Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  His sister looked at him curiously, with an expression of wild inquisitiveness, — but she neither wept nor trembled. A fixed idea was in her distracted brain, — undefined and fantastic, — but such as it was she was bent upon it. With a strange triumph lighting up her eyes, she drew her jewelled dagger from its sheath, and with deft care cut asunder the rope round the throat of the corpse. As she pulled it cautiously away, the blood again oozed slowly forth from beneath the bruised skin, — this was mysterious and horrible, and terrified her a little, for she shuddered from head to foot. Anon she smiled, — and twisting the severed cord, stained and moist as it was, in and out the embroidered girdle at her own waist, she threw the dagger far from her into a corner of the quadrangle, and clapped her hands delightedly.

  “Judas!” she exclaimed—” Lo, I have cut the cruel rope wherewith thou wast wounded, — now thou canst breathe! Come! — rise up and speak to me! Tell me all — I will believe all thy marvellous histories! I will not say that thou art wrongly led, — if thou wilt only smile again and speak, I will pardon all thy foolish fancy for the teachings of the ‘Nazarene.’ Thou knowest I would not drive thee to despair, — I would not even willingly offend thee, — I am thy little sister always who is dear to thee. Judas — listen!— ’Twas Caiaphas, ’twas the high-priest himself who bade me to tell thee to betray thy Master, — and very rightly — for thy mad prophet came in arms against our creed. Why shouldst thou turn rebellious and forsake the faith of all our fathers? — Come, rise and hear reason!” — and with the unnatural force of a deepening frenzy, she bent down and partly raised the corpse, staring at its fearful countenance with mingled love and horror—” Why, — how thou lookest at me! — with what cold, unpiteous eyes? What have I done to thee? Naught, save advise thee wisely. As for Caiaphas, — thou knowest not Caiaphas — how much he can do for thee if thou wilt show some fitting penitence” — here she broke off with a kind of half-shriek, — the weight of the dead body was too much for her and lurched backward, dragging her with it, — she loosened her arms from about it, and it straightway fell heavily prone in its former position. She began to sob childishly.

  “Judas, Judas! Speak to me! Kiss me! I know thou hearest me and wilt not answer me for anger, because this stranger out of Nazareth is dearer unto thee than I!”

  She waited in evident expectation of some response, — then, as the silence remained unbroken, she; began to play with the blood-stained rope at her girdle.

  “Ah well!” she sighed—” I am sorry thou art sullen. Caiaphas would do great things for thee if thou wert wise. Why shouldst thou thus grow desperate because of a traitor’s death? What manner of man was this much-marvelled-at ‘Nazarene’? Naught but a workman’s son, possessed of strange fanaticism! And shall so small a thing sow rancour ‘twixt us twain? Yet surely I will humour thee if still to humour Him should be thy fancy, — thou shalt have cross and crown made sacred an’ thou wilt, — I can do no more in veriest kindness to appease thy wrath, — moreover thou dost maintain a useless churlishness, since thy ‘Nazarene’ is dead, and cannot, even to please thee and amend thy sickness, rise again.”

  Again she paused, — then commenced pacing to and fro in the shadowy court, looking about her vaguely. Presently spying her dagger where she had lately flung it in a corner, she picked it up and returned it to its sheath which still hung at her waist, — then she pulled down a long trail of climbing roses from the wall, and came to lay them on the breast of the irresponsive dead. As she approached, a sudden brilliant luminance affrighted her, — she started back, one hand involuntarily uplifted to shade her eyes. A Cross of light, deep red and dazzling as fire, hovered horizontally in the air immediately above the body of Judas, spreading its glowing rays outward on every side. She beheld it with amazement, — it glittered before her more brightly than the brightest sunbeams, — her fevered and wandering wits, not yet quite gone, recognised it as some miracle beyond human comprehension, and on the merest impulse she stretched forth her hands full of the just gathered rose clusters in an effort to touch the lustrous, living flame. As she did so, a blood-like hue fell on her, — she seemed to be enveloped in a crimson mist that stained the whiteness of her garments and the fairness of her skin, and cast a ruddier tint than nature placed among the loosened tresses of her hair. The very roses that she held blushed into scarlet, while the waxen pallid features of the dead had for a little space a glow as of returning life. For one or two minutes the mystic glory blazed, then vanished, leaving the air dull and heavy with a sense of loss. And Judith, standing paralysed with wonder, watched it disappear, and saw at the same time that a change had taken place in the aspect of her self-slain brother. The lips that had been drawn apart in the last choking agony of death were pressed together in a solemn smile, — the eyes that had stared aloft so fearfully were closed. Seeing this, she began to weep and laugh hysterically, and flinging her rose-garland across the still figure, she stooped and kissed that ice-cold smiling mouth.

  “Judas, Judas!” she said in smothered, sobbing accents—” Now thou art gone to sleep, without a word, — without a blessing, — thou wilt not even look at me! Ah cruel! nevertheless I do forgive thee, for surely thou art very weary, else thou wouldst not lie here so quietly beneath the stars. I will let thee sleep on, — I will not wake thee till the morning dawns. At full daybreak I will come again and see that all is well with thee, thou churlish one! — good-night!” and she waved kisses to the dead man smilingly with the tears blinding her eyes—” Good-night, my brother! I will return soon and bring thee news — yea, I will bring thee pleasing news of Caiaphas,... good-night!... sleep well!”

  And still waving fond and fantastic salutations, she moved backward lightly on tip-toe step by step, her gaze fixed to the last on the now composed and beauteous face of the corpse, — then passing under the great portico, she noiselessly unfastened the gate and wandered out in all her distracted and dishevelled beauty into the silent streets of the city alone.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  THE full Sabbath morning broke in unclouded loveliness, and all the people of Jerusalem flocked to the gorgeous Temple on Mount Moriah to see and to be seen, and to render their formal thanks to the most High Jehovah for their escape from all the threatening horrors of the previous day. Some there were who added to their prayers the unconscious blasphemy of asking God to pardon them for having allowed the “Nazarene” to live even so long as He had done seeing that His doctrines were entirely opposed to the spirit and the faith of the nation. Yet, all the same, a singular lack of fervour marked the solemn service, notwithstanding that in the popular opinion there was everything to be thankful for. The veil of the “Holy of Holies,” rent in the midst, hung before the congregation as a sinister reminder of the terrors of the past thunder-storm, earthquake, and deep darkness; and the voice of the highpriest Caiaphas grew wearily monotonous and indistinct long before the interminable morning ritual was ended. Something seemed missing, — there appeared to be no longer any meaning in the usually imposing “reading of the law,” — there was a vacancy and dulness in the whole ceremonial which left a cold and cheerless impression upon the minds of all. When the crowd poured itself forth again from the different gates, many groups wended their way out of sheer curiosity to the place where the Prophet of Nazareth” was now ensepulchred, for the story of Joseph of Arimathea’s “boldly” going to claim the body from Pilate, and the instant vigilance of Caiaphas in demanding that a watch should be set round the tomb, had already been widely rumoured throughout the city.

  “We never had a more discreet and shrewd high-priest,” — said one man, pausing in the stately King’s Portico to readjust the white linen covering on his head more carefully before stepping out into the unshaded heat and glare of the open road, “ He hath conducted this matter with rare wisdom, for surely the ‘Nazarene’s’ disciples would have stolen His body, rather than have Him proved a false blasphemer for the second time.”

  “Ay, thou sayest truly!” answ
ered his companion—” And the whole crew of them are in Jerusalem at this time, — an ill-assorted dangerous rabble of the common folk of Galilee. Were! Caiaphas, I would find means of banishing these rascals from the city under pain of death.”

  “One hath banished himself” — said the first speaker, “ Thou hast doubtless heard of the end of young Judas Iscariot?”

  The other man nodded.

  “Judas was mad,” — he said, “Nothing in life could satisfy him, — he was ever prating of reforms and clamouring for truth. Such fellows are not fitted for the world.”

  “Verily he must himself have come to that conclusion” — remarked his friend with a grave smile, as he slowly descended the Temple steps, “ and so thinking, left the world with most determined will. He was found hanging to the branch of a tree close by the garden of Gethsemane, and last night his body was borne home to his father’s house.”

  “But have ye heard no later news?” chimed in another man who had listened to the little conversation, “ Iscariot hath had another grief which hath driven him well-nigh distracted. He hath lost his chiefest treasure, — his pampered and too-much beloved daughter, and hath been to every neighbour seeking news of her and finding none. She hath left him in the night suddenly, and whither she hath gone no one can tell.”

  By this time the group of gossips had multiplied, and startled, wondering looks were exchanged among them all.

  “His daughter!” echoed a bystander—” Surely ’tis not possible! The proud Judith? Wherefore should she have fled?”

  “Who can say! She swooned last night at seeing her dead brother, and was carried unconscious to her bed. There her maidens watched her, — but in their watching, slept, — and when at last they wakened, she was gone.”

  The listeners shook their heads dubiously as not knowing what to make of it; and murmuring vague expressions of compassion for Iscariot, “a worthy man and wealthy, who deserved not this affliction,” as they said, went slowly, talking as they went, homeward on their various ways.

  Meanwhile, a considerable number of people had gathered together in morbid inquisitiveness round the guarded burial-place of the “Nazarene.” It was situate in a wild and picturesque spot between two low hills, covered with burnt brown turf and bare of any foliage, and in itself presented the appearance of a cave deeply hollowed out in the natural rock. Rough attempts at outward adornment had been made in the piling-up of a few sparkling blocks of white granite in pyramidal form on the summit, — and these glittered just now like fine crystals in the light of the noonday sun. The square cutting that served as entrance to the tomb was entirely closed by a huge stone fitting exactly into the aperture, — and between this stone and the rock itself was twisted a perfect network of cords, sealed in about a hundred places with the great seal of the Sanhedrim council. Round the sepulchre on every side were posted the watch, consisting of about fifteen soldiers picked out from a special band of one hundred, and headed by a formidable-looking centurion of muscular build and grim visage, who, as the various groups of idle spectators approached to look at the scene, eyed them with fierce disfavour.

  “By the gods!” he growled to one of his men—” What a filthy and suspicious race are these cursed Jews! Lo you, how they sneak hither staring and whispering! Who knows but they think we ourselves may make away with the body of the man they crucified yesterday! Worthily do they match their high-priest in cautious cowardice! Never was such a panic about a corpse before!”

  And he tramped to and fro sullenly in front of the tomb, his lance and helmet gleaming like silver in the light, the while he kept his eyes obstinately fixed on the ground determined not to honour by so much as a glance the scattered sightseers who loitered aimlessly about, staring without knowing what they stared at, but satisfied at any rate in their own minds, that here assuredly there was no pretence at keeping a watch, — these were real soldiers, — unimaginative callous men for whom the “Nazarene” was no more than a Jew reformer who had met his death by the ordinance of the law.

  By and by as the sun grew hotter, the little knots of people dispersed, repeating to one another, as they sauntered along, the various wonderful stories told of the miracles worked by the dead “Prophet out of Nazareth!”

  “How boldly he faced Pilate!” said one.

  “Ay! — and how grandly he died!”

  “’Tis ever the way with such fellows as he” — declared another— “They run mad with much thinking, and death is nothing to them, for they believe that they will live again.”

  So conversing, and alluding occasionally to the tragic incidents that had attended the sublime death-scene on Calvary, they strolled citywards, and only one of all the straggling spectators was left behind, — a man in the extreme of age, bent and feeble and wretchedly clad, who supported himself on a crutch and lingered near the sepulchre, casting timorous and appealing glances at the men on guard. Galbus, the centurion, observed him and frowned angrily.

  “What doest thou here, thou Jew skeleton?” he demanded roughly—” Off with thee! Bring not thy sores and beggary into quarters with the soldiers of Rome.”

  “Sir, sir” — faltered the old man anxiously—” I ask no alms. I do but seek thy merciful favour to let me lay my hands upon the stone of yonder tomb,... once, only once, good sir! — the little maid is sorely ailing, and methinks to touch the stone and pray there would surely heal her sickness” — He broke off, trembling all over and stretching out his wrinkled hands wistfully.

  Galbus stared contemptuously.

  “What dost thou jabber of?” he asked—” The little maid? — what little maid? And what avail this touching of a stone? Thou’rt in thy dotage, man; get hence and cure thy wits, ’tis they that should be healed right speedily!”

  “Sir!” cried the old man almost weeping—” The little maid will die! Look you, good soldier, ’tis but a week agone that He who lies within that tomb did take her in His arms and bless her; she is but three years old and passing fair. And now she hath been stricken with the fever, and methought could I but touch the stone of yonder sepulchre and say ‘Master, I pray thee heal the child,’ He, though He be dead, would hear and answer me. For He was ever pitiful for sorrow, and He was gentle with the little maid.”

  Galbus flushed red, — there was a strange contraction in his throat of which he did not approve, and there was also a burning moisture in his eyes which was equally undesired. Something in this piteous old man’s aspect, as well as the confiding simplicity of his faith, touched the fierce soldier to an emotion of which he was ashamed. Raising his lance he beckoned him nearer.

  “Come hither, thou aged madman,” he said with affected roughness—” Keep close to me, — under my lifted lance, thou may est lay hands upon the stone for one brief minute, — take heed thou break not the Sanhedrim seals! — And let thy prayer for thy little maid be of most short duration, — though take my word for it thou art a fool to think that a dead man hath ears to hearken to thy petition. Nevertheless, come.”

  Stumbling along and breathless with eagerness the old man obeyed. Close to the sacred sepulchre he came, Galbus guarding his every movement with vigilant eye, — and humbly kneeling down before the sealed stone he laid his aged hands upon it.

  “Lord, if thou wilt,” he said—” Thou canst save the little maid! Say but the word and she is healed.”

  One minute he knelt thus, — then he rose with a glad light in his dim old eyes.

  “Most humbly do I thank thee, sir!” he said to the centurion, uncovering his white locks and bowing meekly—” May God reward thee for thy mercy unto me!”