It was a peculiar crowd! In Rome, on a feast-day, there was plenty of rough jostling and all manner of rudeness. Arrogant charioteers thought nothing of driving their broad iron wheels over the bare feet of little children. People on foot treated one another with almost incredible discourtesy. One favorite method of making one’s way through a crowd was to dive in with both hands full of mud and filth scooped up from the street. Few cared to debate the right of way with persons thus armed. No—Rome had won no prizes for the politeness of her gala-day multitudes. But in spite of her forthright brutality, Rome—on such occasions—was hilarious. Her crowds sang, cheered, laughed! They were mischievous, merciless, vulgar—but they were merry!
There was no laughter in this pilgrim throng that crowded the widening avenue today. This was a tense, impassioned, fanatical multitude; its voice a guttural murmur as if each man canted his own distresses, indifferent to the mumbled yearnings of his neighbors. On these strained faces was an expression of an almost terrifying earnestness and a quality of pietistic zeal that seemed ready to burst forth into wild hysteria; faces that fascinated Demetrius by the very ugliness of their unabashed contortions. Not for all the wealth of the world would he have so bared his private griefs and longings to the cool stare of the public. But apparently the Jews didn’t care who read their minds. All this, thought the Corinthian, was what the sight of their holy city had done to their emotions.
Suddenly, for no reason at all that Demetrius could observe, there was a wave of excitement. It swept down over the sluggish swollen stream of zealots like a sharp breeze. Men all about him were breaking loose from their families, tossing their packs into the arms of their overburdened children, and racing forward toward some urgent attraction. Far up ahead the shouts were increasing in volume, spontaneously organizing into a concerted reiterated cry; a single, magic word that drove the multitude into a frenzy.
Unable to keep his footing in this onrushing tide, Demetrius dragged and pushed his stubborn charges to the roadside where Melas stood savagely battering his tangled donkeys over their heads with his heavy cudgel.
‘Crack them on the nose!’ yelled Melas.
‘I have no club,’ shouted Demetrius. ‘You take them!’
Melas, pleased to have his competency appealed to, grasped the lead-strap to the other string of donkeys and began laying on the discipline with a practiced hand. While he was thus engaged, Demetrius set off after the hurrying crowd, forcing his way with the others until the congestion was too dense for further progress. Wedged tight against his arm, and grinning up into his face, was another Greek, older but smaller than himself; a slave, easily recognizable as such by the slit in his ear-lobe. Impudently the ill-scented little fellow bent about for a glimpse of Demetrius’ ear; and, having assured himself of their social equality, laughed fraternally.
‘Athens,’ he announced, by way of introduction.
‘Corinth,' returned Demetrius, crisply. ‘Do you know what is going on?’
‘They’re yelling something about a king. That’s all I can make of it.’
‘Understand their language?’
‘A little. Just what I’ve picked up on these trips. We come up every year with a load of spices.’
‘You think they’ve got somebody up front who wants to be their king? Is that it?’
‘Looks like it. They keep howling another word that I don’t know—Messiah. The man’s name, maybe.’
Demetrius impulsively turned about, thrust a shoulder into the steaming mass, and began pushing through to the side of the road, followed closely—to his distaste—by his diminutive countryman. All along the way, men were recklessly tearing branches from the palms that bordered the residential thoroughfare, indifferent to the violent protests of property-owners. Running swiftly among the half-crazed vandals, the Greeks arrived at the front of the procession and jammed their way into it.
Standing on tiptoe for an instant in the swaying crowd, Demetrius caught a fleeting glimpse of the obvious center of interest, a brown-haired, bareheaded, well-favored Jew. A tight little circle had been left open for the slow advance of the shaggy white donkey on which he rode. It instantly occurred to Demetrius that this coronation project was an impromptu affair for which no preparation had been made. Certainly there had been no effort to bedeck the pretender with any royal regalia. He was clad in a simple brown mantle with no decorations of any kind, and the handful of men—his intimate friends, no doubt—who tried to shield him from the pressure of the throng, wore the commonest sort of country garb.
The huzzas of the crowd were deafening. It was evident that these passionate zealots had all gone stark, raving mad! Paulus had drawn a very clear picture of the Jew’s mood on these occasions of the holy festival commemorative of an ancient flight from bondage.
Again Demetrius, regaining his lost balance, stretched to full height for another look at the man who had somehow evoked all this wild adulation. It was difficult to believe that this was the sort of person who could be expected to inflame a mob into some audacious action. Instead of receiving the applause with an air of triumph—or even of satisfaction—the unresponsive man on the white donkey seemed sad about the whole affair. He looked as if he would gladly have had none of it.
‘Can you see him?’ called the little Athenian, who had stuck fast in the sticky-hot pack an arm’s length away.
Demetrius nodded without turning his head.
‘Old man?’
‘No—not very,’ answered Demetrius, candidly remote.
‘What does he look like?’ shouted the Athenian, impatiently.
Demetrius shook his head—and his hand, too—signaling that he couldn’t be bothered now, especially with questions as hard to answer as this one.
‘Look like a king?’ yelled the little Greek, guffawing boisterously.
Demetrius did not reply. Tugging at his impounded garments, he crushed his way forward. The surging mass, pushing hard from the rear, now carried him on until he was borne almost into the very hub of the procession that edged along, step by step, keeping pace with the plodding donkey.
Conspicuous in the inner circle, as if they constituted the mysterious man’s retinue, were the dozen or more who seemed stunned by the event that obviously had taken them by surprise. They too were shouting, erratically, but they wore puzzled faces, and appeared anxious that their honored friend would measure up a little more heroically to the demands of this great occasion.
It was quite clear now to Demetrius that the incident was accidental. It was quite understandable, in the light of Paulus’ ineverent comments on the Passover celebration. All these proud, poverty-cursed, subjugated pilgrims, pressing toward their ancient shrine, would be on the alert for any movement that savored of revolt against their rapacious foe. It needed only the shout—‘Messiah!’—and they would spring into action without pausing to ask questions. That explained it, believed Demetrius. In any case, whoever had started this wild pandemonium, it was apparent that it lacked the hero’s approbation.
The face of the enigmatic Jew seemed weighted with an almost insupportable burden of anxiety. The eyes, narrowed as if in resigned acceptance of some inevitable catastrophe, stared straight ahead toward Jerusalem. Perhaps the man, intent upon larger responsibilities far removed from this pitiable little coronation farce, wasn’t really hearing the racket at all.
So deeply absorbed had Demetrius become, in his wide-eyed study of the young Jew’s face, that he too was beginning to be unmindful of the general clamor and confusion. He moved along with inching steps, slanting his body against the weight of the pressing crowd, so close now to the preoccupied rider that with one stride he could have touched him.
Now there was a temporary blocking of the way, and the noisy procession came to a complete stop. The man on the white donkey straightened, as if roused from a reverie, drew a deep sigh, and slowly turned his head. Demetrius watched, with parted lips and a pounding heart.
The meditative eyes, drifting about over t
he excited multitude, seemed to carry a sort of wistful compassion for these helpless victims of an aggression for which they thought he had a remedy. Everyone was shouting. shouting—all but the Corinthian slave, whose throat was so dry he couldn’t have shouted, who had no inclination to shout, who wished they would all be quiet, quiet! It wasn’t the time or place for shouting. Quiet! This man wasn’t the sort of person one shouted at, or shouted for. Quiet! That was what this moment called for—Quiet!
Gradually the brooding eyes moved over the crowd until they came to rest on the strained, bewildered face of Demetrius. Perhaps, he wondered, the man’s gaze halted there because he alone—in all this welter of hysteria—refrained from shouting. His silence singled him out. The eyes calmly appraised Demetrius. They neither widened nor smiled; but, in some indefinable manner, they held Demetrius in a grip so firm it was almost a physical compulsion. The message they communicated was something other than sympathy, something more vital than friendly concern; a sort of stabilizing power that swept away all such negations as slavery, poverty, or any other afflicting circumstance. Demetrius was suffused with the glow of this curious kinship. Blind with sudden tears, he elbowed through the throng and reached the roadside. The uncouth Athenian, bursting with curiosity, inopportunely accosted him.
‘See him—close up?’ he asked.
Demetrius nodded; and, turning away, began to retrace his steps toward his abandoned duty.
‘Crazy?’ persisted the Athenian, trudging alongside.
‘No.’
‘King?’
‘No,’ muttered Demetrius, soberly—‘not a king.’
‘What is he, then?’ demanded the Athenian, piqued by the Corinthian’s aloofness.
‘I don’t know,’ mumbled Demetrius, in a puzzled voice, 'but—he is something more important than a king.’
Chapter V
AFTER the camp had been set up near the suburban village of Bethany, Marcellus and his staff continued down the long hill into the city. There was very little traffic on the streets, for the people were keeping the Sabbath.
Though Paulus had not exaggerated Jerusalem’s provision for the representatives of her Roman Emperor, the young Legate of Minoa was not prepared for his first sight of the majestic Insula of the Procurator.
As they halted their weary camels at twilight before the imposing façade of Rome’s provincial seat, Marcellus sat in speechless admiration. No one needed to inform a stranger that this massive structure was of foreign origin, for it fairly shouted that it had no relation whatever to its mean environment.
Apparently the architects, sculptors, and landscape artists had been advised that expense was the least of their problems. Seeing the Jews had it to pay for, explained Paulus, the Emperor had not been parsimonius, and when Herod—the first Procurator—had professed a grandiose ambition ‘to rebuild this brick city in marble,’ Augustus had told him to go as far as he liked.
‘And you can see that he did,’ added Paulus, with an inclusive gesture made as proudly as if he had done it himself.
True, Jerusalem wasn’t all marble. The greater part of it was decidedly shabby, dirty, and in need of repair. But Herod the Great had rebuilt the Temple on a magnificent scale and then had erected this Insula on a commanding elevation far enough away from the holy precincts to avoid an unhappy competition.
It was a huge quadrangle stronghold, dominating the very heart of Jerusalem. Three spacious levels of finely wrought mosaic pavement, united by marble steps and balustrades with pedestals bearing the exquisitely sculptured busts of eminent Romans, terraced up from the avenue to the colonnaded portal of the Praetorium. On either side of the paved area sloped an exotic garden of flowers and ornamental shrubbery watered from marble basins in which lavish fountains played.
‘These fountains,' said Paulus, in a discreet undertone, ‘were an afterthought. They were installed only seven years ago, when Pilate came. And they caused an uprising that brought all the available troops to the new Procurator’s rescue.’
‘Were you in it, too, Paulus?’ asked Marcellus.
‘Indeed—yes! We were all here, and a merry time it was. The Jew has his little imperfections, but he is no coward. He whines when he trades, but he is no whimperer in battle. He hates war and will go to any length to preserve the peace; but—and this was something Pontius Pilate didn’t know—there is a point where you’d better stop imposing on a Jew.’
‘Well, go on then about the fountains,' urged Marcellus, for the sight of the water had made him impatient for a bath.
‘Pilate’s wife was responsible for it. They had been down in Crete for many years where Pontius had been the Prefect. You can grow anything in Crete, and the lady was dismayed to find herself in such an arid country as Judea. She begged for gardens. Gardens must have water. To have that much water there must be an aqueduct. Aqueducts are expensive. There was no appropriation to cover this item. So—the new Procurator helped himself to some funds from the Temple treasury, and—’
‘And the battle was on,' surmised Marcellus.
‘You have said it, sir,' declared Paulus, fervently. ‘And it stayed on for seven exciting months. Pilate nearly lost his post. Two thousand Jews were killed, and nearly half that many Romans. It would have been better, I suppose, if Tiberius had transferred Pilate to another position. The Jews will never respect him; not if he stays here a thousand years. He makes every effort to humor them, remembering what they can do to him if they wish. He is here to keep the peace. And he knows that the next time there is a riot, his term of office will expire.’
‘It’s a wonder the Jews do not raise a general clamor for his removal,' speculated Marcellus.
‘Ah—but they don’t want him removed,' laughed Paulus. ‘These rich and wily old merchants and money-lenders, who pay the bulk of the taxes and exercise a great deal of influence, know that Pilate is not in a position to dictate harsh terms to them. They hate him, of course, but they wouldn’t like to see him go. I’ll wager that if the Emperor appointed another man to the office of Procurator, the Sanhedrin would protest.’
‘What’s the Sanhedrin?’ inquired Marcellus.
‘The Jewish legislative body. It isn’t supposed to deal with any matters except religious observances; but—well—when the Sanhédrin growls, Pontius Pilate listens!’ Paulus shouted to the squatting camel-boys, and the apathetic beasts plodded on. ‘But I do not wish to convey the idea, sir,' continued the Centurion, ‘that Pilate is a nobody. He is in a very unfortunate predicament here. You will like him, I think. He is a genial fellow, and deserves a more comfortable Prefecture.’
They had moved on then, around the corner, to the section of the vast barracks assigned to the garrison from Minoa. Three sides of the great quadrangle had been equipped for the accommodation of troops, the local constabulary occupying less than a third of it. Now the entire structure was filled almost to capacity. The whole institution was alive. The immense parade-ground, bounded by the two-story stone buildings, was gay with the uniforms of the legions arriving from the subordinate Palestinian forts. The banners of Caesarea, Joppa, and Capernaum, topped by the imperial ensign, added bright color to the teeming courtyard.
Marcellus was delighted with the appointments of the suite into which he was shown. They compared favorably with the comforts to be had at the Tribunes’ Club in Rome. It was the first time he had been entirely at ease since the night he had left home.
After a while Paulus came in to see if his young Commander had everything he wanted.
‘I am writing some letters,’ he said. 'The Vestris should arrive at Joppa by tomorrow or next day, and will probably sail for home before the end of the week. You remember, sir, she was just coming into the harbor at Gaza as we passed through.’
‘Thanks, Paulus, for reminding me,’ said Marcellus. ‘It is a good suggestion.’
***
He had not written to Diana since the night of his departure on the galley to Ostia. That had been a difficult letter to com
pose. He was very deeply depressed. After several unsatisfactory attempts to tell her how sorry he was to leave her and with what impatience he would await their next meeting—in the face of his serious doubt that he should ever see her again—his letter had turned out to be a fond little note of farewell, containing neither fatuous promises nor grim forebodings. The lovely Diana would be cherished in his thoughts, he wrote, and she was not to worry about him.
Many times, on the long voyage to Gaza, he had begun letters that were never finished. There was so little to say. He would wait until there was something of interest to report. On the last day before making port, he had written a letter to his family, dry as the little ship’s log, promising to do better next time.
The early days at Minoa had been eventful enough to furnish material for a letter, but his new duties had kept him occupied. Tonight he would write to Diana. He could tell her honestly that things were ever so much better than he had expected. He would explain how he happened to be in Jerusalem. He would tell her that he was handsomely quartered, and describe the appointments of the Insula. It would need no gilding. Marcellus’ dignity, sadly battered by the punitive assignment to discredited Minoa, had been immeasurably restored. He was almost proud of his Roman citizenship. He could write Diana now with some self-confidence.
For two hours, under the light of the three large stone lamps bracketed on the wall beside his desk, he reviewed the important events of his life at Minoa. He didn’t say how arid, how desolate, how altogether unlovely was the old fort and its environs; nor did he exhaust the details of his first day’s experience there.
‘The acting Commander,’ he wrote, ‘was a bit inclined to be surly, and did not overdo his hospitality when I arrived; but a little later he decided to co-operate, and we are now the best of friends. I quite like this Centurion Paulus. Indeed I hardly know what I should do without him, for he knows all the traditions of the fort; what things must be done, and the right time and way to do them.’