The meeting at the fountain furnished an opportunity, but it was put aside as not sufficiently public.”
“The Messala is influential,” said Simonides, thoughtfully.
“Yes; but the next meeting will be in the Circus.”
“Well— and then?”
“The son of Arrius will win.”
“How know you?”
Malluch smiled. “I am judging by what he says.”
“Is that all?”
“No; there is a much better sign— his spirit.”
“Ay; but, Malluch, his idea of vengeance— what is its scope?
Does he limit it to the few who did him the wrong, or does he take in the many?
And more— is his feeling but the vagary of a sensitive boy, or has it the seasoning of suffering manhood to give it endurance?
You know, Malluch, the vengeful thought that has root merely in the mind is but a dream of idlest sort which one clear day will dissipate; while revenge the passion is a disease of the heart which climbs up, up to the brain, and feeds itself on both alike.”
In this question, Simonides for the first time showed signs of feeling; he spoke with rapid utterance, and with clenched hands and the eagerness of a man illustrating the disease he described.
“Good my master,” Malluch replied, “one of my reasons for believing the young man a Jew is the intensity of his hate.
It was plain to me he had himself under watch, as was natural, seeing how long he has lived in an atmosphere of Roman jealousy; yet I saw it blaze— once when he wanted to know Ilderim’s feeling towards Rome, and again when I told him the story of the sheik and the wise man, and spoke of the question, ’Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’”
Simonides leaned forward quickly.
“Ah, Malluch, his words— give me his words; let me judge the impression the mystery made upon him.”
“He wanted to know the exact words.
Were they to be or born to be?
It appeared he was struck by a seeming difference in the effect of the two phrases.”
Simonides settled back into his pose of listening judge.
“Then,” said Malluch, “I told him Ilderim’s view of the mystery— that the king would come with the doom of Rome.
The young man’s blood rose over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ’Who but a Herod can be king while Rome endures?’”
“Meaning what?”
“That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule.”
Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the interview.
“Enough, Malluch,” he said. “Get you to eat, and make ready to return to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming trial.
Come to me in the morning.
I will send a letter to IIderim.”
Then in an undertone, as if to himself, he added,
“I may attend the Circus myself.”
When Malluch after the customary benediction given and received was gone, Simonides took a deep draught of milk, and seemed refreshed and easy of mind.
“Put the meal down, Esther,” he said; “it is over.”
She obeyed.
“Here now.”
She resumed her place upon the arm of the chair close to him.
“God is good to me, very good,” he said, fervently. “His habit is to move in mystery, yet sometimes he permits us to think we see and understand him.
I am old, dear, and must go; but now, in this eleventh hour, when my hope was beginning to die, he sends me this one with a promise, and I am lifted up.
I see the way to a great part in a circumstance itself so great that it shall be as a new birth to the whole world.
And I see a reason for the gift of my great riches, and the end for which they were designed.
Verily, my child, I take hold on life anew.”
Esther nestled closer to him, as if to bring his thoughts from their far-flying.
“The king has been born” he continued, imagining he was still speaking to her, “and he must be near the half of common life.
Balthasar says he was a child on his mother’s lap when he saw him, and gave him presents and worship; and Ilderim holds it was twenty-seven years ago last December when Balthasar and his companions came to his tent asking a hiding-place from Herod.
Wherefore the coming cannot now be long delayed.
To-night— to-morrow it may be.
Holy fathers of Israel, what happiness in the thought!
I seem to hear the crash of the falling of old walls and the clamor of a universal change— ay, and for the uttermost joy of men, the earth opens to take Rome in, and they look up and laugh and sing that she is not, while we are;” then he laughed at himself.
“Why, Esther, heard you ever the like?