Stephen Part 7

"How, then, could they understand?" asked Anna, her worn face reflecting the glow upon the face of the young man, as the mountain top clad in its pallor of eternal snow reflects the radiance of the dawn.

"What is the weakness of mortal understanding when the eternal G.o.d sheds upon it his spirit of might? Did he not make the tongue of the Asiatic as well as the tongue of the Greek; the tongues of the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites also, as well as the tongue of the Hebrews? Are not all languages understood by him? He spake through us, and behold, every man heard the message in his own language. After that did Peter speak unto the people, and he mightily convinced them, so that many cried out, 'What shall we do?' 'Repent and be baptized,' he answered them, 'every one of you, in the name of Jesus, the Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off."

"Said he this to the Gentiles?" asked Anna, in amaze.

Stephen looked troubled. "Nay," he said, "I know not if they were Gentiles, they had by inheritance a part in the blessing, even as I had through my mother; but of a surety G.o.d created all men. It will be made plain to us," he added, after a pause, a smile of heavenly sweetness touching his lips.

"And who is it that the wife of the High Priest honors thus with her hospitality?" broke in a sneering voice.

Anna started up with a faint cry, her eyes fixed with manifest terror on the gaunt figure that stood before them.

"Ah! thou dost not answer. Didst thou think, then, that I should remain chained to my couch forever? I am minded to see what is pa.s.sing in my house. It is time."

"Do not stand," gasped Anna. "Thou art not strong. I thought that thou wast asleep."

"Time hasteneth with rapid foot when a lady entertains so comely a young man," said the High Priest with a terrible gentleness. "Once more I ask of thee, who is thy guest?"

Stephen had risen to his feet and was looking with troubled eyes into the face of her whom he had learned to love almost as a mother. He waited for her to speak. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

He turned and fixed his eyes upon the man. "I know not who thou art,"

he said in a clear voice, "nor why thou dost question this beloved lady so harshly, but I can answer for myself. My name is Stephen."

The High Priest took a step forward; he did not speak, but death looked out from his eyes.

"Go! Go!" whispered Anna, turning her white face upon the young man.

"Thou dost not understand, but go!--I beseech thee."

"Nay, I will not go till I am a.s.sured of thy safety. Who, and what manner of man is this?"

The smouldering fire in the eyes of Caiaphas leapt up into a lurid blaze. "Dost thou, the murderer of my son, defy me in mine own house?"

he cried in a choked voice. "Because thou art in mine house, I will not kill thee, but--" and his voice died away into a silence more terrible than speech.

"Go!" repeated Anna imploringly.

But Stephen did not appear to have heard. "What dost thou mean?" he said, his voice full of horror. "Thou hast called me a murderer!"

The High Priest looked at him contemptuously. "Son of a malefactor, dost thou not know that upon thy head rests the blood-guilt of thy father?"

"No!" thundered Stephen, his eyes blazing. "The fire of G.o.d could not rest upon a head whereon is also blood-guilt. I am innocent; G.o.d hath witnessed it."

"Accursed murderer and blasphemer!" hissed Caiaphas. "Get thee hence, or not even the sacred law of hospitality shall refrain my hand from thy throat." Then he sank trembling onto a bench.

True to her wifely instincts, Anna sprang to help him, but he put her away roughly. "Stand before me, woman," he said, fixing his savage eyes upon her. "Thou shalt answer me somewhat that I shall ask of thee. Now that the murderer of thy son hath rid us of his presence thou canst perhaps attend to what I shall say." Anna stood before him, motionless and rigid, her eyes wide with an unnatural calm fixed upon his face.

"Hast thou known who and what this young man is before to-day?"

"Yes."

"Hast thou before received him into my house?"

"Yes."

"Is he a follower of the accursed Nazarene?"

"Yes."

"Art--thou--also one of his believers?"

A change swept over the marble features of the woman, she lifted her face, a mysterious light from above seemed to s.h.i.+ne upon it.

"I am," she said simply, but in those two words there sounded a very pean of triumph.

"Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone," said Caiaphas in a low measured voice, "thou art anathema. As I would cut off my right hand should it become polluted beyond cleansing, so also will I sever thee from my life. Get thee hence unto thine own; thou hast no longer part nor lot with me from henceforth and even forever. And so let it be."

The woman looked dumbly into the pitiless face of the man before her; her slight figure swayed a little, then noiselessly as a snow wreath she fell forward and lay p.r.o.ne upon the marble pavement at his feet.

The man stared at the silent figure; he did not touch it. After a time he arose and walked heavily away without once looking behind him.

CHAPTER IX.

IN THE DESERT ENCAMPMENT.

"Thou mayest fetch the lad and the maiden and set them in my presence.

I would question them of this thing."

The woman bowed herself humbly before her lord and retired; presently she returned, leading by the hand a slight figure clad in the shapeless blue gown of an Egyptian peasant girl. Behind lagged with unwilling feet a half-grown lad.

Abu Ben Hesed fixed his piercing eyes upon the twain. "Thou mayest go till I shall call thee," he said to the woman. She lingered yet a moment to whisper, "The maid is blind, my lord!"

"Come hither, my son," said Ben Hesed after a short survey of his two guests, "and tell me how it befell that thou wast in the desert alone?

Didst thou know," he added somewhat severely, "that thou wast brought to the borders of the encampment only that thou mightest be buried safe from the vultures? Had not one of the women discerned signs of life, when no other eye could see it, thou wouldst even now be sleeping beneath the sand."

The boy shuddered slightly; he opened his lips as though to speak, but the girl broke out impetuously:

"I alone am in fault," she cried. "It was I who would not listen to my brother when he said, 'we shall perish by the way if we go forth into the wilderness.' It is true," she continued, turning to the lad, "folly dwelleth in the heart of a woman. I am minded to let thee beat me. I have deserved it."

Abu Ben Hesed smiled in the midst of his great beard, but the smile looked also out of his eyes, so that the lad was emboldened to speak.

"We fled before the face of an enemy," he said, looking squarely into the bright eyes of the man before him. "He would have made slaves of us in the city; death in the wilderness is better."

"Thou hast spoken a word of wisdom when thou hast so said, my son,"

cried Ben Hesed, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng. "And who is it that would have caged the wild eaglets of the desert?"

"I know not," replied the lad. "I saw not the man, I only heard him speak. We were hidden in the abiding place of the dead; he would have shut us up there to perish, but Sechet smote him in the act and we left him on his face in the sand."

"Thou art Egyptian," said Ben Hesed after a pause. "How comes it that thou canst speak the tongue of the desert?"