Читать книгу The Robber - Bertram Brooker - Страница 6

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Barabbas reached the river before it was fully light. The great valley, twelve miles wide at Bethabara, descended in a series of precipices far below sea level. The deep volcanic cleft, splitting the land from Lebanon to the Dead Sea, had given Jordan its importance as a boundary through the centuries. Except during the great rains, it was no more than a turbulent yellow brook, and now although it was still the dry season, hordes of tiny insects whirred over the surface of the water and along its banks. It was too shallow for a boat, and in all its length not a bridge had been built across it.

Removing his sandals, Barabbas sought a pebbled spot, and walked across through the cloud of insects into the ankle-deep water that had been cooled by the long night. It was refreshing to his feet, which were already stinging from the rough passes of the mountain road.

The ascent was more gradual on the western side, and by the time he reached the crest of the bank, the sun was flooding the whole vast plain of Jericho with light.

On his right the far-away mountains of Ephraim looked as insubstantial as a purple veil stretched across the horizon above the early morning haze. On the left were yellowing barley fields, and in the distance the village of Gilgal. Farther south the white salty shore of the Dead Sea marked the edge of the wilderness of Judah. Ahead lay the highroad, with the palms of Jericho showing as a mere smudge of green on the shimmering skyline.

There was not a traveller in sight. Barabbas watched his shadow going before him, the only moving thing in the desolation of the plateau. The silence and the cool sweetness of the morning air gave him a feeling of exultation. He looked up at the sky, and the cloudless blue seemed to be trembling with hidden events, ready to move out of the invisible into his life.

He walked swiftly, his body swaying with his stride, like a true creature of the open. Except for the recent scar, which gleamed through his beard like a taut crimson cord, he was without blemish, a well-favoured man of splendid strength. His head was proudly poised, and his eyes were constantly roving and alert. The strong curve of his nose marked him as a man of passionate curiosity and courage. His nostrils swelled with his breath, scenting excitement at every step.

It was little more than an hour's walk from the river to Jericho. Already the walls and tufted palms of the oasis-city gleamed white and green in the strengthening sunshine. On the road, now, there was the tinkling of camel bells as the earliest caravans came threading out of the gates. Bullocks were lowing in the market-place. The harsh cries of ass-drivers carried far through the still air. The city was awake. Flocks of rock-doves rose from their night perches among the ruins of the ancient outer walls.

As Barabbas drew nearer, a light breeze brought the familiar scent of resin from the great balsam groves stretching northward from the city.

At the first well inside the gates Barabbas dipped water in his cupped hands and drank thirstily. For a time he rested on the rim of the well, watching the women carrying their jars, while he ate a few dried dates from his wallet. Arising refreshed, he strode through the winding streets to the southern gate which faced Jerusalem.

The highroad beyond descended precipitously into the rocky gorge of the Kerith.

Barabbas had not been beyond Jericho for years. Memories sprang forward in his mind as he crossed the ravine and made the steady uphill climb of seventeen miles over a steep white dusty road. Since he had left Jerusalem at the end of his enslavement, he had never returned, and now as he drew near, his old loathing of it and everything in it filled his soul with bitterness. In the house of Kepha, his mother's kinsman, his life had been that of a drudge. He had missed everything that sweetens the days of a child, and later as a bondman in the house of Meshech, who hired out camels to pilgrims, his yearning to fondle and speak softly to some living thing had been lavished on such creatures as a dozing dog in an alley, a lamb tied in the market-place, a dove coaxed down from a stable roof. In all those years only one youth had become his friend; a stooped, sickly, studious youngster named Judas Iscariot, who had been studying to become an apothecary. He began wondering if he would find Judas in the Alley of Spices. It would be good to see him again.

But then, as if his decision had subsided, he pondered over the reason for his return. A shadow crossed his features as he thought of his approaching audience with Antipas and the message he had to deliver.

He started to climb again, still musing, but as he looked ahead toward Jerusalem, his thoughts grew clearer and the realization came to him suddenly. He had come to look on the face of Antipas. A day might yet appear when he would want to know that face, to pick it out of a hundred or out of a thousand and fight his way toward it and stamp it in the dust.

Reaching the last rise on the stony crest of Olivet, he halted and stared across the valley of the Kedron at the walls of the city he hated, anchored in the solid rock of the four sacred hills. The sun blazed with dazzling brilliance on the marble and gold of the gates and pillars of the temple. Beside it stood the grim sombre fortress of Antonia.

In spite of himself a nostalgic pang mingling with his childhood dread of the invisible presence in the Holy of Holies, held the robber in a moment's reverence. But his eyes narrowed immediately in bitter resentment as he stared at the mass of masonry, laboriously chiselled out of great cliffs of rock, hauled through steep streets and hoisted with back-breaking effort into place to wall the priests and rulers in, and wall the people out.

At that moment the familiar threefold blast of the rams' horns, announcing the early evening sacrifice, reverberated through the temple porches. The blare carried faintly across the valley to where he stood, dying away in a low humming sound which seemed peremptory to the last murmur.

Barabbas hesitated no longer. The trumpets had fired his blood and he began the descent into the valley with resolute steps.