Читать книгу The Blood Of The Martyrs - Naomi Mitchison - Страница 11

Eleazar the son of Esrom and Nathan the son of Berechiah took their instructions and set out together, northward through Galilee, barefoot, without money or even a change of clothes. That was nothing. They were both of them brave and simple men, who had been convinced that a certain course of action was right and obviously right; if others could be convinced of it, well and good. But if they were not open to conviction, then the two would go on. According to the country, much of which was very hilly and difficult, and according to how long they stopped in any village or group of houses, they would cover anything from three to twenty miles in a day. But sometimes they would stop for several days in a village, talking about the new way of life, and healing the sick and casting out fear of devils and evil spirits.

These two men were convinced that there was a kind of relationship between people, which was attainable, as they knew from their own experience, and which was worth everything else in life. When people were in this relationship, they loved and trusted and understood each other without too many words; they were no longer separated by fear and suspicion and competition and class. In this relationship men and women could at last meet without each thinking the other was hoping to do some evil. When the relationship happened, those who experienced it were very happy; they did not any longer want power and glory and possessions. If everybody in the world could have it, then nobody would want these things and there would be no more tyranny and hatred and privilege and oppression of the poor by the rich. In the meantime it was not possible for the rich to enter into this relationship, because their possessions put up a barrier of envy and greed between them and their neighbours; they could not have this happiness, which was blessing, unless they separated themselves from their possessions, and indeed some of them did so, because they wanted to come into the Kingdom of Heaven so much more than they had ever in their lives wanted anything else.

Eleazar and Nathan were so confident about all this, as indeed they had every reason to be, that people were constantly asking them for help. So few men walked about the world with that look of certainty about them, that look of being removed from ordinary human insecurity and fear, that it seemed as though they could deal with all difficulties. When men and women came to them with pains and terrors, they could usually take them away, and they themselves were not in the least afraid of darkness and wild beasts and all those things that ordinarily send village folk flying to shelter. But when they spoke about the Kingdom of Heaven, some people were always frightened, because this was an idea which contradicted everything that they had been brought up to believe in. It meant that people would no longer care about making money or having a grand position, and would not any more respect and honour those who had done so. It meant that women would be the equals of their fathers and husbands, and that parents could have no right to the labour of their sons. So, although the doctrine of the Kingdom of Heaven was plain and obvious sense, yet there were many who hated it and who tried to hurt the two who were carrying it about. Yet they always escaped, for there were always some to help them, and they did not think evil of those who persecuted them; they were only sorry for them and sometimes puzzled.

They thought it was very probable that some of those who were carrying the doctrine might be caught and killed, and above all they thought that Jesus-bar-Joseph, from whom they had taken their instructions, might Himself be killed, for He was a man who always spoke His mind, and, although He was very clever and could make those who argued against Him look fools and worse, yet sooner or later He would fall into the hands of His enemies. And indeed He had said Himself that this might happen, but all the same the Kingdom was to grow and flourish until it spread over all Judaea. Then there would be no more Kings in one palace and Governors in another, no more High Priests and rich merchants who ate up the lives and happiness of the Am Harez, the common people. And a nation which had become one in trust and amity and comradeship would be able to stand even against Rome.

So after a time they heard that Jesus-bar-Joseph had gone to Jerusalem for Passover, to teach the new way of life to the Passover pilgrims, and the rich had caught Him at last and crucified Him; and they were very sad, but they knew that the Kingdom must go on and that the things which had convinced them the year before were still true. And a few months later they heard that this same Jesus, whose disciples they were, had been seen again, alive, after His death and burial. This did not surprise them, because they had always supposed that He was of such a kind that this sort of thing might happen, and they hoped that they too might one day see Him again. They did not speak about this rising again in their teaching. Why should they? The plain facts of the Kingdom of Heaven were nothing to do with such happenings.

Usually they were given food at the village where they came in the evening; sometimes they worked for it. Nathan had been a shepherd and he would go out and watch the flocks on the hills with the other shepherds and talk to them; Eleazar had been a fisherman, and whenever they came to a village by a river where they did netting, he could at least mend nets in the evening. Both of them tried to stay over the Sabbath in whatever village or town they happened to be in, but if they had either to walk or to work on that day, they did not worry about it very much. But they kept the Law as far as they could, and, though they wandered away north into Phoenicia, they only preached in the Jewish villages or streets. They never thought of preaching to the Gentiles.

By and by Nathan died suddenly, in the sun by the roadside, smiling, and Eleazar went on alone. But he was beginning to get more easily tired, and his beard was streaked with white; often he saw angels and other strange beings both by day and night. Sometimes he came back to villages where they had taught earlier, and people remembered them and welcomed him, but, so strong is the force of habit and every day, that few had changed their way of life much. If they had done so, they would usually form a little community rather apart from the rest of the village where they lived. So it was that Eleazar came back to a village in the hills near Beth Zanita and found just such a community; he was tired, and when they asked him to stay he said he would for a time, and then it seemed as though one of the angels gave him leave to stay for always. So he stayed.

There were about twelve families in the community and most of the land had belonged to two or three of them, but now they held it all in common and all worked on it, digging, sowing, leading the water in little channels to the roots of the crops and then shutting it off, gathering fruit or grain. The boys herded the goats and sheep of the community and the women spun and wove and made pots, and once a week they all met and said the prayer and talked about what had to be done, and Eleazar or another spoke about the Kingdom; but mostly they asked him to tell them stories about Jesus-bar-Joseph, how He had looked and what He had said and, above all, what He had done in love or anger or doubt or eagerness. The children were dipped in running water for their purifying and rebirth, as soon as they were old enough to want it, and so were any adults who joined them. There was little money used, except what they needed for paying the yearly taxes.

They were only ten miles or so from the sea, but it was out of sight behind the hills, and even when you got there the fishermen of Achzib were not friendly. So they got little news of the outside world. But one year all the villages heard something terrible. The Emperor of the Romans had decreed that his statue was to be set up and worshipped in Jerusalem, perhaps in the Temple, and two legions had been landed to force this thing on the people. It was the time of the autumn sowing, but no one could work; those who had swords brought them out and sharpened them; others had axes or metal-pointed hoes which would make spears; the streets were full of the crying of women. In the community they talked this way and that; it was the first time there had been very hard words and even blows, for some said that even this must be forgiven, and others said that the forgiving of enemies meant the enemies of one’s own village or at least nation, and that it never could have been said of the Gentiles. In the end nothing came of it, and the Emperor was killed in Rome and went to the everlasting fire and the Temple was safe, and in the community they went on saying the prayer, but it meant different things to some and to others.

Things were unsettled after that, in Judaea and all about the coasts. Now and again some man would get followers and arm them and call himself King, and those who hated the Romans would follow him, and it would be weeks or even months before the legions could put down the rebellion. The flocks and the crops would suffer and it was bad for everyone. It was a difficult Province, and whenever anything went wrong there, the Jews in Alexandria and Asia Minor sent letters or deputations to Rome, for they never forgot their country. There were armed brigands, too, who frightened the small villages into giving them food, and sometimes raided them and even carried away women and children.

One band of these brigands was often in the hills above Beth Zanita, and one winter they raided the community and carried off five children. There was no money to ransom them, and they were taken up the coast to Tyre. Two of them were girls, for whom there was always a market; they were sold at once. The other three were boys. Josias was a husky twelve year old who had fought them till he was beaten and tied down; he still seemed quite intractable, so he was sold to a dye-works where they could do with plenty of cheap boy-labour; he would last a year or two. Melchi was a strong boy too, and more easily frightened; he was sold as a house servant. The third, Manasses, was rather younger, a lovely little creature; he had not fought. At first he had cried a great deal, and then something out of the prayer had come back into his head, and he had really tried to forgive his enemies. They knew they could sell him well, and they kept him till they could get his price. The three boys promised one another, sobbing, that they would try to keep in touch. They would all say the prayer at the first and last light and think of one another, and perhaps … After the other two were sold, little Manasses spent some bad days. He remembered the community and tried now to think why it really was that his father and mother and the others were trying to live a different kind of life from the rest of the village. He thought of the stories old Eleazar used to tell and he turned them over in his mind. He wondered whether it had made any difference, his trying to forgive the brigands who had carried him off and hurt him; perhaps they had been kinder to the other two. Or perhaps it just hadn’t made any difference, but yet it was a good thing to do. Perhaps it made him, even by himself, nearer to the Kingdom. Though he felt far enough from it now, with no one in all Tyre to be his equal in trust and amity.

He went on thinking about the Kingdom and never speaking about it for months and months, and twice a day he said the prayer and remembered the other two. He had been bought by a dealer who prepared slaves for a better market, and here he was taught miming and dancing, as well as Greek. They were quite kind to him and he learnt docilely; he was fond of music, though it often made him cry, even when he was moving in time to it. He had better food and no more fleas than at home; he was not allowed out in case he should run away, but he was not beaten or knocked about, because his body was very saleable. But they wanted him cheerful and at last someone asked him what would stop his moping; he told them he had two brothers and two sisters—in the community they were always brother and sister to one another—somewhere in Tyre, and he wanted to see them. But he did not know the names of the masters to whom the two little girls and Melchi had been sold, and no one was going to take much trouble about tracing them. He did know the name of the dye-works where Josias was, and one day his master went over and bought what seemed to him a very wretched, coughing, limping piece of cheap human material, its hands and face covered with the sores they mostly got in the Tyrian dye-works.

Manasses fell on his master’s neck with an enthusiastic gratitude which made the old man feel quite silly, and set to work washing Josias’s sore hands and face; the sores healed in time, but left him slightly scarred, and he was always rather lame where a truck had gone over his foot. He would never be worth much and could only be used for rough work, but most of the fight had been knocked out of him. Lying in the straw at night with Manasses’s arms round him, Josias told about those months at the factory where a new boy was at everyone’s mercy, where it was no good trusting anyone or anything, where one was burnt with hot irons and splashed with hot acid of the dye-base, and worse—much worse—things he wouldn’t ever tell Manasses—things that no Jew—and he shuddered all over with the horror of it, poor little country boy who had not even heard much evil as a child.

After a time Josias got well and strong enough to want to run away, but each boy was told what penalties that would involve for the other, and they were never allowed out together. There was more and stricter mime training for Manasses, and sometimes now he did his dancing to an audience. He might be sent out for an evening, petted and given sweets by Tyrian merchants, and sometimes by their wives, for he was young enough to be allowed in and out of the harems. Sometimes he was petted more than he liked, and once all the women in a harem stripped him and dressed him up in girls’ clothes and did his hair, which was now in long dark tresses, and painted his face like a bride’s, and everyone said things which made him stamp and scream with rage. It was not until a long time afterwards that he could forgive those fat, stupid, cruel women, jeering at him, holding him with sharp nails, touching him all over, till he couldn’t bear to be touched, even by Josias, for days afterwards. There were little henna marks all over his skin from the women’s fingers.

The boys wondered whether these merchants made their money, and kept their wives, out of dye-factories: most likely. There was plenty of luxury industry of all kinds in Tyre, as well as shipping, and most of the big merchants had interests in other cities as well. They looked very fine, great, bearded, dark merchant-adventurers, with gold rings in their ears and gold bracelets on their arms, striding about the docks or across the market squares of Tyre, men who could laugh at Emperors and legions, who would not bow to a Roman Governor or to any travelling king, descendants of the men who had defied Alexander. But that did not make them any nicer to deal with or any easier to forgive if you were a dancing boy hired from your master for an evening’s entertainment.

But one day Manasses was made to dance during the morning for someone he had never seen, and then handled and priced, and told he was now going to Rome. He said gently that he would kill himself if Josias was not bought with him, for he knew that if Josias was left behind he would probably be sold back into the factory. After some grumbling, his purchasers agreed, and a few days later the two were on board ship, for the first time in their lives, sailing west.

During the next few years they were bought and sold several times, but were only separated once, and then Manasses found Josias again in the Jewish Quarter of Rome, where he had been kindly treated. Of course, Josias was always sold rather cheap, because of his limp and scars, but he was quiet and strong and didn’t grumble so long as Manasses was treated properly. Sometimes they both asked in the Jewish Quarter whether anyone had a slave called Melchi, but they never found him; they wondered how long he had gone on saying the prayer.

In the meantime Manasses went on learning; sometimes he was one of a dozen or more dancers, but he did not make friends much. The rest were usually Greeks, and somehow he still did not care for the smell and touch of Gentiles. It was difficult to keep the Law; often they lost count of the days and never knew when it was Sabbath for weeks at a time, until they met another Jew who knew; but they tried not to eat forbidden food. Ordinarily, slaves got very little meat, but, of course, a dancer was different; he might be as valuable as a racehorse and had to have his oats! Manasses was gradually saving up a little bag of money, but he knew it would cost him a lot to buy his freedom. He learnt to speak bad Latin, but Greek was almost a second language in Rome.

Rome was a great and horrible city; you could not think of the Kingdom there; it had become impossible, something not even to be hoped for. They usually said the prayer still, once a day at least, but mostly it meant no more than, say, touching an amulet. They did not talk any more about Jesus-bar-Joseph.

They were aware of large and evil forces moving over their heads, of masters not all-powerful, but themselves terrified. There was a time when Manasses was about fifteen. It was a big household; his master was a senator, a thin, nervous man with an odd habit of jerking his head about. Manasses was to dance Ariadne to the Bacchus of a rather older boy, a Greek. He was making up, darkening his eyes and powdering his cheeks and arms, while one of the others tied back his hair with a woman’s fillet and Josias massaged his legs, pushing up the long, flame-coloured girl’s tunic, that would swirl about in the dance. ‘Who’s going to be there?’ he asked, but the overseer put a finger to his lips. ‘Don’t you ask tonight, boy.’

That made him all the more curious, and when he went in he wondered who was the handsome, rather soft-looking young man, with only the beginnings of a beard, to whom everyone was paying so much attention. It was fairly obvious that it was this young man who was to be danced to and glanced at, and Manasses did his best. In the end the young man beckoned him up, gave him a piece of gold and then explained very seriously that in one movement he had not interpreted the music as he should have. To Manasses’s great surprise, the young man rose, throwing aside a most beautiful purple cloak, clapped his hands for the musicians and proceeded to give his own interpretation of the passage. He certainly danced well for an amateur, allowing himself to be clasped in the most realistic way by the Bacchus, who was overacting through sheer nervousness, and everyone applauded tremendously, including Manasses.

Walking back to the couch, the young man stopped and fondled the kneeling Manasses, who thought he had the usual Gentile or Roman smell of overeating. ‘I hope the boy is being seriously trained,’ he said. Someone else said, ‘Not so well as he would be at the Palace!’ And then the host began, ‘Oh—allow me—if I might offer him as a small gift—the honour would be mine—’ It only then occurred to Manasses that the young man was Nero Caesar, the new Emperor.

Manasses did not mind being given to Nero, so long as Josias was included, and they were sent off to the Palace, where, as a matter of fact, he only saw the Emperor half a dozen times. He was one of several hundred slaves, many of whom were dancers, actors, acrobats or musicians. Sometimes he was part of the background for the great dancer Paris, who did him the honour of kicking him one day. Usually he had to entertain the more important slaves or freedmen; he trusted no one and was sometimes nasty to Josias, who, in turn, grew sullen. And he got to know some useful things about poisons. Also he got to know by sight the Emperor’s mistress, beautiful, discreet Claudia Acté, the Greek freedwoman, a little older than the boy Nero, approved of by his friends but not by his mother.

One evening there was a row. Old Pallas, the financial secretary, was beating up a girl who didn’t want to sleep with him, and, if you knew what he was like, you couldn’t blame her, but still she’d been sent in by her Madam, and she was a slave, so she didn’t have any choice. But she kept on screaming that she was a dancer and not a whore, and he kept on answering the way that sort of man answers that sort of woman, and at last he got in a kick that knocked her out, and there she lay, bleeding a little, and Pallas stalked out. Some of the slaves had been watching behind the curtains, but they weren’t going to interfere. The girl groaned a bit and flopped her hands, but it was none of their business to pick her up. It was a kind of passage room, that you went through if you didn’t want to go through the public courts, and by and by Claudia Acté slipped in, with a veil over her head and shoulders. She saw the girl on the floor and went straight and knelt beside her and lifted her head, and spoke to her in Greek. Then she looked up and saw the slaves in the doorway and called sharply, ‘Here, one of you, come and help me!’

Most of them just dissolved away, for they were more afraid of Pallas than of Acté, and anyhow why should they help? But it came to Manasses that he was a Jew and therefore braver than these Greeks and Bithynians, and besides he had once believed in the Kingdom and all that went with it, so he came. Acté asked him where the girl could be put safely, and Manasses thought of an attic where there would probably be an old mattress; they carried her there between them and for the moment he did not care if Pallas was told. Then he got water and some rags to wash her. When he came back, Acté was holding the girl’s hand and praying, her eyes shut. Manasses listened and heard words of the kind he knew and a name he used to know very well, by virtue of which Acté meant to put calm and healing into the hurt girl on the mattress. He said nothing, but bathed her head, and soon she opened her eyes and smiled at Acté; there was a cut on the corner of her mouth that kept on bleeding a little, but it was not deep and would not scar her. Then the girl began to twitch and look frightened, and tried to get up. Acté stopped her and said, ‘He will not get you. Keep quiet.’

‘But when they hear—’ said the girl, her voice sticky with fear of her Madam.

Acté said, ‘I will see to it. You know who I am.’

‘Yes, Claudia Acté, we all know,’ said the girl simply, and Acté blushed and looked a little troubled, but after a time the girl began to fidget and cry again, though there were no bones broken.

Acté laid one hand on her forehead and the other on her twitching fingers. ‘In the name of Jesus, rest,’ she said. And, as Acté bent over her, still and intent, the girl calmed down and shut her eyes. But Manasses, looking at Acté thought of her not as a Gentile woman, but as someone in the Kingdom, and he became full of excitement and a hot desire of worship, with her and towards her. He began under his breath to say the words, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name …’ and for the first time for many months they began to mean something again. He was saying them aloud now and Claudia Acté joined in, saying them almost the same and at the end she looked very happy and said, ‘I did not know you were one of us, brother. What is your name?’

Manasses told her and said, ‘But I did not know that the Kingdom could happen in Rome. How did you come to it, Claudia Acté, seeing that you are a Greek?’

‘But many Christians are Greeks,’ said Acté, ‘and a few, even, are Romans. Did you think it was only for the Jews? Are you from the Church at Jerusalem?’

‘No,’ said Manasses, ‘I have never been as far as Jerusalem’—for Jerusalem had seemed a very long way from Beth Zanita when he was a child— ‘and why do you say Christians?’

‘Because Jesus was the Christ,’ she said, ‘the Redeemer. Surely you know that?’

‘I know that the things He said were the truth,’ Manasses answered slowly, ‘and that He lived to show the truth.’

‘And died to show the truth.’

‘Because the rich would not let Him live. Because the things He said were against the rich and powerful.’

‘Because He had to die the slave’s death to show that He was our brother as well as the Christ.’

‘But what is it to you, Claudia Acté? He was one of us; we have always had prophets. But the Gentiles never heeded them.’

‘He spoke for the world, for all who would take what He said. Why should you try to keep Him from me? Paul of Tarsus made it clear that He was for all!’

‘Who is Paul of Tarsus?’

‘He is a Jew, and it was he and Luke, who is a doctor and a Greek like me, who have been telling the rest of us what you would have kept for yourself, greedy boy.’

‘I—I am sorry, Claudia Acté; I never thought the Kingdom could be for the Gentiles, and I have heard nothing since we were in Rome: Josias and I. But if you can heal and if—if—I mean, when you called me brother, Claudia Acté—then you are in the Kingdom and it was only that I did not understand.’

Acté said, ‘Tomorrow is the Eighth Day and the breaking of bread. Will you come?’ Manasses only looked puzzled. She smiled and said, ‘Surely you know about the breaking of bread? No? Well then, you have not yet had real knowledge of the Kingdom. You have heard only half, Manasses. Are you baptised?’

‘I was purified in running water when I was a child,’ said Manasses, and then he thought about all that had happened since and above all about the last months in the Palace and some of the things he had done or had done to him, and how he had not even minded, and he began to cry and said, ‘But now I am dirty again and full of sins, and I have not been able to keep the Law, and I have forgotten about everything and I did not know that Jesus was the Christ! I want to be purified again and born again, Claudia Acté!’

She looked at him very pitifully and said, ‘I think that can be done, Manasses, for you were only half baptised. Now, will you look after this girl for me?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will do anything for you. But what am I to say if Pallas asks?’

‘Pallas will not be here much longer,’ said Acté, and her face hardened. ‘I know that. Lie to him and tell the others they are to lie, or Acté will be very angry. We shall get Pallas out very soon.’

‘But the Empress—’ said Manasses astonished, knowing that Pallas and the Empress Agrippina had acted together in the past, and now knew too much about one another ever to quarrel.

‘That account may be closed too,’ said Acté, ‘but keep your mouth shut. Get the name of this girl’s Madam, and go to her in the morning with this’—and she took a purse out of the fold of her dress and gave it to him— ‘and say that Acté needed the girl.’ Watching him, she added, ‘It is good to know that I can trust you. I will send you word about the breaking of bread.’

He knelt in front of her as he had done as a child with Eleazer and said, ‘Give me a blessing.’

She laid her hands on his head and gave it and he forgot that she was a Gentile woman and only felt the blessing and the trust again, and knew that the teaching of Jesus was not in vain.

That was the beginning of many things, including his friendship with Lalage, the hurt girl. He and Josias came to the breaking of bread and they learnt how in the love-feast all those eating together could be sure of the temporary experience of the Kingdom and got from it enough faith to go on in a world which seemed utterly against them. But even in Caesar’s household and even under the protection of Claudia Acté, it was necessary to be very secret. Because the Kingdom of Heaven could only come—and this was plain to everybody—after the overthrow of the world of success, of Emperors and Governors, of priesthoods and Senate, of the rich and strong: the world of Rome. And the only thing worth asking for and living for was the coming of the Kingdom.

After a while they had one of the periodical siftings out of the Palace, and once more Manasses and Josias were sold, this time to a very respectable household, where Manasses was expected to do other things besides dance. Actually, his dancing did not improve at all after he was sixteen. He grew too tall and solid for the boy parts, and fortunately for him nobody had chosen to take effective physical measures to keep him young; it was not done quite so often to Jew boys because they made such a fuss and sometimes killed themselves. After a time he was allowed to cut his long curly hair; it curled still, but close over his head.

His present master, Flavius Crispus, preferred the old-fashioned comic dancing with masks at his dinner-parties, or even recitations. Manasses used to read aloud to him sometimes, when his secretary was busy, and also helped with the ordinary waiting at table, saw to the wines, and so on. It was a rather stricter household, and for a time he disliked it, but Josias, who worked in the kitchen, liked it more. It was difficult for them to get away for the love-feasts, but by and by they found that they were not the only Christians in the new household, either. There was a little imp of a boy, Phaon, whom Manasses had to teach to dance—he was quite good when he took any trouble. He was a slave, but his mother, Eunice, was a freedwoman and Christian; she had sometimes been to the meetings in Caesar’s household, and now there were meetings in her house, which Manasses and Josias could go to. Euphemia, another freedwoman, used to come, and Rhodon the metal-worker, and Phineas and Sapphira, and sometimes others. Lalage used to come when she was in that part of the city. She had been baptised almost at the same time that Manasses and Josias were re-baptised, after the meeting had decided that their old purification did not count. And later on Niger, who was black and having a bad time where he was, came, when he could manage to get away.

But the meetings were often in the house of Crispus, in summer always in the unused boiler-room, where the furnaces for the hot water system stood cold for eight months of the year. By that time Argas had come, and Dapyx, and then little Persis. Sometimes, too, there would be brothers who were strangers, who had only just come to Rome. They were always welcome and always trusted, and usually, but not quite always, the trust was justified. But there was one man who prophesied and spoke with tongues, and they lent him money, more than they could really afford, and then he walked out on them and they never got any of it back. More of them than not were Jews, but still quite a number were Greeks or other Gentiles: Manasses hardly even noticed now. And sometimes there would be a new convert, like Sotion, the freedman who lived quite near and who had begun to come to the meetings lately.

It was another life going on all the time under and beside the ordinary slave’s life. The two lives did not really overlap. On the whole the Christians in Crispus’s household were good servants, unusually truthful and honest. But none of them would have dreamed of breathing a word of all this to their master. It was nothing to do with the masters. And so when Manasses looked up from clearing the table and saw Beric the Briton making the sign—their sign—it was like suddenly seeing light through a brick wall. And then, when it was apparent that the Briton did not really know what he was doing or who they were, he had been sickeningly afraid. But he had gathered up his courage and spoken gently, and he had seen that the Briton was afraid too, only in a different way. And then? Was it that he had forgiven the Briton for being one of the masters, or had the Briton forgiven him and Argas for being slaves? They had become each a little in the power of the other. But not this time as he had always before been in the power of his masters. Not in hate. But in some suspended feeling that was half way to love, that was a reaching out from either side to the other.

Lalage had gone out and left them alone. She had said, laughing, that she would come back and be paid the next day, and the Briton had stood looking after her, one hand out as if he would have stopped her, but not finding anything to say. Then he turned back to them, saying, ‘The words—what was it you meant by the words? Is that how you know one another?’

‘Yes,’ said Manasses, adding, ‘They are the words of our prayer.’

‘Your prayer,’ said Beric; he was stumbling over it, thinking hard and slowly, ‘to your Leader. But He is dead.’

‘He is risen,’ said little Phaon quickly, but Manasses said, ‘Yes, He is dead.’ Time enough for the other thing later.

‘Then,’ said Beric, ‘is this to call Him back?’

Manasses was thinking what to say, but Argas said, ‘He will come when the time is ripe and the people have suffered enough. This is to show we are His!’

Manasses said, ‘He taught us to pledge ourselves to His Father in heaven, who is the Father of us all, with these words and in this manner of praying …’ And then he hesitated, because it was so queer to be saying the words in front of one of the masters.

But Beric said, ‘Go on, Manasses.’

And Manasses stood up by the table which still wanted wiping over and lifted his hands and said, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven …’

Then Argas stood up too and suddenly touched Beric’s hand and said to him, ‘Say it with us, brother.’ And he and Phaon and the Briton all stood and repeated it line for line after Manasses.