Читать книгу A King of Tyre: A Tale of the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah - James M. Ludlow - Страница 6

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The two friends parted at the quay. The king entered the palanquin which had awaited his return.

"To Trypho, the dyer's!"

An unusual commotion was made in the streets, or rather the alleys, through which the king's litter passed; for seldom until Hiram's accession had royalty cast its aristocratic lustre among the shadows of the common artisan's life. But Hiram was well known in these places. As a lad he had spent many hours in the factories, amusing himself with tools, and questioning the workmen about the details of their various arts.

The palanquin stopped at a low door, from which a cloud of steam was emitted. In the midst of this, like the statue of some god in a halo of incense, stood a man, naked to the waist, his arms and parts of his bare breast red, as if with blood.

As the king alighted, the man made an awkward salâm, knocking his head against the low lintel in resuming the perpendicular. Without losing any of his courtliness of manner, Hiram put the fellow at case by his genial familiarity.

"Ah, Trypho! You are like the god Tammuz, killed by the wild boar, but coming to life with the blood-marks on him."

"Like a king, rather," said Trypho, "for the red will be purple when it dries."

"No, like a queen," retorted Hiram, pleased with the man's banter, "for I swear by Astarte that the dye on your arms is the same that is going into the robe of the future queen of Tyre."

"Such is the honor your patronage has brought me," replied Trypho, making another salâm, that ended by nearly tripping the king into a dyeing vat.

"But how goes the cloth?" asked Hiram, laughing.

"It is nearly completed," said the workman, leading the way to an inner room. "Come in, and judge for yourself. I need not keep the secret of my art from one who knows it already."

At a leaden sink a half-grown boy was drawing the snail-like murex from its shell. Cutting off its head, he dexterously detached from its body the long sac of yellow liquid, which, on exposure, changed first to green, and, passing through the intermediate shades, to a bright purple. At a bench near by a workman crushed with a wooden hammer the smaller shell of the insect since called buccinum, which, together with the body of the animal, was thrown into a vat, mixed with salt, the whole mass heated, and reduced to a liquid state by an injection of steam. The gritty substance from the shell was then carefully skimmed from the surface, leaving a lighter purplish liquid than that obtained from the murex.

"They tell me, Trypho, that you can mix these two dyes at sight, so as to produce the rare tint for which your cloths are so famous. Have you no written formula, and do you never measure out the proportions?"

"No, sire," replied the man, "I never learned the proportions by weight or by measure. If I knew them myself I might tell somebody; then my secret would be gone. So I never told myself how I do it. I think of a tint, and pour the dyes together, and they always come out the tint I think of. How do I do it? Just as my old legs carry me where I think of going, without counting my steps, or watching which way my toes turn."

The fellow was garrulous, and, seeing that he had the king's attention, went on:—

"I got this secret where I got my blood—from my father; and he from his, and he from his. For, you see, we have been in this trade for thousands of years. You know that story the priests tell about the discovery of the art of dyeing? Well, it is true, because it was to one of my grandfathers that the great god Melkarth came when his dog ate off the head of a shell-fish, and colored his jaws with such beautiful tints that the nymph Tyrus refused to marry the god until he gave her a gown of the same color. It was my ancestor, the first Trypho, who helped the great Melkarth get his bride; and to no one else than to Trypho, the last, should the noble King Hiram come for a gown for his beautiful queen: whom may Tyrus bless! Come now, and see if the cloth I have prepared for your lady be not as lovely as was that of Tyrus herself. No woman could refuse a lover who wooed with such a garment in his hands as I have made."

Trypho led the way to another room, where cloths were hung before a window, by manipulating the screens of which the artisan adjusted the light that gave the required tone to the color.

"Truly a divine art!" cried Trypho, in his enthusiastic appreciation of his own work. "For see, I must use the beams of Baal, the sun-god, to bring it to perfection. It must be a divine art that uses Divinity."

"Does Baal let you use his beams at your will?" asked the king. "Then you must be the god, and Baal your servant. Baal could not make that splendid tint without you."

The man stared at the king as if stricken dumb by the blasphemy he had heard. His look of perplexity tempted Hiram to banter him further.

"And indeed, Trypho, I think you are more divine in your naked muscle, daubed with this insect's blood, which you can transform into beauty, than the brass image of Moloch is when dyed with children's blood. No beautiful thing was ever taken out of the blood vat at his feet. How say you, Trypho?" tapping the man's bare shoulders.

The workman made no reply, but moved a pace or two away from the king, looking at him in a sort of stupid terror. Recovering his senses, he pointed to a hanging of finest texture, whose exquisite tint brought an exclamation of delight from his visitor. It only needed to be washed in a decoction made from a certain sea-weed, found on the coast of Crete, to fix its color.

"This is for the robe of the queen of Tyre," said Trypho, bowing low, in as much obeisance to his own pride in his work as to the royal dignity of his visitor.

"You, Trypho, shall have a skin of finest wine from the marriage feast," said the king, grasping the hand of the workman, and leaving in it a gold daric.

Hiram and his attendants threaded their way through a low arcaded street, which was lined on either side with bazaars or cells of tradesmen, and debouched into a small court surrounded by the foundries of the bronze-workers. The open space was covered with scraps of metal, heaps of charred wood, broken moulding-boxes, piles of clay and sand. Leaving the palanquin at the entrance to the court, Hiram walked across it, followed by the eyes of scores who gazed after him from their various doorways. He entered the foundry of one of the most noted artisans. The owner greeted him with dignified cordiality.

"The Cabeiri have sent you at the right moment, your majesty. Finer work than I have just completed was never done by the Greek Vulcan. You admire the Greeks, as all artists must. But I shall prove to your own eyes that Tyre is keeping her ancient renown. See this bronze dish! But first listen to its musical ring," striking it with his centre finger. "It sounds longer than a diver can hold his breath. The gods have taught us the secret, which I whisper to you, sire: One part tin; nine parts copper. And never did embosser do better work with hammer and graving tool. Look at the muscles in the forearm of that figure on the rim."

"Finely wrought, indeed!" said the king. "But will they all be done in time? It wants but three moons to the wedding. And the number of pieces?"

"Yes, your majesty; five great dishes of gold, two-score of silver, a half-score of vases in bronze, and—But here is the order, which I shall have ready—"

"That is enough. I am pleased with your skill and promptness, and shall reward them," said the king, presenting his hand, which the artisan reverently touched with his lips.

King Hiram emerged from the network of streets and by-ways upon the Eurychorus Square, crossing which the royal palanquin disappeared beneath the portal of his palace. This was the residence of the ancient kings of Tyre. It was a large building, constructed of great blocks of stone, which were joined without mortar on smooth-fitting surfaces. About each stone was a depressed border, or bevel, which clearly marked the size of the blocks, making the whole more impressive to the eye, and at the same time revealing the antiquity of its construction. The edifice was windowless on the exterior. The only entrance was guarded by an enormous gate of oaken planks, which were banded together with thick and broad bars of burnished bronze. Pegs and sockets of the same metal made the hinges. It required the full strength of two burly porters to open these doors, for their great weight and the generations during which they had done service had worn the sockets into irregular shapes. As old Goliab, the porter, closed his half of the folding pair, and watched his comrade struggle with the other, he remarked:

"The hinges squeak like a howling priest. If they had not been used since the days of the Great Hiram, our king would order them to be taken off, and the new-fashioned ones put on."

"Hist, now!" replied his comrade. "They say that the king is going to stop the priests' howling first. The priests stick in the old ways they have worn for themselves, which, Baal save me! are not the ways the gods made when they lived in Tyre; and may be they lived in this same palace, for they do say that the first king was a god."

"Have a care!" rejoined Goliab. "I have seen many a priest watching this gate of late. Who knows but they will take it for a temple, and move in themselves?"

"Then I move out. I serve none less than the king. But have you read the proclamation, Goliab? I thank Astarte for never sending me any children to be burned to Moloch."

"That is not for such as we to talk about," replied Goliab.

"Why not?"

"Because," lowering his voice to a whisper, "there's a priest outside this moment. I can see his shadow through the crack under the gate."

The palanquin-bearers set down their royal burden in the court around which the palace was built. Hiram alighted by the fountain that rose in the centre and flung its spray over the beds of flowers which tastefully decorated the borders of its marble basin. He lingered a moment under an orange tree, whose silver blossoms and golden fruit, in simultaneous fulness, made him think of a proverb that was common everywhere in those lands famous for their orange groves: "A timely word is like golden fruit in a basket of silver." And then he thought of Hanno's words on the bireme. "Were they timely? Does Hanno know of dangers that I am ignorant of?"

He sought his private chamber, a room whose high walls were lined with alabaster, great pieces of which were cut into noble panels, and carved with delicate tracery. The room was lighted chiefly through windows set near the ceiling, covered with curiously shaped bits of glass, which flung variegated colors, as in a floral shower, upon the white walls and floors. Servants loosed his sandals, washed his feet, brought perfumed water for his hands and face. His hair-dresser was ready with his ointment; his wardrobe-keeper with the special chiton and tunic which he knew his master liked. Others came bearing a repast.

When he had eaten and taken a double cup of wine—for the mental excitement of the council, together with the physical exhilaration of the run upon the sea, prompted that unusual indulgence—the king threw himself upon the divan to think. He first scanned with knit brows and curling lip a copy of the proclamation of the council, which he found upon his table. The parchment, however, soon fell from his hand, for he was tired even of his own wrath. The lines of writing changed into thick webs which, it seemed to him, gigantic spiders had spun about the room. He looked closely at one of these monsters. Its head was surely that of Egbalus. There was a smaller spider with the leering look of Rubaal. Ahimelek, too, with sleek, smooth face of hypocritical amiability, and a score of legs with anchors on them for sandals, was timidly crawling out of a corner. Then Hanno appeared, and walked straight through the tangled webs; and the spiders darted into holes from which, with little red eyes, they watched the intruder. Then, with unrustling robes, Zillah came. In the light which her presence dispensed the webs disappeared, as those on the dewy grass vanish under the sun's beams in the morning. The king dreamed—dreamed of such things as will never happen until Astarte abdicates her direction of woman's life, and love-sick Adonis takes her place.