"Then what of myself, when I love where I should not love?" the
Maccabee insisted.
"You may suffer and sin not," the Christian said kindly.
The unhappy man dropped to his knees.
"O Christ, why should I resist Thee!" he groaned. "Thou hast stripped
me and made me see that my loss is good!"
The Christian laid his hands on the Maccabee's head.
"Dost thou believe?" he asked.
"Will Christ accept me, coming because I must?"
"It is not laid down how we shall baptize in the thirst of a famine,"
Nathan said, "yet He who sees fit to deny water never yet hath denied
grace."
But the Christian's hand extended over the kneeling man was caught in
a grip steadied with intense emotion. The unknown had seized him.
But for his feeling that this interruption was necessary to the
welfare of another soul, the Christian would not have paused in his
ministry.
The phantom straightened himself with a superb reinvestment of
manhood.
"Thou, son of the Maccabee, Philadelphus!" he exclaimed to the
kneeling man.
The Ephesian's arms sank.
"Who art thou that knoweth me?" he asked in a dead voice.
"I am all that plague and sin hath left of thy servant Aquila," the
phantom declared.
The Maccabee lifted his face for what should follow this revelation.
It was only a manifestation of his subjection to another will than his
own. He was not interested--he who was hoping to die.
"Hear me, and curse me!" Aquila went on. "But save thy wife yet. I say
unto thee, master, that she whom thou hast sheltered in the cavern is
thy wife, Laodice!"
The Maccabee struggled up to his feet and gazed with stunned and
unbelieving eyes at this wreck of his pagan servant, who went on
precipitately.
"Her I plotted against at the instigation of Julian of Ephesus. Her,
my mistress, Salome the Cyprian, robbed and hath impersonated thus
long to her safety in the house of the Greek. This hour, through
ignorance of thine own identity, through my fault, she hath gone
reluctantly to his arms. Curse me and let me die!"
The Maccabee seized the hair at his temples. For a moment the awful
gaze he bent upon Aquila seemed to show that the gentler spirit had
been dislodged from his heart. Then he cried: "God help us both, Aquila! My fault was greater than thine!"
He turned and fled toward the house of the Greek.
The four legions of Titus swept after him.
Aquila lifted his eyes for the first time and gazed at Nathan.
"I cursed thee for sparing me to such an existence as was mine!
Behold, father, thou didst bless me, instead. I am ready to die."
"Wait," the Christian said peacefully.