CHAPTER XXXVI
ON THE DAMASCUS ROAD
With the solid soil of the ancient Roman road beneath his horse's feet,Marsyas rode north, between the hills of Judea, with the head of Mt.Ephraim before him. The early morning of the second day broke overhim, fresh on the long straight road, leading over the border intoSamaria, past the Well of Jacob, and through the city of Samaria. Atnoon the third day he turned at the parting of the ways, and rode east,along the southern edge of the Plains of Esdraelon, until, through acrevice in the hills, he saw the Jordan sparkling in its valley below.It was an old familiar way, thence, north once more, fording a hundredmountain brooks that fed the river of the Holy Land. The narrowfertile strip that lay between the hills and waters of the Sea ofGalilee, unto Tiberias, he accomplished after night. At dawn heentered Magdala, at mid-morning Capernaum, and, leaving the margin ofthe beautiful lake, he passed north into the rocks, ridges and forestsonce more. Through marshes and sedge, with the waters of the Jordan inthe heart of it, he forded the south arm of Lake Huleh and enteredItrurea.
The country changed but the road did not. It was still the samecompact ribbon of stone and soil in the marsh as it was in the hills,as it was in the fertile lowlands. Ahead of him, through the hills itstretched, through the oaks of Bashan, under cliffs surmounted bycastles, or hillsides marked by temples. And when the oaks left off,and the hills fell back and the streams dried into dead, sapless bedswatered only by infrequent rains, the road continued on.
The fifth dawn, he rode down a pass, through a rocky defile, and theSyrian desert was before him.
He had bought provisions for two days' journey at the last village inthe fertile lands; his horse was freshened after a night's feeding onthe herbage in the hills, and Marsyas' heart was resolute.
Even the road no longer led him on, but he touched his horse with hishand and passed into the wilderness.
At a huddle of huts for goat-tenders, he found that Saul and his partyhad passed at noon the day previous. The Arabs there besought him toremain until the evening, for none traveled under a Syrian noonday andescaped evil consequences. But Marsyas wrapped his head in his mantle,watered his horse and pressed on. He had no time to lose.
The Antilibanus, a glaring ridge of chalk, heightened at intervals intopeaks that held up their blistering cold winds from the heat-blastedday, and swept them down by night to confound the stunned earth withice. The shale from their easternmost slopes sprawled out on thedesert and scarred it with rock and gravel until the blowing sandsburied it. Far to the east, the lap of the desert dropped down intoemptiness, marked by a level of intervening atmosphere. Beyond thatwere bald hills outlined against the horizon.
Between was a cruel waste, tufted here and there by gray-green, scrubbygrowth, half-buried in sand and rooted in gravel. There was color, butit was the dye of chemicals, not refractions; chalks, not rainbows.The drop of water has only the true range of the spectrum and itsmerging grades, but sands may be erratic, chaotic. Thus, the wadies,sallow meanderings in the trembling distance, were bordered with dullfawn and dull lavender--ashes of scarlet and purple; wherever hummocksarose there were ground-swells of lifeless gray and saffron--burned-outblue and gold. Over it all were sown burnished fleckings of myriads ofmica particles, like white-hot motes from the face of the sun itself.The air was flame; the sky a livid arch that no man dared look upon.
At high noon, Marsyas hid from the deadly sun in a crevice in a narrowcanyon; but pressed on while yet the scorching air burned his nostrils.At night, he rode through bitter winds, or broke his fast with the inkyoutlines of jackals squatting about the rim of the immediate landscape.He met no man, and had no desire for companionship with the burden ofhis stern thoughts to attend him.
He did not have the murderer's heart in him; he did not go forward in awhirl of passion and fury; it did not once occur to him to ambush theTarsian; he did not ponder on a plan of action when the moment shouldarrive; not once did he strike the fatal blow, in his imagination, norspeak with Saul, nor follow himself after the deed was done. His ideaswere largely in retrospect, or centered upon the necessity of his work.His love of Lydia, his love of life, his natural impulses towardgenerous things were put away from him with firmness, as things whichhad no place at such a time. His composure was almost resignation. Heknew then, that which he had never been able to understand,--how men ofgreat souls and previous noble lives could in all calmness kill anotherby design.
A glittering white ridge had shaped itself out of the pale blue sky ofan early morning, while yet he rode in the hills. It was Hermon, withthe unmelted snows of the winter covering its crown. Opposite it, hecame upon another miserable cluster of hovels, the abode of pestilence,want and superstition, and there found that Saul had passed through thevillage at high noon that day. Marsyas purchased water for his horseand rode on. Saul was now only a half-day's journey ahead of him.
He had come far, without rest. Even now, with the crisis of his longjourney at hand, he labored under prostrating weariness and a torturingdesire to sleep. He had periods of mental blankness from which hearoused with a start. But as the night's cold deepened, after the dayof withering heat, the sharp change added to the weakening influences.He meditated on the Feast of Junia and the succession of Classicus,until his body became a column finishing the front of Agrippa's palace,at which a mob at Baiae threw stones. He flinched, and the night on thedesert of Syria passed across his vision once more. But it was good tolie down on the couch at the triclinum of Caligula, restful, indeed, ifit were sinful. But not for long, because Lydia was beside him, and hespent hours imploring her to give up Jove and pour libations to Jehovahinstead, for since Saul of Tarsus was Caesar, she would be chained to asoldier under sentence in the Praetorium. Even now there approached adecurion with manacles thrown over his shoulder!
Again, he saw the drooping head of his horse before him in the dark,the pallid stretch of sand, and felt the sweep of harsh winds on hisface.
But Lollia Paulina had laid her sesterces on this worn-out animal, whenshe knew that Cneius Domitius' horses were the best in the Circus! Whydid the woman insist on sitting with him, when she wanted so much to bewith the Roman? But nobody was good. Even Stephen had died in heresy,and Lydia, for whom he had lost his soul, was an apostate! Themultitude had her! Classicus turned his back upon her! Flaccus stoodwithin twenty paces of her and leveled a pilum at her breast! And Saulbound his arms! Help! Mercy--
But a brambly desert shrub had caught at his garments, and its sharpdead thorns had pierced him.
The next mid-morning he rode up a chalky ridge and saw the picture thathad brought praise to the lips of the prophets of despair, when Israelwas a captive with no hope.
It was a vale so enchanting, so perfect, so golden that he doubted hiseyes and feared that it was an unreality the desert had fashioned tolure him on to destruction--or another but kindlier dream.
Yellow roadways, slender and winding, wandered hither and thitherthrough emerald oceans of young grain, past ancient vineyards andorchards of olives, and citrons, and groves of walnuts. Yonder was acluster of palms, pilasters of silver with feathery capitals, and underit was builded a little town--a hive of soft-colored houses, halfsmothered in delicate green.
Beyond, the roads spread out again, from their convergence in thelittle settlement, and ran abroad once more between hedges of roses andoleanders, across the River Pharbar, curving midway across the valelike a simitar dropped in the green, through crowding gardens, amonglow-lying roofs, past spreading villas of the rich, on to a glitteringvision of towers, walls, cupolas, white as frost on the head of MountTabor in the morning.
At his feet was Caucabe the Star; in the distance was Damascus.
Marsyas drew up his jaded horse and looked, not at the beauty of thescene, for he did not wish to see it now, but down the roads. Overevery yellow ribbon his gaze passed until, beyond the limits of thewhite-towered town, he saw a cluster of small moving figures.
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bsp; "O rememberer of no wrongs," he said to his horse, "only a little wayand thou shall rest and I shall rest!"
He pressed on, past Caucabe the Star, down the hedges of roses betweenthe emerald oceans of young grain and the odorous shade of orchards.
The sun climbed higher, more heated, more merciless; the oleanders gaveup their fast fragrance until the night fell again; the vineyardscurled, leaf by leaf, the young grain drooped and wilted, the orchardspent in the heat under their boughs, the yellow roads became streaks ofbrass and the tyrant of the desert stood at its meridian.
Another stadium, and Marsyas drew up his horse sharply.
Sixty paces ahead was a wayside pool, overshadowed by tall trees--anirresistible invitation to the traveler seeking refuge from the sun. Alean, bowed figure in rabbinical robes stood beside a mule that drankof the spring. Half a dozen men in the garments of Levites stood bytheir own beasts with rein in hand while they drank.
Marsyas felt in his belt for his knife, and curbing his thirsty horselowered down on Saul of Tarsus. In his association with hardy pagans,athletae and the exquisite Herod, he had in a measure forgotten thefeebleness of Saul.
"He is weak!" he said to himself. "But what mercy hath he shown theweak?"
He recalled the terrible desert, remembered that Saul had sworn tobring back the Nazarenes to Jerusalem for trial--back across thatempire of death! And Lydia, gentle and without hardihood, against whomhe could not bear to think of the wind blowing strongly, was to go thatway!
The Levites watched the Pharisee narrowly; one of them, whom Marsyasrecognized as Joel, made tentative movements toward unpacking thesupplies from one of the burden-bearing beasts. But the Pharisee drewup the bridle of his mule and led it to the roadside toward a stone bywhich he could mount. The eyes of the Levites followed him in atroubled manner, and Joel sat down as if to show that he believed therabbi would not proceed in the noon.
"Up!" said Saul calmly, "we shall continue to Damascus."
The troubled Levites stared at him, and Joel presently objected:
"But--but it is the noon! And the heat is cruel!"
"We can proceed, nevertheless," was the reply.
The stupefied Levite stumbled to his feet, and the party led theirbeasts out into the sun. Marsyas with a fierce word dismounted andstrode toward them.
At his second step he faltered. Silence dropped upon the blazing plainof Damascus--silence so sudden, so absolute that his footfall startledhim. He saw that the movement of Saul's party had been arrested. Armlifted, or foot put forward, stayed in the attitude. The utterstillness seized them as a commanding hand. Then all the noon grewdim, not from the abatement of the sun's light, but by the coming of aradiance infinitely brighter. Descending from above, instantlyintensifying as if the source that shed it approached as fast as starsmove, a single ray, purer than the glitter on Mount Hermon, and moreinscrutable than the face of the Syrian sun, stood among them.
Its presence was not violent but all-compelling. The group at the poolfell down in the dust and lay still.
Silence such as never before and never again lay on the plain ofDamascus, brooded about them.
Out of it a single voice issued, low, trembling, filled with fear andreverence. It was Saul of Tarsus, speaking:
"Who art Thou, Lord?"
Presently he spoke again, eagerly, humbly, and still afraid:
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" (missing frombook)]
After a long time, the hot breeze made a whispering sound in the sandof the roadway; the leaves in the hedge at hand stirred and fluttered.Joel, the boldest of the Levites, cautiously raised his head, andpresently got upon his feet. His fellows, taking heart, rose, one byone.
A young stranger in the robes of an Essene was kneeling among them withlarge dark eyes fixed in pity upon Saul.
The rabbi had made an attempt to raise himself, but had pausedtransfixed. Humility made an actual light on his forehead; his pinchedfeatures were stunned with helplessness.
The terrified Levites crept closer to one another, but Joel finally wethis dry lips and spoke in a half-whisper:
"Rabbi?"
There was no answer in words, but slow tears rose, brimmed over thelids and crept down the sun-burned hollow cheeks.
The young stranger came quickly and knelt beside the rabbi and laid akindly hand on his shoulder.
"Brother Saul?" he whispered.
The face of the rabbi came round, but the gaze missed its mark andwandered over the men about him. There was no vision in the eyes.
"He is blind!" a Levite whispered.
The young stranger slipped the hand from the shoulder around the bowedfigure, and, supporting Saul in his arm, looked down with infinitesorrow and concern at the darkened eyes.
"We will abide here," he said at last, to the Levites, "until the noonpasseth."
The Levites looked in a little fear at the spot where they had been somysteriously overwhelmed, but Marsyas lifted Saul and bore him backinto the shade he had left to continue unto Damascus.
All of his own passion and purpose had been swept away, leaving hismind to the tenantry of the sweetest content he had ever known. Thoughhe had seen no man nor heard a voice, he knew that the Lord had visitedSaul, and that the eye of the Lord beheld Saul's work.
After that reverent translation of the supernatural event, he troubledhimself no more concerning the vision.
Absolute relief possessed his soul; rest of spirit so all-comprehensivethat it strengthened his body, peace so whole that it bordered ongladness, and confidence, new, delicious and simple, embraced all hisbeing. The old restless ambition was so stilled and soothed that itseemed to have been fulfilled; the old Essenic cynicism that hadslandered all the world, tinctured his friendships with distrust andhis love with fear, was dissipated like a distorting illusion; hishates, his thirst for revenge, his impatience with the deliberation ofGod, and his self-dependence were things unremembered. He did notunderstand his change and did not seek after its meaning; his feelingsdid not even hark back to the old love for Saul. Pity and filialsolicitude, sensations that on a time he could not have believedpossible as shown to Saul, made the strength of his arm gentle and hisservice reverential. He thought now of Lydia, with worshipful,marvelous homage, as if his soul knelt to her. He had ceased to beafraid for her or to fear that he would not find her. Everything goodbecame possible; the prospering of virtue, the fidelity of Agrippa, theprevention of Flaccus and the favor of Caesar, even the restoration ofhis beloved, seemed to be things absolutely assured.
He did not say these things to himself; they were simple convictionsthat made themselves felt in a tender blending which amounted toperfect waiting on the Lord.
He did not know that his face had become beautiful, or that Joel lookedaskance at him or that the other Levites wondered if he had come tothem in the great light. So when the sun stood three hours above thehorizon, he raised Saul from the shade of the walnut grove and passedon to Damascus.
The golden haze reddened over the glorious Damascene plain, thedistance became obscured; the purple triumphed; then the royal colorover the world began to run out into plum shades, and the sudden nightcame up from the east.
But before this hour at one of the north gates of Damascus, the haltinggroup of Levites, the stricken man among them, and the silent, kindlyyoung stranger appeared before Aretas' wiry black Arab sentry that heldthat post.
They did not know the ways of the Pearl of the Orient, and they wishedto find Via Recta--Straight Street. There Judas, a Pharisee of wealthand power, expected to entertain Saul.
Though the Caesars possessed the city's fealty, exacted tribute,installed Jupiter in the temples and the eagle on its standard, it wasstill the dominion of Rimmon, vassal of Nimrud, high place of the sonsof Uz. It had submitted to Alexander of Macedon as placidly as itsuffered the wolfish Roman, who would pass, likewise. It notched itscalendar by the rise and fall of natio
ns, and marked its days by thesway of kings. It had propitiated Time, hence there was no death forDamascus; it steeped itself in the oils of the Orient and so was spicedagainst decay. There were Romanized colonnades along the streets, butthe winged bulls of the dromoes, the stucco-work and the tiles, theswaying of carpets from balconies obscured their influence. Architectsof Caesar's extravagances scowled at the giant structures that were oldin Baalbec's time and looked their defeat; Chaldean philosopherscontemplated the trenches worn in the rock pavements by the feet of menand held their peace; olives, as old as Troy, cast their leaves down onthe heads of Greeks who shook them off impatiently, but the sons ofAbraham could point to a mound of clay and say: "This was a templewhich our father builded unto God, before you all!"
The Jewish tincture had never been abated even, much less worked out.
Therefore, as the agitated travelers from Jerusalem passed through thegate they went with their own kind by legions. The slow mule wasthere, outnumbering the Arab's troops of horses, which were mettled,nervous creatures, caparisoned like kings; there were Israel's camels,bearing howdahs, rich as thrones; tall stalking dromedaries in tasseledhousings and tinkling harnesses, passing as ships pass overground-swells, with undulations dizzying in their ease; and these,mounted by the sons of Abraham, were more in number than the Hindupalanquins, Roman lecticae, Greek litters, and Gentiles afoot.
Marsyas glanced about for the eye of a citizen whom he might approachand ask his way, but the turmoil for the moment confused him. Into thegate or out of it passed wealthy travelers, faring in state; itinerantmerchants; squads of Aretas' soldiery, and through and among these,eddying and swarming, shouting, hurrying and trading were venders,beggars, carriers, slaves, citizens, Jews in gowns, Arabs in burnooses,Greeks in chitons, Romans in tunics, idlers, actors, scribes, notaries,priests and magistrates--of twenty nationalities, of every rank and age.
Marsyas met face to face a Pharisee of erect and imposing figure, withflowing beard and aggressive features, who drew his spotless linendraperies away from contact with the ceremonially unclean horde at thegate. The man had stopped and was gazing from his commanding heightover the rush of pilgrims flowing into the walls of Damascus.
Marsyas approached him.
"I seek Judas, a Pharisee, which dwelleth in Straight Street!"
"I am he," the Pharisee interrupted, examining the young man for somefamiliar feature which might justify the Essene's initiatory.
"Thou art well-met, sir; we bring unto thee, thy guest, Saul of Tarsus,stricken by a vision on the roads and blind!"
"Even am I here, awaiting him," the Pharisee exclaimed. "Thou bringestme evil tidings! Lead me to him, I pray thee."
The Levites stood with Saul outside the path of the exit to thegateway, and Marsyas led Judas to the stricken rabbi. Hebrew servantsfollowed respectfully after their master.
"Brother Saul," Marsyas said, "I bring thee thy host; he will care forthee."
The sightless eyes of the rabbi turned toward the speaker, and Marsyasthought that a shadow crossed the forehead.
"Woe is me!" Judas exclaimed, "that thou shouldst come thus afflicted,brother! But perchance the vision was a blessing on thee!"
"He does not speak," Marsyas explained. "I do not belong to his party.I joined them to offer aid."
"Then the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob reward thee," Judassaid. He signed to his servants, who brought forward a litter in whichJudas had meant his guest should proceed to Straight Street. Saul waslifted into it; Judas climbed in beside him; the servants shoulderedthe litter, and, with the Levites following, bore it away into the city.
Marsyas looked after it until the narrow ways between the highunsightly mud walls hid it.
Then he put his hands together and smiled.
"The Nazarene bade me ask for Ananias!" he whispered.
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