Agnes C. Laut

“ I’d rule the man! I’d ride with the conqueror in his car beneath Rome’s Arch of Triumph! I’d turn a shadow kingdom into a real earth power ruled with iron grip though it were fleshed in woman. They call us—weak.” She laughed again.
“I’d send Drusilla with her dove-cooing love to her slave husband Felix on Naples Bay. I’d send the old drooling Queen Herodias to her doting failure of a spouse in Spain to waste their souls away in vain regrets; but I’d strike, and I’d strike now, straight at Titus’ heart for the throne of Rome. ”

“ Do you hesitate because Onesimus, your slave boy, has come back grown to man? Will your lure be weaker, or stronger, now that he is grown with the strong wine of manhood in his veins? If you, a Herod’s daughter, could hesitate now, I’d stab you with my own hand the first time I found you asleep. Go to Jerusalem! Win Titus! He will be Emperor, too, in time. Onesimus can meet you in Rome. Bend fate to your will! Do not be bent and broken by any fate. ”

“ Had she ever known a day of freedom of choice from early girlhood, when she had been sold to one old husband to steady a tottering throne, to opening womanhood, when widowed, she had again been sold like a slave on the shambles to another aged and repugnant spouse to win alliance to strengthen that same insecure throne? And when she had fled from that second aged buyer on plea of religious vow, her name had been dirt under the feet of the very beggars on the street—a byword among the Jews and a joke among the actors of the Roman theaters in all the known world. ”

“ There you can seize her and carry her to your own house, Thamyris; or the city magistrate will seize her for wandering the streets without the badge of a courtesan on her forehead and have her burned at the faggots. Little headstrong fool! Does she think to change our Greek customs for a puny whim? I have given her dower to make a princess rich; and you have given her gifts of an empress; and she sits listening to that beggarly babbler, whom no one knows, stone to her blood mother’s commands and cold as a Venus in snow to her lover. ”

“ Have you forgotten how Herod the Great had strangled, beneath the baths of Machærus, his wife’s brother, who was High Priest, to gain his end; and how when his best loved wife taunted him with murder and turned from him in hate, though he loved her to madness, he slew her, too, and stopped at naught to make his throne secure? I am such a Herod daughter! Shall we let slip what he paid such price to gain?”
The King’s brows knitted deep. Though scarce past mid-life, he bent with the impotence of fate too powerful for him to master. ”

“ To his youthful heart it seemed no evil thing that she should come to Rome and marry Titus, Vespasian’s son, where he again could be her page. He could not know that all Rome was now counting on General Vespasian to save the Empire and become Emperor. He would not have had long to wait, as destiny soon rolled the years to Vespasian’s triumphial entry into Rome—if the harpy women of the wine shops on the water front had not taken note of his beauty and set the bargemen on to kidnap him as bait for higher game in Nero’s Palace, where ruled an evil woman, guided only by her own wicked desires. ”

“ I like not her silence, Thamyris! I would she stormed; but she sits silent as stone—listening, listening to that babbler! Who is he? A girl never knows herself till a man teaches her what love is. Can’t you get rid of him?” And the hard laugh of the girl’s mother had a sinister knowledge that was not of youth, as she shot a glance at the middle-aged man, which he read without words. “I want my daughter married. She is eighteen summers this night. She will marry as I bid her, or go to the temple gods and take her fate. I will have no daughter of eighteen summers betraying my years.” ”

“ She had reached Titus and grasped the prize, and found it turn in her hands to Apples of Sodom and the salt tears of the Dead Sea. She had thrown love to the discard and was being told to play the wanton with underlings, whom her Herod pride scorned. She, the daughter of high priests, back to Aaron, was to eat the crumbs from Rome’s table, like the lapdogs, pets to be fondled, abused, discarded—and then the grave! And for this, she had rejected the children of love in the garden called Paradise; the wine of life drawn from a lover’s lips ”

“ There was a reverberating crash that rocked the templed columns of the theater as though they had been reeds in a wind. Women rose with screams. Men dashed up in panic. Was the earthquake feared more in the cities of the Roman Road than vengeance of God or man? A sharp ricocheting splintering as of the theater falling, and the lightning struck—struck the brass-tipped pole in the middle of the arena and the deluge burst from mid-heaven in rods of rain—torrential rains in a hurricane of wind and lightning. The pole fell. Some one shouted that the Lady Trefina had fainted. ”

“ So absorbed were the lovers they did not see the tall white figure of the great teacher Apollos approaching on the path, accompanied by the Princess Drusilla.
“What is—this thing you call sin, my Onesimus? Is it sin for me to love you as I do?”
“Sin is the shadow of self, shutting out the light of God.”
She pondered that. “And when I love you so you turn all life to rosy mist, do I love self?” she asked.
“Sin is anything that holds us in the realm of shadows, away from God. It may be crime that fetters us in blind dungeons without bars like the Queen Herodias up there in the turret. ”

“ A rabble had gathered round a speaker in the city square. The speaker was short of stature, with thighs that had been lamed in war or accident, but he was clad in the black silk cloak of a man of distinction, and though his receding hair showed premature care, his forehead reflected the white light of an æsthetic; and as he declaimed, his eyes lighted up with a strange fire of faith. Near the speaker lounged a richly dressed, stout, prosperous Greek of the merchant class. He was not listening. ”

“ Again, the bargemen and sailors and slave rowers up from the corn ships of Egypt on Naples Bay made the night ring with knavish revels in the water-front wine shops; but though the sun sank as golden on the waters and the stars came out as silver over the hills, the canal was no longer the happy thoroughfare of gay throngs in spring under colored silk awnings with Nubian slaves on the rowers’ ivory benches; for a mute fear was settling over Rome as to what madness Nero would next pursue; and the great senators and generals no longer thronged to Rome. ”

“ The rich crowded the city plazas and inns and public khans in the throngs of a great annual fair; and the merchants reaped their harvest in barter of little silver images and amulets to protect from travelers’ perils, and in the sports of theater and hippodrome, where the latest plays from Athens and Rome were given; or lecturers from the Far East disputed their mystic philosophies with the keen wits of Athens and the cynics of Rome; or gladiators fought; or captives in war were thrown to the wild beasts with a chance for life and freedom if they could vanquish tooth and claw with naked hands. ”

“ Before her stood the young presbyter, Onesimus, clad like his master in flowing white, with black sandal straps braided halfway to the knee, a sword hanging by a gold cord from his neck, his hair as gold as the cord but cut short to the neck after the Greek fashion, his deep blue eyes gazing at the Princess as he would read her soul. Onesimus had grown to powerful manhood in these seven years since he left Paul at Rome. ”

“ What comes? What comes? I say! I could be a lioness to fight for my cubs, as all the Herod women ever are; but when I pray for forgetfulness, what comes—I say?”
“Dear Aunt Herodias,” gently expostulated the younger Bernice. “These are not wise words. Our weak hands only bruise when we batter fate.”
“Fool—your course is not yet run—dreaming of a blue-eyed slave, when you should be in Jerusalem mending all our fortunes by marrying Titus, the Emperor’s son!” ”

“ The lines of chanting priests had seized bells to ring in rhythm and fans to send up the clouds of incense. And there was heard the hunting horn of Diana coming down from the fleecy meadows of mid-heaven to pasture her stallions and mares in the ocean deeps—the vestal virgins’ high clear soprano gave back refrain to the chant of the priests—when a blast of wind from the tidal waves of Diana’s stallions and mares champing out to sea, blew through the Temple pillars, sending the clouds of incense and mist back over the worshipers.
Onesimus saw Apollos leap from the pillar to the altar stairs ”

“ A bird’s wing almost brushed the Bishop’s face. He opened his eyes to one of those common tragedies of garden life, seen every day if we have eyes that see. Some insect of an early butterfly sort had come out of winter chrysalis pale, faint, trembling with the effect of casting off the dead body of its winter shell of skin, and was fanning moist wings dry in the morning sun, when the little feathered songster with a dart past the Bishop’s face, snatched away the dead shell body, while the pale nymph rose in giddy circles in the dazzling light. ”

“ The trumpets had silenced to be ready for a blast to drown any cry of anguish. The naked Greek girl had lighted agile as a bird on her feet, and she moved not so much as a hair’s breadth from the crouching lioness now snarling and lashing head and tail from side to side. Her flesh looked fresh as a little child’s.
“Little fool! Why doesn’t she fight, or run!” demanded the Roman beside Thamyris. The Greek merchant sank heavily where he sat and hid his face in his hands. ”

“ There follows the passing of the Old Order like a garment discarded for the New when a light shall burst over humanity with the effulgent radiance of the very heavens; when those, who are asleep shall awake clothed in light, eternally young; when each shall treasure his eternal light and fire in his own spirit; when the only grief shall be the grief for transgression of laws man can never break, but which break man; when the love of God shall extend to the meanest and poorest of all creatures; when justice will exact “to the uttermost farthing” of repentance for sin ”

“ Onesimus now knew that neither matter nor spirit could perish—but only change, and He who had created both would govern what form they must take in the New Heaven and the New Earth; and Christ would give that cup of forgetfulness of sin from the Book of Remembrance, which the pagan Greeks promised from drink of their sacred spring. Then suddenly, as if in a glimpse of cosmic consciousness, he knew the veil was very thin—thinner in every cycle of ages—as the Old crashed down, the New grew up in its place—till the New became a New Heaven and a New Earth, a New Heaven on Earth ”

“ It bounded in mid-air and fled as on winged feet straight for the tent of the sleeping Roman General.
The old Idumean came a-sprawl on the ground, rolled over and sprang up with his helmet awry. The astounded young presbyter had retained his seat on the wearied camel, but gazed after the fleeing form as one who has received his death blow.
“A curse upon her and all her vixen foxy Herod brood,” raged the old man, getting stiffly to his feet. “I might have known it was a trick when she said she would go to the Grecian Isles with you.” ”

“ If it were not I value my own head, I’d sometimes believe him myself; but no head of mine for these mad zealots! It takes the iron hand of a Herod to beat out the flame of their sedition, and not the gentle pleading of young Agrippa to bring them to their senses! When the Prophet gets his pardon, if he is wise he’ll haste to Spain and never set foot in Rome or Jerusalem again. ”

“ ARDATH, THE FIELD OF FLOWERS Three women sat cooped in the great fortress of Machærus, east of the Dead Sea, peeved that a war for world power had interfered with their own personal plans and petty intrigues. The rose-tinted mountains of Moab rose far to the east, tier on tier above the Desert, dyed in a mystic fire of cloud and light that might have been the abode of gods from eternity. North and south, you could have dropped a pebble from the turret, where the women sat, down precipice sheer as a wall twenty-five hundred feet. ”

“ Princess Bernice laughed, and her voice was hard as sword striking metal. “Sheep for hungry wolves! Would Herod the Great have hesitated and whined ‘mercy, mercy,’ to wolves, as we pause now, Brother of mine?”
“Herod the Great dealt not with Titus. He dealt with a cringing Senate. This Titus is a man.”
“Then, if he is man, I—am—woman. Know you what that means? Take me to Titus, though we wade in blood to our waists! Be not less than man, yourself. Shall my power be less because he is man? Do you remember your mad jealousy when we were younger? Do you think I’ll fail with him because he is man? ”

“ In the center of the arena stood a tall flagpole with the Roman eagle in brass on the tip. The horseman with the naked girl now circled this in frantic gallops. Reining his horse so suddenly that it reared on its haunches, he now leaped off with the girl in his arms. He placed the laurel wreath on her forehead. With such a broad belt as men use to girth chariot teams, he now strapped the victim by the waist to the pole. Iconium knew what was coming and began to roar in an earthquake of applause. Never did this Greek city on the Great Roman Road fail of entertainment for royal visitors. ”

“ God will lead you. If you are burned to-morrow, ’twill be but the fiery gate to the Unseen Kingdom and service there. If you are not burned, God will lead you to service here. I shall be whipped from the city at day dawn and go to Timothy, a child in years like yourself, at Derbe and Lystra; but at Antioch is the Brotherhood, where holy men and women plan our warfare against the Adversary—the World, the Flesh and the Devil; but hard by Antioch are the Gardens of Daphne, where many maids like you are forced to barter love for carnal gain. ”

“ Safe as an eagle’s nest above the storm clouds perched the Fort on the mountain height, where rulers’ wives and daughters were housed from stress of war and raid, but angry as an eagle’s young were the strident voices of these pampered favorites of harem and court, that the blood of men flowing deep as the horses’ bridles over at the siege of Jerusalem, should be keeping these caged birds from the garden of joy in life. ”

“ If I could tear these scales from my eyes and prove it is not true; but can a blind lioness fight. . . .?”
“Let us go to the garden—we only anger her. She will rave to exhaustion till she gets some sleep, and dreams she sees the head again,” murmured Drusilla. “I could wish we were out of the haunted fortress here. It is ill-fated! Do you go to Jerusalem and get the Emperor’s permission for us to leave for Rome. . . .”
“I will do that, Sister Drusilla, but do not anger her by making light of her mad love for Herod. ”

“ Here are the Sun worshipers, when Israel burnt her sons upon the walls. Here is the Virgin, Mother of a Child in flesh to reveal God in form to man. Here is Pisces the Fisher, and when our Christians fled from Nero’s sword in Rome they used the Fisher sign to know one another. Christ said, ‘I make you fishers of men,’ and we knew not what he meant. The fall of Jerusalem is the fulfilment of our age. After our age, when the sword shall give place to sunburst comes the Age of Air and water and freedom with much going to and fro beyond the Isles of the Sea to nations not yet born. ”

“ The Roman Empire was falling to pieces from over-extension. Democracy was degenerating to mobocracy and mobocracy to the tyranny of the Army.
Would the old Idumean guard have been executed for the loss of his prisoner in the shipwreck? He most certainly would; for Rome was as ruthless to her own, as to her provincials.
The object in kidnapping a beautiful slave can be found in the four lives that have been written of Apollonius. We sometimes despair of the world because religion seems to have done so little to change men. The despair is the voice of unbelief. ”

“ He is going to follow the light of truth as he finds the light of truth and proves the truth. He isn’t going to accept one set of opinions on Sunday, which he finds won’t work out in everyday life on Monday. Christianity has to be a workable scheme for every day in the week, or youth is going to leave the church pews empty and crowd to “the movies,” to the theater, to the anarchist lectures, to the wild abandon of joy in the rhythmic emotional dance; and—youth is right. With unfettered feet and wings of dawn to its soul, it faces always the new day. It never looks backwards. ”