The Silver Chalice

by Thomas B. Costain

  This dream faded away suddenly and another took its place. This time a very definite warning was delivered and it came from Zimiscies, the aged owner of the khan outside Aleppo. Basil, who had seen him on two occasions, had no difficulty in recognizing him now. He seemed a perfect symbol of impending tragedy, a stooped figure and a huge hooked nose in a face with wasted cheeks. “Come back!” he kept repeating, beckoning with his arms. “Did I not give you warning of the Arab raiders? You will ride into danger if you keep on. Turn your camels back east if you set any value on your lives!”

  The message was conveyed with such conviction that Basil came back to consciousness charged with a sense of urgency. He returned to a clear, still night; so clear that the eye could see as far as in daylight, and so still that it seemed certain they would hear any sound made in the world, from the delving of a mole to the clomp of a gold-shod heel on Parnassus.

  Basil told hurriedly of his second dream but elicited no comment from Chimham other than the conviction that Zimiscies was a chronic spreader of rumors. “Never have I been to Aleppo without having that old weeping Jeremiah tell me it would be unsafe to continue. He wants all travelers to stay and pay him rent for space in that flea-infested inn of his.”

  Basil was peering ahead and listening. “Do you hear a sound coming from up there in the north?” he asked. “It seems to me like the hoofbeat of horses.”

  Chimham turned his head in that direction and listened also. After a moment he shook his head. “I hear nothing. I think we are the only people awake tonight.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  1

  THE MAIN CARAVAN had been proceeding in the meantime at a more normal gait, traveling at night and camping during the heat of the day. Although they had fallen far behind, they had done as well as could have been expected of a train of such size (the old prince being still with them and more satellites having been acquired as they went along), and it was a tired company that set up its tents beside a small stream a day’s journey south of Aleppo.

  Adam ben Asher paused at the entrance of Deborra’s tent to say: “Three more days of this. You look tired, but that is to be expected. It has been a hard journey. Never before have I ridden through such heat!”

  She had been leaning against the tent pole with closed eyes and she opened them now with every evidence of extreme weariness. From where she stood, she could see the eastern horizon flooded with the warm lights of dawn.

  “What word is there of Basil and his companion?” she asked.

  Adam said, “None,” and made a sweeping gesture of his arm to call attention to the emptiness of the space where they had chosen to camp. “No human eye seems to have rested on them since we got that report south of Hamath. When they are as far ahead of us as three days, it is harder to get definite word. We shall hear nothing of them today unless the birds bring us news.” He stopped and gazed intently into the west. “This I did not expect. Someone is coming our way.”

  A mere dot on a side path turned into a man afoot, and the man afoot became in a very few minutes a shepherd, a young shepherd walking to brisk good purpose. He turned aside to pay them a visit, swinging his long gnarled crook by way of greeting. In spite of his obvious youth, he had a matted beard that covered all of his throat and much of his chest. It seemed likely that he had been tending his flock in the cluster of low hills to the west and was now on his way home.

  “Peace be with you, friend, and may your flocks increase and multiply,” said Adam when the visitor had entered the circle of their tents.

  “Peace be with you, strangers.”

  “Saw you aught of two men traveling north and alone by camel some days ago?”

  “There has been much traffic to Aleppo.” The young shepherd’s eyes studied the trail reflectively and then came back to rest first on his interrogator and then on Deborra. “As it chanced, I spoke to two such men at this same hour and very nearly this exact spot. They had ridden all night and they were pausing here to feed their camels and replenish the water bags. We spoke a few words only and then they were off.”

  “What do you recall of them?”

  “One was very knowing in the life of the trails. He was thickset and he had a wagging tongue. The other was younger. He was beardless and he had little to say.”

  Luke had joined them, walking stiffly after the long hours they had spent in the saddle. He nodded to the shepherd. “It is clear that it was our friends you saw. When was it you met them?”

  The shepherd began to calculate by a backward method. “Yesterday there came to the hills the Roman collectors of the tax”—he paused and spat his contempt of them—“and found Horgan the Hittite and Diklah the Moabite, who had hidden themselves in the hope to escape paying. The collectors took them away, and I fear it will go hard with them because it is getting to be a habit to run away. Horgan and Diklah had been no more than a day in hiding. They told me when they arrived that the Romans had reached their village the day previous to that, with their clerks and their staves and their accursed lists. Now I am on sure ground in this matter of time because I recall it was still a day earlier that I saw the two men of whom you ask. They told me the tax collectors were at work in Emesa when they passed through. This came back into my mind when I learned that the filthy locusts had settled on this district. Let us then count the days which had elapsed.” He began to do so with the help of his fingers. “Four. Yes, it was four days ago that I spoke to them.”

  “Four days!” Luke’s eyes lighted up with pride. “They have done nobly. They have truly ridden as hard as Joshua’s men in pursuit of the army of the five kings!”

  It was contrary to custom for a woman to speak in a company of men that included a stranger, but Deborra could not contain herself any longer. “How were they?” she asked. “Did they seem to you very weary?”

  The shepherd bent over and picked up a dried faggot of wood that lay in the dust. He snapped it into two pieces with a loud cracking sound. “The younger of them, the beardless one, was just like that. A touch, a word, and he would fly into pieces. They told me they were on their way to Antioch. The young one will be lucky if he gets that far.” The shaggy head nodded briskly by way of emphasis. “Even the other one, who seemed to me as tough as old leather, was doubled over in his saddle and his face was as gray as the dust of this road.”

  Adam led the visitor away to share the meal that was in course of preparation. Luke seated himself at the entrance of Deborra’s tent.

  “You are consumed with fears,” he said. “Come, my child, there is no reason to feel that way. They are in Antioch now. At this very moment, when I read in your eyes the anxiety that is feeding on you, they are sleeping on soft couches while about them the great city is beginning to awaken. Yes, they have completed their journey and are resting from their efforts.”

  “But you heard what the shepherd said.”

  Luke nodded reassuringly. “They are not only in Antioch but the decision has, perhaps, already been made. I am sure they have seen the banker and have told him their story. He has in his hands the documents they carried to identify themselves to him.”

  Deborra became more calm. “I have prayed to Jehovah a hundred times a day,” she declared, “to watch over them and show forbearance.”

  “Such faith will bring its own reward. I am sure that Jehovah has listened.”

  The three sat down to supper together in the cool of the evening. Work on the dismantling of the camp had been begun and in another half hour they would be on their way.

  They were rested and relaxed. The kind, strong fingers of Sarah had kneaded the tired flesh of her mistress’s face and throat and had applied sparingly a little color from the contents of the toilet box. The young bride had regained her spirits and was disposed once more to look on the bright side.

  “Antioch is a beautiful city, I have been told,” she said. “It will be a pleasure to see it.”

  “I am a prejudiced witness to its many merits,” declared Luke. “It is
my home. I love it and regard it as the greatest city in the world. Of course,” he felt impelled to add, “I have not seen Rome.”

  “But you have seen Jerusalem!” cried Adam. “How, then, can you call Antioch the greatest city?” He paused and then went on in almost breathless partisanship: “There is no place to be compared with Jerusalem. The Temple is there, and all the true grandeur and glory of the world are in the Temple.”

  Luke nodded in understanding. “It is true that God gave Jerusalem to His people. But, Adam, I was thinking of material things; of wealth and population, of beautiful buildings, of wide streets and spacious gardens, and of fair breezes blowing across harbors filled with tall ships. And there is something I must tell you, something that disturbs me very much. I had a most strange feeling about Jerusalem this time. It seemed to me old and weighed down by a sense of tragic destiny. I almost believed that its end was near at hand—that it was waiting as Jesus waited on the Mount of Olives. I would not have been surprised when we left if we had found a great stone rolled against the Damascus Gate, and angels with flaming swords on guard.”

  “You are letting your imagination lead you, Luke the Scribe!” cried Adam indignantly. “Do you mean that Jerusalem seems to you like a city of the dead? Let me tell you this: the city of David will stand in all its greatness after the memory of Rome has been lost and Antioch has been buried under an avalanche of rock from the hills about it.”

  “My hope is that you are right,” said Luke. “It is dreadful to feel that destruction hovers over those ancient stone walls and broods above Mount Moriah. Your opinion is as good as mine, Adam. I spoke only as a man—a man of faulty vision. I am not a prophet.”

  The resentment Adam felt over what had been said manifested itself first in a long silence and then in an outburst because of what seemed to him a personal slight.

  “I am the one who has made it possible to get the Cup—this Cup by which you set so much store—safely out of the hands of the High Priest and the Zealots. I have done much of the planning and I am risking my savings in this journey—not to mention my skin, which I value. Yet I was not taken into your confidence about the Cup, and it was only by accident that I learned of its existence in the first place. I do not like being disregarded, Luke the Physician, and I am speaking out to let you know.”

  Luke looked distressed. “There is justice in your reproaches. We have accepted your aid. We have benefited by your courage and farsightedness as well as by your generosity. I can see now, though we have always appreciated what you are doing, that we have not made you aware of it.” He paused to give his head a shake of self-reproach. “The fault is mine, my good friend Adam, and I am truly contrite.”

  “I have not seen this Cup for which all of us have risked so much,” grumbled Adam.

  Luke glanced over his shoulder at the work going on about them. All the tents were down save that of Deborra. He raised a hand and called, “Let it stand for a few minutes.” Then he nodded to Adam. “Come, our brave and generous friend, let us repair this oversight at once. Let us show you the Cup that Jesus held and then passed to His disciples on that night so many years ago.”

  They got to their feet and walked to the tent. Sarah, who was busily packing, left at a word from her mistress. The old chest stood at one side, almost hidden under bundles of clothing. Deborra raised the lid, and Luke drew out the Cup from its resting place.

  The canvas flap had been drawn over the entrance, so there was almost complete darkness inside the tent. No one spoke or moved. It was Adam who broke the silence finally.

  “I can see nothing,” he said. “Can we not have some light?”

  Luke threw back enough of the canvas to admit light. It was then possible to see the tent pole and the chest and the bundles piled up above it. The Cup was visible against this background, a battered drinking vessel lacking in beauty of design.

  All three studied it in a silence that lasted the better part of a minute. Adam was again the first to speak.

  “It is very plain,” he said.

  “Yes, it is plain,” agreed Luke. “It would bring a small price if offered for sale as a drinking cup.”

  “I expected it to be different, though I cannot tell you in what way. I must have thought there would be something remarkable about it.” Adam’s voice suggested that he was not only surprised but a little resentful. “I have seen cups just like this in the huts of shepherds. And in the poorest of inns.”

  “Yes. In the huts of shepherds and the poorest of inns.”

  “Well,” said Adam after a final pause, “I have seen it. You had better put it away now so the packing can be finished. We must be on our way.”

  When they emerged from the tent into the surrounding dusk and Adam proceeded to busy himself with the details of moving, Deborra looked up at Luke with eyes that were misted in wonder.

  “I saw it!” she whispered. “When the tent was so dark. I could see the Cup as clearly as I could later. I think there was a light shining from it and yet I could see nothing else. It was very strange. It was so strange that I wondered if it was all my imagination.”

  “No, my child. There was a light shining from it. You saw the Cup and so did I. I saw it once before. When it was first entrusted to me by your grandfather and I took it in great fear to the room in the warehouse where Basil was hiding. It shone then with the same strange and holy light.”

  “But Adam saw nothing at all.”

  “Adam is lacking in faith. He is a man of great honesty and integrity, but he does not believe in Jesus and there is in him a tendency to scoff. I am sure, my child, that the radiance of the Cup is only in the eye that looks upon it. If you have faith, it glows for you with this serene light. If you lack faith, it is—well, as Adam said, it is then a very plain cup.”

  They proceeded to pace up and down together while the preparations for departure went on about them. “This is something I have often discussed,” said Luke, “with the others. Those who were with the Master in His wanderings saw many miraculous things. I have been close to Paul and I have no doubt that great powers have been conferred on him and on Peter. But this I may tell you: there have been few miracles.”

  The stars were beginning to show in the sky. Luke paused and gazed up at them. “We know so little about the God Who made the world and the heavens and Who rules our destinies. Men have seen Him, but He always appeared to them in the guise of a man like themselves. We cannot conceive how He will look when He sits on His judgment seat. We do not know where He abides, although it seems certain that it is somewhere up above us. It must be far above the clouds and the stars. There He sits and everything moves at His nod. Do you find it hard to believe that the great and omnipotent God, in His might and sometimes in His wrath, can spread out a hand and bring a miracle to pass?

  “And yet I am sure He would never have found it necessary to have miracles happen except for one thing. The children of Israel expected their Messiah to come like a king, another David. It is hard for them to accept a humble carpenter instead. And so perhaps the wise and all-seeing Jehovah thought He would assist their stumbling faith with proofs that would be startling.

  “But, my child,” he went on, “we cannot expect Jehovah to give so much time to our weaknesses and our puny needs that He will keep His hand stretched out to lend us aid. Instead of ruling us by miracles, He has infused in us certain qualities that enable us to accomplish the divine purposes by ourselves—faith, loyalty, courage, tolerance. It is by the faith in us that we become Christians, and it is because of our faith that we are sometimes rewarded with proof that God watches us and is pleased. I am sure that was why we were allowed to see the holy Cup in the darkness of the tent. It was not fancy, not a trick of the imagination. We saw it—clearly, unmistakably, wonderfully! But Adam’s eyes, which had no faith to open them, saw nothing until light was admitted into the tent; and then all he perceived was an old cup that was very plain.

  “Those with whom I have worked,” he continued
after a pause, “have realized that we must not stand by and wait for God to accomplish by a miracle what we should do by applying the powers He has stored inside us. Power for good has been in men all through the ages, but the coming of Jesus was needed to release these qualities in us. Because of this, men and women are enduring all things for their faith, even the cruelest of deaths. As belief in Jesus grows and spreads, the faith of men will become the greatest force in the world.”

  “Do you mean,” she asked, “that faith gives us all, even the humblest of us, a share of the divine?”

  Luke nodded his head gravely. “That is what I believe, my child. But our mortal minds will always remain incapable of comprehending the purpose of God. The truth has been revealed in some part to Peter and Paul and we must, therefore, follow them in all humility, listening to what they say, believing what they believe. We must be happy that it is in us to use this faith and to accept these great truths.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “What of Basil?” asked Deborra. “I mean, what happened when you first saw the light of the Cup?”

  It was so dark now that they had to walk slowly and take each step with caution. Deborra could not see the look of satisfaction which lighted up the face of her companion. “Basil perceived it,” he affirmed. “He had not reached any belief in Jesus at the time. He was still groping in the dark. But he saw the light as clearly as I did. His mind is like a rich loam. The seed has been planted, and it will not be long before the power of faith will sprout, and grow, and blossom.”

  Adam took his stand at the head of the line of camels. With a flourish he raised the hozazra to his lips and sounded an urgent call. “Hurry!” the trumpet said. “The cool hours are here for our use. The long trail stretches ahead. To your saddles! Hurry! Hurry!”

  2

  A man with intense black eyes and a voice like a trumpet was talking to a circle of listeners in a corner of the courtyard of the great khan outside Aleppo. “The hour draws near!” he cried. “The shackles with which Rome binds the world will soon be broken. Jerusalem is ready. The daggers are being forged for Israel’s freedom——”