Silvanus admitted the validity of his objections. “Can you suggest anything?”
“There might be a way,” Luke said thoughtfully, and told Silvanus the story Ananias had told him about the smuggler who had lived in the house he now owned, and how a fortune had been made by hauling goods up and down the walls with ropes to avoid paying customs duties.
The centurion’s eyes lit up. “It could be the answer,” he admitted. “But Saul still might be challenged close to the city. Many travelers reach the gates after they have closed when the sun sets and are forced to camp outside the walls until morning. I know that Paphos maintains a small detachment of the guard outside the walls every night to keep order among these people.”
“Saul must be hidden, then.”
“Yes, but how?”
“I know,” Luke cried in sudden excitement. “In one of the weavers’ baskets. There is a stack of them in Ananias’s shop. One basket could easily hold a short man like Saul. I could disguise myself and take him out through the gates inside it.”
“But suppose the guards make you open the basket?”
“Why not take an empty one out of the city? Saul can be let down over the wall later when it is dark.”
“It might succeed,” Silvanus admitted. “But I hate for you to risk it. If you are caught, it would go hard with you, and Theophilus might not be able to keep you from being punished severely.”
But Luke’s youthful enthusiasm was kindled by the daring nature of the stratagem they proposed. This was like the games he and Apollonius had played as children, when the Roman spy escaped from the barbarians just before he was to be executed and led the legions through a secret pass to a surprise attack and victory. Only this time it would be far more exciting, for the danger would be very real indeed.
XIV
Less than an hour remained before the gates of Damascus would close when Luke stood in the garden with Mariamne, beneath the very wall over which, if all went well, Saul would escape about midnight. They had decided to make the attempt then, for the city would be asleep. Saul was hidden somewhere else; he would be brought to the house of Ananias when it was dark enough to escape detection.
Mariamne’s eyes were red, and Luke knew that she had been weeping because he was leaving. They stood now in awkward silence close together beside the fountain, their hearts brimming over with things each wished to say in this hour of parting, but too shy still to speak them. Then she put her hand on the rough fabric of the cheap homespun robe Ananias had purchased to hide Luke’s regular clothing, and her fingers moved up to touch his cheeks, stained a light brown by walnut juice, for he was to play the part of a lad from the streets of Damascus.
“You will be careful, won’t you, Luke?” she whispered.
He took her soft hand and put it to his lips, thinking that it was like touching them to the soft inner petals of a flower. “Yes, dearest Mariamne,” he said. “Will you wait until I come again?”
“I will wait always, Luke, my darling,” she whispered. Then suddenly she put her arms about his neck and, rising on tiptoe, pressed her soft mouth to his, clinging to him as if she could never let him go. But when he would have caught her in his arms and held her, she broke from him and ran sobbing into the house. As he stood irresolute, wanting to follow her but knowing it would only prolong the parting, Ananias called from the shop, “Hurry, Luke. Sometimes the gates are closed early.”
A mule waited patiently in the street before the shop, one of the large baskets securely held by a harness on its back. Ananias put his hands upon Luke’s shoulders and embraced him fondly. “Farewell, Luke,” he said in a choked voice. “Be sure and come back to us.”
Luke stumbled through the dusty street leading to the gate, for his eyes were still blurred by tears. He had planned to reach the gate in the rush of people leaving just before it closed, but tonight the rush was smaller than usual. One of the guards stopped him with the lowered blade of his sword. “What is in the basket, boy?” he demanded gruffly.
Luke pitched his voice to the nasal whine of a street beggar. “Nothing of any value, master.”
“We shall see about that.” When the other guards began to laugh, Luke knew that he was to be made sport of, a cruel custom of the soldiers with those too poor to strike back. The guard slapped the side of the basket with the flat of his sword. “Open it,” he commanded.
“Please, sir—” Luke’s voice trembled with honest fright now as he fumbled with the ropes, searching desperately for some means of diverting their attention from the basket. If they found it empty, he knew they would become suspicious that he was engaged in smuggling and hold him inside the city. “My father just died, master,” he whined, hoping to play upon the sympathy of the guard. “And I am carrying his few belongings to the house of my uncle in Antioch.”
“Your dead father needs no money, boy.” The guard laughed. “I can sell his belongings and buy wine.” He slipped the blade of his sword under one of the ropes, severing it easily, and, when Luke tried to stop him, knocked the youth sprawling in the dirt.
“Please, master,” Luke whined, fighting back the tears brought by the pain and humiliation at having to grovel in the dirt before a common soldier. “My father was a leper. Do you want to—?”
“A leper!” The guard recoiled from the basket.
“He died only yesterday, but already it had eaten away his—”
“Go!” the soldier shouted, booting Luke roughly to his feet. He looked with horror at the hand which had touched the basket, as if momentarily expecting to see the dread white spot of leprosy appear there. “Begone!” he screamed again, and kicked the mule so that the surprised beast leaped through the gate and trotted down the road with the lead rope dragging. Luke plunged through the gate and seized the rope, hot still with resentment, but already feeling a surge of relief at having gotten out of the city with no damage to anything but his pride and a few bruises.
XV
During the early hours of the night Luke rested close to the walls of the city so that he could hear the crier shout the passing of the hours. Damascus should have been asleep long before midnight, the time they had chosen for the escape, but as time passed he could hear the sound of marching troops inside the walls and occasionally a scream of agony as some poor devil was beaten or prodded with the sharp point of a sword. Something was happening inside the city, he realized with a sense of foreboding, and it could mean no good for the project he was embarked upon. If the guards discovered Saul hiding in the house of Ananias, they would certainly arrest the entire household, and the thought of Mariamne in the rough hands of the jailers was almost more than Luke could stand.
Shortly before midnight Luke led his mule with its empty burden along the wall toward the spot where he judged the house of Ananias to be. He had made a reconnaissance the morning before with Silvanus, under the guise of a walk outside the gates. He could not tell exactly where the house lay, and since those above would not dare to show a signal light lest there be guards outside tonight looking for smugglers, they had agreed upon a signal by which he would know when he had reached the portion of the wall against which the house of Ananias was built.
Now his heart leaped, for clearly through the cool night air came the notes of a lyre and the lovely voice of a young girl singing in Aramaic one of the songs which the Jews attributed to the wise King Solomon. It was a signal which none would suspect to be a signal, a young girl singing to her lover in the garden.
Luke whistled a low note, and at once Mariamne sang the words, her voice faltering a little: “Luke. Is it you?”
“Yes, dearest one,” he called.
Dropping all pretense of song, she said quickly, “You must hurry, Luke. The soldiers are searching the city; they may be here at any moment.”
“I am ready,” he called. “Let down the basket.”
Scraping sounds came from the darkness
overhead, and then he saw the dark shape of the basket sliding down the wall a few yards ahead of him. As he moved the mule toward it, he loosened the rope holding the empty container upon the animal’s back and, dropping it to the ground for the moment, settled the much heavier basket into the harness.
The animal grunted at the sudden change in burden, but Luke soothed it with one hand and untied the rope from around the basket with the other. Then he quickly attached the free end to the empty basket he had taken from the mule and jerked three times. It was whisked up the walls at once, showing the urgency felt by those in the garden of Ananias. A few seconds sufficed to lash the container in which Saul lay to the mule’s harness and, picking up the lead rope, Luke urged the mule away from the wall in the direction where he knew the road leading from Damascus to the north lay. As he stumbled along in the darkness Mariamne’s lovely voice sang to him in farewell, this time in Greek. It was a tender love song, and the words, plus the realization that it might be years before he saw her again, brought a lump to his throat.
He was almost to the road he sought and beginning to breathe easier when he saw torches bobbing through the night toward him. There was no way of telling who it could be or what was their purpose, so he seized the mule’s bridle and stood dead still in the darkness, hoping not to be seen. But the mule snorted, and immediately the lights turned and converged upon him. A cold fear gripped Luke now, for he was sure that the guards had somehow learned of Saul’s escape from the city and had come to capture them. Silvanus had warned him, too, that his fate might not be an easy one if he were captured while helping an important figure like Saul to escape.
Then a torch was lifted high, outlining him and the mule against the night, and a voice hailed sharply: “You, with the mule. Stop!”
Luke had no choice but to wait numbly. The soldiers gathered around him, and the leader peered at his face by torchlight. His terror was evident, for the leader said kindly, “Where are you going at this time of night, boy?”
“I am lost, master,” Luke whined, remembering to play his role. “I seek the road to Antioch.”
“Antioch! Why do you go there, and by night?”
“My father died yesterday, and I am going there to live with my uncle. They tell me robbers are on the road by day.”
The man laughed. “Do you carry such valuable things, then?”
“Nothing of any real worth, master. Nothing you would want.”
“We want not your paltry belongings, boy,” the leader said. “A criminal has escaped from the city, a Jew named Saul.” He nodded to one of the soldiers. “Open the basket so that we can be on our way. It would hardly harbor a Jewish criminal, but we must make sure.”
“The basket is unclean,” Luke cried, remembering the success of that stratagem before. “My father died of leprosy.”
The soldier drew back and the group around him widened noticeably, but Luke feared that in a moment the leader would order him to open the basket, and he would have no course but to obey. In the moment of awkward silence that followed his warning cry he heard the tramp of more feet, and new torches appeared from the direction of the gate. “Sasa!” a voice shouted. “What have you found?”
“Only a boy with a mule,” the leader called Sasa replied. “We are going to look into his basket and then go on.”
Luke recognized the voice of the man who had called. It was the soldier with whom he had had the trouble earlier at the gate. “Ask that one who spoke if I do not tell the truth about the basket,” he suggested quickly. “He was at the gate when I came through.”
The other group had approached now and, seeing Luke, the one who had been at the gate shouted, “Touch not the basket, Sasa! It is unclean from leprosy.”
Sasa stepped back then, apparently satisfied. “The road to Antioch lies two hundred paces ahead, boy,” he said kindly. “See that you lose no time in reaching it.”
Luke’s knees were trembling as he led the mule along the road, but not enough to keep him from setting as fast a pace as the plodding animal would allow. He wanted no more searching parties stopping him, even if it did mean shaking up Saul a little as he crouched in the basket.
It was several hours later and weary miles lay between them and Damascus before Luke felt that it was safe to stop. By then the moon had risen and he led the mule off the road into a small grove of apricot trees growing beside a brook. His feet, unaccustomed to walking on the hard dusty road, were blistered and sore, and he was glad to get off the road and onto the smooth carpet of grass growing beside the brook. Tying the mule’s lead rope to a sapling that grew over the water so the animal could drink its fill, Luke loosened the ropes holding the cover on the basket and removed it. Saul lay with his knees drawn up nearly to his chin, for there had barely been room for him.
“I will help you out,” Luke said. “You must be stiff.”
He had to lift Saul bodily from the basket and set him on his feet, and even then cramped muscles refused to function and his legs buckled. With Luke’s help Saul hobbled over to a large flat rock and sat down. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead from the intense agony as feeling returned to his numb limbs. Luke limped over to the mule and detached the waterskin from the harness, along with a package of bread, cheese, and dates which Ananias had thoughtfully provided. He held the skin for Saul to drink and afterward drank long and deeply himself. While the mule sucked up water noisily, he spread the food on a rock beside them. They ate awhile in silence, until Luke said, “We barely escaped capture back there. Did you hear it all?”
Saul nodded. “You are a quick thinker, Luke. I am sure I owe my life to you.” Then he added thoughtfully, “But I wonder if I should not have remained in Damascus.”
“Hyrcanus would have taken you back to Jerusalem, and you know what that would have meant.”
“Yes. I have sent men to their deaths for just such an offense as I myself have committed against our religious laws.”
“Do you feel any remorse?” Luke asked curiously.
“I was wrong,” Saul admitted soberly. “But I was obeying the law as I knew it then. Only later did I learn another and better way.”
Perhaps it really was unjust to blame Saul for Stephen’s death, Luke thought. It could be that the man who had persecuted the Company of the Fish had really changed, moved by some powerful inner force which could make a new man of him in the instant of time when he had been blinded on the road to Damascus by sunlight reflected from the gilded dome of a palace. “What are you going to do now, Saul?” he asked.
“Do?” Saul lifted his head. “Whatever the Lord wills me to do, of course.” Then, almost as if he were talking to himself, he continued, “As a boy I studied the Greek philosophers as religiously as I did the scrolls which tell the history of the Jews and the words of the prophets. Later I went to Jerusalem to study under the greatest teacher of our race, the rabbi Gamaliel. And in time I was given a high place before the Sanhedrin and one day would have been a member of the ruling council of the Jews.”
“But you were not satisfied with what you were doing,” Luke pointed out. “I could see that on the day you prosecuted Stephen before the Sanhedrin.”
“A man does not change his beliefs and his whole life in an instant,” Saul admitted. “Much must go before and after such a change. And yet I have endured much since that day when you and your friend, the centurion, found me on the road to Damascus. For three days I was blind. I was forced to hide from the guards and escaped over the walls like a common criminal, although guilty of no crime. Do you think this is better than what I had in Tarsus or Jerusalem?”
“Why did you do it, then?”
Saul turned somber eyes upon his young companion. “Because I heard a call which tells me there is a higher purpose for me than anything which has gone before.” His voice sounded as if he were seeking encouragement in that conviction, but Luke could not help him, for here
was something he had never experienced before, a troubled man pouring out his innermost thoughts. Later—when he had many years of experience in the calling of medicine—Luke would know that the highest duty of a physician is thus to receive the troubled thoughts of those sick in mind and body and give them the confidence and assurance they so badly need. But tonight Luke was only a youth, learned in science and philosophy, but knowing little indeed about life.
“Nicanor tells me you saved the scroll of the teachings of Jesus,” Saul said. “And tonight you risked your life to help me. Why did you do those things, Luke?”
Luke did not answer, for he really did not know why he had acted as he had, except that Silvanus had asked him to help Saul, and he had taken the scroll in answer to the request of a dying man. Yet he could not help feeling in his heart that something beyond either of those reasons had actually moved him, something he could not express in words.
“I think I know why both of us have changed the pattern of our lives, Luke,” Saul continued. “We must be part of a larger plan, something we can only obey but not yet understand.”
“Silvanus said the same thing,” Luke cried in astonishment.
“There was a centurion at Capernaum whose servant was healed by Jesus.”
“That was Silvanus,” Luke interrupted excitedly. “I—I think he believes in Jesus.”
“Do you believe in Jesus yet, Luke?” Saul asked. Then he shook his head. “No, you are a Greek and intelligent. You must search out the truth for yourself.”
“Have you found it?” Luke asked impulsively.
“Not yet. That is why I must do what Jesus did when first He realized what destiny had in store for Him. I shall go into the wilderness.” Then he changed the subject abruptly. “Where were you to meet your own party, Luke?”
Luke fumbled in his robe, striking his hand against the scroll, and drew out the rough map Silvanus had drawn for him of the road leading northward from Damascus. “The Via Maris leaves the road to Antioch about two hours’ journey or so from here,” he explained to Saul as they studied the map in the bright moonlight. “Our way lies north and west, toward the coast, while the Way of the Sea continues eastward toward the great desert and Mesopotamia.”
The Road to Bithynia: A Novel of Luke, the Beloved Physician Page 8