The Implacable Hunter

by Gerald Kersh

  And here, while Paulus stood with his hands in his sleeves, the executioner Little Azrael took charge of the practical details of the business. He had a voice, when he chose to use it, like the sound of a cracked horn, and he carried with him, in addition to his air of absolute authority, all the fascination of death. The people listened, breathless, while he spoke to them in a peremptory tone:

  ‘Many of you here will never have attended a stoning before. Such of you as may have done so are not likely to have seen the operation performed with the control and skill it calls for. Stoning is a good thing, wisely ordained: strangling, beheading and burning are for the gentlefolk, but stoning is the People’s punishment!

  ‘As I hope to see it, every one of you will go home to his family and be able to say with perfect truth, “This day, I have slain an accursed blasphemer” … ay, even if there be ten thousand of you! –’ his tone, wrote Afranius, was grotesquely like that of a hardened old sergeant trying to put the pride of the Regiment into a group of raw recruits ‘– I’ll give you an example, good people,’ he went on.

  ‘When I was only a boy I went to see a woman being stoned for adultery. Now an adultery stoning generally draws a fairly savage crowd of men – every one of them thinks of his own good lady, and lays on accordingly. It’s lucky, by the way, that women do not customarily come to stonings – they’d think of their own virtue, or otherwise, and do the the business with their fingernails. I say, I went to see this girl stoned. Now you know, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a woman stripped naked in public tries to cover her breasts and her privates with her hands, and lets her head hang down so that her face is covered by her hair. The nearest target, therefore, is the top of her head. Half a dozen fools in the front of the crowd went for this target like the blind oxen they were, with rocks as big as your two fists. Result? The adulteress was dead before you could count twenty, and all the rest of the crowd could do was stone her corpse – and much it cared!

  ‘That was not a stoning. The louts who handled those boulders deserved to be punished themselves – who named them executioners? That woman belonged to the People. Those uncontrolled stone-throwers assumed pre-emptory rights over the People.

  ‘Bear this in mind: you serve the Law, and the Law is God’s own Word. Whoso pre-empts you, the People, therefore pre-empts the Lord God Almighty Himself. Should himself be stoned, therefore. Got it?

  ‘Right.

  ‘Now listen to me, all of you, while they bring the condemned man up. If the Law says that a man shall be stoned, stoned that man shall be! The Law doesn’t say that a man’s dead body shall be stoned. Quite right too, for there is no sense in that. That person shall be stoned, and he or she is a person only as long as life remains in that person. Do I make myself clear?

  ‘Right.

  ‘Now I see some of you have picked up heavy stones. Well, I know how you must feel. But drop them, drop them at once!’

  There was a clatter of large pebbles falling to the hard ground.

  ‘Good,’ said Little Azrael. ‘Now take small stones. I’ll have no individual pushing himself forward here. Fair play! Lord, if I had my way, I’d have every man, woman and child in the land throw a grain of grit, I would! But I haven’t, and I can’t have. Still, I’ll see order. Now, here comes your man. Man, I said, do you hear? And, as such, he’ll cover his genitals and his eyes as soon as I’ve stripped him. Don’t mind that. Use small stones, as I just said, and aim carefully for the elbows and shoulders: do it with a will, and God will guide you, my lads! But on no account hit him in the head. You hear that? For a stoning should be a kind of architectural job, so to speak, in reverse – little stones first, big stones last, and the head always free, never forget that. You’re not here to kill the blasphemer, only to crush him. A man, artistically stoned, should live several hours after the last stone has dropped – long after you’ve all gone home to your suppers. Now, it is to be one at a time, Children of Israel, after I have peeled the dog and cast the first stone.’

  The crowd was silent. Steadily and methodically, Little Azrael stripped Stephanas of his clothes. The condemned man asked, ‘Must I be quite naked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It makes no difference,’ said Stephanas.

  ‘More shame for you,’ said Little Azrael, feeling the cloth as it came loose in his hands. He laid the garments at Paulus’s feet. Paulus drew back from them a pace or two. And now Afranius, standing to one side, heard some bewildered voices in the crowd:

  ‘Is that the one we are to stone?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘I thought it was the little pale one.’

  ‘So did I …’

  ‘I did, too, for a minute …’

  ‘Fools, that is the gentleman from Tarsus!’

  ‘The tax-man, Saul.’

  ‘Saul, Paul – a Commissioner, an Official!’

  ‘Eh? Is there someone who has not heard of Saul of Tarsus? A man of God —’

  ‘Struck down a giant as big as Goliath with one finger!’

  ‘The Spirit of the Lord came upon him at a banquet of noble Romans, and he struck them all dead with a drop of wine!’

  ‘A Judge, a Prophet, a person in good standing!’

  ‘What’s the argument? The one they strip, that’s the blasphemer – stone the one they strip. The one they strip, stone. Stone!’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘You should worry! Name! Do you want to write him a letter?’

  Stephanas said to Paulus: ‘I’m very sorry for you, son. I forgive you, for what that is worth. Now you forgive me, and let us call it quits, eh?’

  Paulus cried to Little Azrael: ‘Send him on his way!’ – and stood aside with Afranius.

  Stephanas was all alone now. He did not cover his eyes, but used both hands to make a kind of apron, while he cried in his strong, persuasive, cheerful voice: ‘Look you, all you kind people – be comforted. Not one in five of you has the desire to throw a stone at me. I know it. The Lord Jesus —’

  Then Little Azrael threw his stone, a carefully-chosen kidney-shaped pebble; threw it with accuracy and force as if to make it skip seven times on a pond. It struck Stephanas in the elbow, so that his right arm fell nerveless.

  ‘Now, then!’ Little Azrael shouted, and the crowd moved in closer to take better aim. The stones began to fly, now, in volleys, and Stephanas began to bleed. But he still stood foursquare, seeming to talk to the sky. Afranius heard him say:

  ‘Who am I to tell you, Lord, that they are mad, they do not know what they are doing. They will be sorry, so forgive them for poor Stephanas’s sake. They are children. Their hearts will ache tomorrow, or the day after.’

  Paulus cried: ‘Are these stones, or puff-balls? Is this a stoning, or a mockery? Throw, curse you, throw!’

  The stones came thicker and faster. Little Azrael shouted: ‘Let those who have thrown make place for those who have not! Fair play for all!’

  Something snapped, and Stephanas went down on his knees.

  Paulus said, between his teeth: ‘Is there none of these flabby dogs that can get me a cry out of this man?’

  As if he had overheard, Stephanas called cheerfully to Paulus: ‘You see, young man, you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting me! Now is it worth it, to break your heart against my poor bones?’ Then a rib cracked, and he fell forward on his face. Little Azrael held up a hand, and the stoning stopped while he turned Stephanas over so that he lay on his back, and made a kind of pillow for his head with a heap of sharp grit.

  ‘If their heads are downwards, the blood rushes there when the rib-cage goes, and they are done too soon,’ he said. ‘If a man is to be stoned, let him know it.’

  The stoning then continued as Stephanas lay on the ground. He called out, in a voice untouched by pain: ‘You see, good people, you cannot hurt a man from the outside. Only from within may he be destroyed.’

  He was covered with stones to the armpits, now, and Little Azrael called for the l
arge stones, which a man had to use both hands to lift, shouting: ‘Don’t try to throw them, now! Place them, smack them down firmly, but on no account try to throw, or you upset the balance of everything! Now!’

  He stood guard over Stephanas’s head while, under his direction, a symmetrical mound of rock took shape upon the battered body; for the principle was, to break every bone and crush every organ without letting life depart. But still Stephanas uttered no cry.

  Paulus had been shuffling and tapping his feet in impatience. Now, to Afranius’s horror, the shuffling and tapping quickened: Paulus was dancing, from the knees down – dancing without knowing that he was dancing, while his body stayed motionless and his face rigid. A nightmarish sight, said Afranius, to see him thus in that awful waste-ground which was now cleared of loose stones, dancing by that grisly pylon under a sky of wet wool dotted with hovering carrion kites, the menacing walls of the city before him and the surly, secretive hills behind!

  In time, the last man dropped the last stone, and the crowd broke like dry earth and trickled away. Only the guards remained, like men of metal, leaning on their spears; and Paulus, unconsciously dancing, while Afranius watched with sick eyes and Little Azrael stood back complacent, covered with meat-flies, and Ada the Mourner and It behind him. Threads of blood came from Stephanas’s eyes and ears, nostrils and mouth, but he still lived. Neatly buried to the chin under two cartloads of jagged stones.

  Paulus stopped dancing, and came to look at him. As he bent over, Stephanas’s eyes opened and his lips moved. Paulus started. He called to Little Azrael: ‘Cover me that face!’

  ‘My lord,’ said Little Azrael, ‘this way he will last until the dogs come out after dark to eat his head.’

  ‘I say, cover his face!’ screamed Paulus.

  There was a great boulder near-by, half as big as a man. Little Azrael lifted this without effort, poised it, aimed it, and let it fall. Stephanas’s head smashed like a gourd with a crack and a milky splash. ‘Is the Will of the Almighty done?’ asked Little Azrael.

  ‘It is done,’ said Paulus.

  Little Azrael stooped and picked up the dead man’s clothes, which were his perquisites. Paulus told him: ‘Someone will offer you a high price for those garments. Sell them, and report the buyer: he will be a Nazarene.’

  ‘Yes, Master.’

  Then Ada the Mourner cried: ‘Oh, Azrael, my love, my lord, my lion! Azrael, Azrael, take me, take me – why will you never take me?’ – and fell into a fit, chewing her tongue and thrusting with her fleshless belly in vile convulsions. It put a stick between her teeth and sat with her. Little Azrael turned and walked away.

  Then Paulus and Afranius left with the guard.

  ‘The jackals will have to dig for their supper tonight,’ said Paulus.

  Afranius said: ‘If the gods give me only one-tenth of that man’s courage when my time comes, it will be said of me: ‘“He died like a gentleman!”’

  ‘He was stoned by the People, and he died like a dog.’

  ‘Oh no. The People are the dogs. He died like a man. Bite your tongue, little one, before you talk like that!’ cried Afranius, in vexation. ‘The gods are offended by such presumption. Not one in five of your People but will feel in his own heart two stones for every one he threw this day! And can you see yourself, Paulus? Ixion on the wheel – Tantalus between the grapes and the water – Sisyphus at the stone, yes, Sisyphus – Prometheus on the rock! Oh, for the skill to paint your likeness at this moment! If you are one of the Righteous, let me be one of the damned!’

  ‘You are excited, my dear Afranius,’ said Paulus.

  ‘I am sick,’ Afranius said, and he must have used that iron voice of his that came when he was angry. ‘Oh, small man with a tortured heart, your god has made you mad! You think you have stoned Stephanas? Wait, and you will see that Stephanas has stoned you – yes, stoned you in the streets! Upon you, Paulus, will fall the weight of the shame that has been carried away in the souls of all who were at this place. Their guilt shall be your guilt, and they will tear you to pieces for it at last. Stephanas? Gone, little man, gone where the honest brave men go. But you are here, and his ghost will certainly be with you, frantic companion of spies and blind traitors and hangmen that you are! And whenever you go out to one of your feasts of blood and stones, Stephanas will be there to say: “See? You could not hurt me.”’

  ‘Afranius, enough!’ cried Paulus. ‘I am tired.’

  Afranius said: ‘What rage like impotent rage? And what weariness like exhausted impotence? Oh, stallion in desire but worm in Atë’s bed!’

  Paulus quivered like a bowstring but said, in a level voice: ‘If this tiny incident has so upset your dainty Roman stomach, Afranius, you had better go home to Tarsus. Because this is nothing but a light proem to what you will witness in Damascus.’

  Regaining his composure, Afranius said: ‘Yes, I don’t suppose you’ll sleep until your mistress says: “Ah, Paulus, that was marvellous!”’ He was speaking figuratively, of course, in terms of Paulus and his Atë, his Goddess of Vengeance. ‘Then, poor fellow,’ he went on, ‘your self-inflicted miseries will really begin. It will be, “Who comes here when I am away?” And it will be, “What are you thinking when you smile to yourself?” And, “Tell me every little detail about your past.” and, “Did you do with other men all the things you do with me?” For Atë is a bitch, and she will eat you up. And if you have juice enough to fructify her, none of her children will resemble you enough to satisfy you. And rant as you may, you will always know in your heart that if you came home and found her in bed with a scavenger, she would only have to say: “Oh, it was only a passing fancy, darling; you are the one I love” – and you’d forgive her, hating her with all your shameful heart and crazy with contempt for yourself … Bah! Let us go to Damascus, then.’

  ‘The day after tomorrow,’ said Paulus, coldly.

  ‘If you take my advice, eat and sleep between now and then. It’s a rough road.’

  ‘I am free to break my fast now,’ said Paulus, ‘but I am not hungry, only thirsty.’

  ‘Then get blind drunk, and sleep.’

  ‘Attend to your own health, Afranius.’

  ‘Oh, chase yourself until you drop, like a starved dog with a bone tied to his tail, then. I think a girl would do you good.’ Without replying, Paulus went away to wash and pray.

  Afranius went to his cousin’s house to bathe; but, as he wrote, he had no appetite for supper. ‘… Call me effete, call me a milksop, but I cannot enjoy venison pasty with savoury jelly so soon after a stoning, any more than I can relish roast lamb after a burning. But there was a good fish, and some young ducklings with a preserve of quinces …’ He added: ‘To deal plainly with you, my dear Diomed, your Paulus has become indescribably repulsive to me …’

  Yet when they met again next day, Afranius was all compassion. ‘My boy!’ he cried. ‘You have a face to frighten Cerberus! Have you broken this madman’s fast of yours?’

  The acrimony of the day before seemed forgotten. ‘I ate but I could not hold down what I ate.’

  At this, Afranius who could be gentle and stubborn as a woman, pleading in a manner that may only be described as ‘winning’, explained that more than a hundred miles of very hard road lay between them and Damascus, and spoon-fed him a sop of bread, new milk, and honey, and made him drink (‘Just one sip more … there, now just one little sip more …’) raw eggs beaten in sweet wine, all the time telling him curious little stories until, having in spite of himself eaten enough to preoccupy his stomach at the expense of his head, Paulus dozed.

  All the time wondering why he was doing all this, Afranius picked Paulus up and put him on a couch. He covered him with a quilt. The young man groped in the air, found Afranius’s hand, and held it for some time before his grip relaxed and he breathed strongly and steadily. Afranius went out on tiptoe, whispering to an old manservant whom he met: ‘Your master is asleep.’

  ‘Thank God!’ said the old man.


  ‘I pity you if you disturb him, or go into the chamber until he calls for you.’

  ‘May I never be the father of my children if I do!’ the old man said. Leaving, Afranius turned and saw him creeping into Paulus’s room, to keep watch, no doubt. For Paulus slept all through the day, awoke at evening, ate heartily and slept again.

  And he was so cheerful and talkative when they went away on the road to Damascus that Afranius said to him: ‘Save some of it. There are six days and five nights between here and there.’

  But he talked on and on, aroused and excited, like a soldier at the prospect of a furlough, or a girl before her wedding; but with a certain feverishness. His chatter was glistening rather than polished, glazed but not bright. Soon, Afranius felt, the heat would break through, and the varnish would peel; and there would be the knotty, cross-grained, unworkable Paulus whom he had come to know – dry, tight and splintery by nature, growing like a desert weed, happy in dead sand and solitude, proud of its obstinacy, uncrowded because it offers no shade.

  Paulus said: ‘Diomed has talked to you, no doubt, of his projected work? I mean the book, Arachne: or, A Theory of Centralised Intelligence and its Relation to the Security of the State?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Afranius.

  ‘Will Diomed ever write it?’

  ‘If Diomed says he will write a book, Diomed will write that book. But Diomed is not one of your happy-go-lucky slapdash boys. Such a book is the work of a lifetime. If I know my old friend, he won’t moisten a pen until he has forty years of working experience to draw on,’ said Afranius. ‘I believe he has drawn up a Protocol, but even that remains tentative. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Oh, I was merely thinking. The idea,’ said Paulus, ‘is ingenious.’

  ‘Tell Diomed that,’ said Afranius, beginning to be irritated again. ‘Praise from Paulus is praise indeed. No doubt he will blush like a girl.’

  ‘I used the wrong word; I meant sound,’ said Paulus.

  They were talking of my cherished dream. Taking Rome as the centre of the world, let there be established there a great Prefecture, sensitive to a certain number of main filaments extending to every quarter of the world; these filaments being in turn connected each to each by shorter filaments; the pattern of the whole resembling, in effect, a spider’s web. At convenient intervals throughout the web, a Sub-Prefecture, or Station, manned by agents trained in Rome, and equipped with fast horses, ponies or camels, according to the terrain. The intervening spaces to be constantly patrolled. Thus, a branch could not fall in the British forests, say, without its being heard almost immediately in Rome. For the patrolling of the rivers, armed barges. For the seas, news-bearing galleys, light, lean and fast as hounds. … As the saying goes, a virgin with a pot of gold on her head should be able to walk unmolested from the Persian Gulf to the tip of Gaul. The Law made omniscient, comprehensive, and therefore generous. Its servants dedicated; corruption a madness, crime a folly; all gods respected, all customs hallowed, all persons sacred. My Badge: a sword for strength, a book for understanding, an olive branch for peace, and an eagle for Rome…. A dream? A dream! But what more dare a man lay by for his old age?