a wanton? — and that thy ravening high-priest Caiaphas hath made of her a viler thing than ever was the city’s Magdalen? Ah, strike an’ thou wilt, Iscariot! — the truth is on my lips! — tear out my tongue and thou shalt find the truth still there!”
Speechless with wrath, Iscariot made one fierce stride towards him with full intent to smite him across the mouth as the only fitting answer to his accusation, but as he raised his threatening hand, the straight, unquailing look of the now almost infuriate disciple, struck him with a sudden supernatural awe and he paused inert.
“The truth, the truth!” cried Peter, tossing his arms about—” Lo, from henceforth I will clamour for it, rage for it, live for it, die for it! Three times have I falsely sworn, and thus have I taken the full measure of a Lie! Its breadth, its depth, its height, its worth, its meaning, its result, — its crushing suffocating weight upon the soul! I know its nature— ’tis all hell in a word!— ’tis a ‘yea’ or ‘ nay’ on which is balanced all eternity! I will no more of it, — I will have truth, — the truth of men, the truth of women, — no usurer shall be called honest, — no wanton shall be called chaste, to please the humour of the passing hour! No — no — I will have none of this — but only truth! — the truth that is even as a shining naked scimitar in the hand of God, glittering horribly! — I, Peter, will declare it! — I who did swear a lie three times, will speak the truth three thousand times in reprisal of my sin! Weep, rave, tear thy reverend hairs, unreverent Jew, thou who, as stiffnecked righteous Pharisee, didst practise cautious virtue and self-seeking sanctity, and now through unbelief, art left most desolate! Wouldst stake a world upon thy daughter’s honour! — Fie! ’tis dross!— ’tis common ware, — purchaseable for gold and gewgaws! Lo, through this dazzling woman-snare born of thy blood, a God hath perished in Judæa! His words have been rejected, — His message is despised, — His human life hath been roughly torn from Him by torture. Therefore upon Judæa shall the curse be wrought thro
ugh ages following endless ages, and as the children of the house of Israel do worship gold, even so shall gold be their damnation! Like base slaves shall they toil, for kings and counsellors; even as brutish beasts shall they be harnessed to the wheels of work, and drag the heavier burdens of the State beneath the whip and scourge, — despised and loathed they shall labour for others, in bondage. Scattered through many lands their tribes shall be, and nevermore shall they be called a nation! For ever and for ever shall the sinless blood of the Messenger of God rest red upon Judæa! — for ever and for ever from this day shall Israel be cast out from the promises of life eternal, — a scorn and abomination in the sight of Heaven!”
He paused, breathless, his hands uplifted as though invoking doom. His rough cloak fell away from his shoulders in almost regal folds, displaying his coarse fisherman’s dress beneath, — his figure seemed to grow taller and statelier, investing itself with a kind of mystic splendour in the shining radiance of the moon. Lifting his eyes to the stars twinkling like so many points of flame above him, he smiled, a wild and wondering smile.
“But the end is not yet!” he said—” There is a new terror and trembling that doth threaten the land. For ye have murdered the Christ without slaying Him! — ye have forced Him to suffer death, but He is not dead! To-night He is buried, — shut down in the gloom of the grave, — what will ye do if the great stones laid above Him have no force to keep Him down? — what if the earth will not hold Him? — what if, after three days, as He said, He should rise to life again? I will aver nothing, — I will not again swear falsely, — I will shut my doubts and terrors in mine own soul and say no more, — but think of it, O ye unregenerate of Israel, what will ye do in the hour of trembling if He, whom ye think dead, doth in very truth arise to life?”
His voice sank to a whisper, — he glanced about him nervously, — then, as though seized by some sudden panic, he covered himself shudderingly up in his mantle so that his face could hardly be seen, and began to steal away cautiously on tip-toe.
“Think of it!” he repeated, looking back once at Iscariot with a wild stare— “Perchance He may pardon Judas! — Nay, I know nothing — I will swear nothing, — nevertheless ‘twill be a strange world, ‘twill be an altogether different, marvellous world if He should keep His word, and after three days — no more, no less, He should arise again!”
And still moving as one in fear, shrouded in his cloak and stepping noiselessly, he turned abruptly and disappeared.
Iscariot gazed after him in mingled anger and perplexity.
“Is it some madman ye have brought hither?” he demanded—” What manner of devil doth possess him?”
“The devil of a late remorse,” answered Melchior slowly—” It doth move a man ofttimes to most singular raving, and doth frequently inspire him to singular deeds. The devil in this fisherman will move the world!”
“Fisherman?” echoed Iscariot wonderingly— “Is he no more than common?”
“No more than common,” — replied Melchior, his eyes dilating singularly—” Common as — clay! Herein will be his failure and his triumph. The scent of the sea was round him at his birth, — from very boyhood he hath contended with the raging winds and waters, — so shall he yet contend with similarly warring elements. No kings ever travelled from afar to kneel before him in his cradle, — no Eastern sages proffered gifts to honour him, — no angels sang anthems for him in the sky, — these things were for the ‘Nazarene’ whom lately he denied, but whom he now will serve most marvellously! But, for the present, as the time now goes, he is but Simon Peter, one of the fisher-folk of Galilee, and lately a companion of thy dead son, Judas.”
A smothered groan escaped Iscariot’s lips as his eyes wandered to the extemporised bier on which the corpse of Judas lay.
“Unhappy boy!” he murmured— “No wonder thou wert fanatic and wild, consorting with such friends as these!”
He went and stood by the covered body, and there, looking round towards his visitors with an air of sorrowful and resigned dignity, said, —
“Ye will not take it ill of me, sirs, that I entreat ye now to leave me. The grief I have is almost too great to grasp, — my spirit is broken with mourning, and I am very weary. As for my daughter, thou, Barabbas, needest not that I should tell thee of the falsity of the slander brought against her by you mad disciple of a mad reformer. Thou knowest her, — her innocence, her pride, her spotless virtue, — and to the friend thou hast with thee, thou wilt defend her honour and pure chastity. Thou hearest me?”
“I hear thee” — answered Barabbas in a choked voice— “And verily my whole heart aches for thee, Iscariot!’
The elder man looked at him keenly and trembled.
“I thank thee, friend!” he then said quickly—” Thou hast been guilty of heinous crimes, — but nevertheless I know thou hast manliness enough, and wilt, as far as lies within thy power, defend my child from scurrilous talk, such as this coarse-tongued Galilean fisherman may set current in the town.” He paused as though he were thinking deeply, — then beckoned Barabbas to approach him more closely. As his gesture was obeyed, he laid one hand on his son’s veiled corpse and the other on Barabbas’s arm.
“Understand me well!” he said in a fierce hoarse whisper—” If there were a grain of truth in that vile slander, I would kill Caiaphas! — yea, by this dead body of mine only son I swear I would slay him before all the people in the very precincts of the Temple!”
In that one moment his face was terrible, — and the sombre eyes of Barabbas glittered a swift response to his thought. For a brief space the two men looked at each other steadily, and to Barabbas’s excited fancy it seemed as if, at the utterance of Iscariot’s oath, the body of Judas trembled slightly underneath its heavy wrappings. One second, and the sudden flash of furious comprehension that had lighted their dark features as with fire, passed, and the bereaved father bent his head in ceremonious salutation.
“Farewell, sirs,” — he said, bidding Barabbas retreat from him by a slight commanding sign— “What poor thanks a broken-hearted man can give are yours for bringing home my dead. I will see ye both again, — a few days hence, — when the bitterness of grief is somewhat quelled, — when I am stronger, — better fitted for reasonable speech, — but now” —
He waved his hand in dismissal, and drawing his mantle round him, sat down by his son’s corpse, to keep an hour’s melancholy vigil.
Barabbas at once retired with Melchior, only pausing on his way out to inquire of a passing servant if Judith had recovered from her swoon. He received an answer in the negative, given with tears and doleful shaking of the head, and with a heavy heart he left the house and passed into the moonlit street. There, after walking a little way, Melchior suddenly stopped, fixing his jewellike contemplative eyes upon the brooding face of his companion.
“Dreamest thou, good ruffian, of the beauty of thy lost Judith?” he said—” I confess to thee I never saw a fairer woman! Even her sorrow doth enhance her loveliness.”
Barabbas shuddered.
“Why speak to me now of her beauty?” he demanded passionately— “Hath it not wrought sufficient havoc? Think of the dead Judas!”
“Truly I do think of him” responded Melchior gravely—” All the world will think of him, — he will never be forgotten. Unhappy youth! — for history will make him answerable for sins that are not all his own. But the chronicles of men are not the chronicles of God, — and even Judas shall have justice in the end. Meantime,” — and he smiled darkly—” knowest thou, good Barabbas, I am troubled by a singular presentiment? Poverty doth not oppress me, — nevertheless, I swear unto thee, I would not in these days stake a penny piece upon the value of the life of Caiaphas. What thinkest thou?” Barabbas stared at him, aghast and breathing quickly. And for a moment they remained so, gazing full at one another in the paling radiance of the sinking moon, — then walked on together, homeward, in silence.
CHAPTER XXX.
TOWARDS three o’c
lock in the dawn of the Jewish Sabbath, Judith Iscariot awoke from her heavy stupor of merciful unconsciousness. Opening her eyes, she gazed about her bewilderedly, and gradually recognised her surroundings. She was in her own room, — the casement was closed and lamps were burning, — and at the foot of her couch sat two of her waiting-women sunk in a profound slumber. Lifting herself cautiously upon her pillows, she looked at them wonderingly, — then peered round on all sides to see if any others were near. No, — there was no one, — only those two maids fast asleep. Gathering together her disordered garments, and twisting up her hair in a loose knot, she noiselessly arose and, stepping down from her couch, moved across the room till she faced her mirror. There she paused and smiled wildly at herself, — how strange her eyes looked!... but how bright, how beautiful! The pearls Barabbas had given her long ago, gleamed on her throat, — she fingered them mechanically, — poor Barabbas! — certainly he had loved her in days gone by. But since then many things had happened, — wonderful and confusing things, — and now there was only one thing left to remember, — that after long absence and unkind estrangement Judas was once more at home! Yes! — Judas was at home, — and she would go and see him and talk to him, and clear up whatever foolish misunderstanding there had been between them. Her head swam giddily, and she felt a feebleness in all her limbs, — shudders of icy cold ran through her, followed by waves of heat that sickened and suffocated her, — but she paid little heed to these sensations, her one desire to see Judas overpowering all physical uneasiness. She fastened her white robe more securely about her with a gold-embroidered girdle, and catching sight of her ornamental dagger where it lay on a table close by, she attached it to her waist. Then she glanced anxiously round at her two women, — they still slept. Stepping heedfully on tip-toe, she passed easily out of her room, for the door had been left open for air, and there was only the curtain at the archway to quietly lift and let fall. Tottering a little as she walked, she glided along the corridor, a white figure with a spectral pale face and shining eyes, — she felt happy and light-hearted, — almost she could have sung a merry song, so singularly possessed by singular joy was she. Reaching the open aircourt she stopped, gazing eagerly from side to side, — its dim quadrangle was full of flickering lights and shadows, for the moon had disappeared behind the frowning portico, leaving but a silvery trail upon the sky to faintly mark her recent passage among the stars. Everything was very still, — no living creature was visible save a little downy owl that flew with a plaintive cry in and out among the marble columns calling to its mate with melancholy persistence. The bereaved Iscariot, wearied out by grief, had but just retired to snatch some sorely-needed rest, and the body of his hapless son laid out beneath its violet pall, possessed to itself the pallid hour of the vanishing night and the coming morn. Judith’s softly sandalled feet made a delicate sound like the pattering of falling leaves as she moved somewhat unsteadily over the pavement, groping in the air now and then with her hands as though she were blind. Very soon her perplexed wandering gaze found what she sought, the suggestive dark mass of drapery under which reposed all that was mortal of her brother, the elder companion and confidant of her childhood who had loved her with a tenderness “passing that of women.” She hurried her steps and almost ran, — and without any hesitation or fear, turned back all the coverings till the face and the whole form of the dead Judas lay before her, stark and stiff, the rope still fastened round the neck in dreadful witness of the deed that had been done. Terribly beautiful he seemed in that pale semi-radiance of the sky, — austerely grand, — with something of a solemn scorn upon his features, and an amazing world of passionate appeal in his upward gazing eyes. “Call ye me a traitor?” he mutely said to the watchful stars— “Lo, in the days to come, there shall be among professing saints many a worse than I!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 308