Читать книгу The Epic of Paul - William Cleaver Wilkinson - Страница 10

Ere midnight, had reveillé to those twain

Sounded, and from brief slumber rallied them.

They passed from the surprise of that farewell

Kissed on the coolness of Gamaliel's brow—

He his reveillé waiting from the trump

Of resurrection, tranced in happy sleep!—

From this passed Paul and Stephen to the court

Without, where stood, made ready in array,

Five hundred Roman soldiers, foot and horse,

Filling the place with frequence and ferment.

Armed men, and horses in caparison,

And saddled asses thick together poured—

All was alive with motion and with sound.

There was the stamping hoof of restless steed,

The rattling bridle-rein, the bridle-bit

Champed hoary, the impatient toss of head

Shaking the mane disheveled, and with foam

Flecking the breast, the shoulder, and the flank,

Eruptive snort from nostril and from lip,

The ass's long and melancholy bray,

Horse's salute of recognition neighed

To greet some fellow welcomed in the throng,

Therewith, voices of men, scuffle of feet—

All under bickering light and shadow flung

From torches, fixed or moving, fume and flame.

To Paul and Stephen sharp the contrast was

Between that quietude and this turmoil,

Sleeping Gamaliel and these urgent men!

But Paul his peace held fast amid it all,

Peace, yet a posture girded and alert;

While Stephen, hanging on his uncle's eye,

Caught the contagion of that heedful calm.

The natural pathos of one fond regret

Ached in the heart of Paul, a hoarded pain—

His wish, denied him, to have given in charge,

Before he went, Gamaliel's lifeless form,

If to the keeping of his kindred not,

At least to Roman care and piety;

Amid the hurly-burly of the hour,

No chance of speech, with any that would heed,

For Jewish prisoner hurried thence by night!

But Paul's reveréd friend, safe fallen asleep

In Jesus, beyond care or want was blest;

Yea, and the human reverence of great death,

Toward one in death so reverend great as he,

Well might be trusted, for such clay to win,

Through kindred care, the sepulture most meet.

Yet Paul, come to Antipatris, and there

Left with the horsemen only thence to ride,

A needless careful message touching this

Gave to the chief of the returning foot.

When to the chiliarch's ear such word was brought,

That captain deeply mused it in his mind—

To find it throw a most unlooked-for light

On certain dark alternatives of doubt

That had meanwhile his judgment sore perplexed.

Lowly upon an ass they seated Paul,

And Stephen, likewise mounted, ranged beside.

Then those appointed to prick forth before,

Out through the two-leaved gate at sign withdrawn,

Were issuing on the street in order due,

When the proud prudent steed that led the way

Swerved, and, with mighty surge of rash recoil,

Had nigh his rider from the saddle thrown.

He, his fine nostril wide distended, snuffed

Suspicion on the tainted wind, and, dazed

His eyes with darkness from the glare just left

Of torchlight in the court, uncertain saw,

To the right hand beside the open port,

There on the ground, as ambushed at his feet,

A motion, or a shadow, or a shape,

Which to his careful mind portended ill.

"Halt!" rang abrupt the startling stern command;

"Seize him!" the leader of the vanguard cried,

And pointed to the skulking figure near.

Darted three soldiers from the rank of foot,

With instant light celerity—a flash

Of movement from the serried column sent

Inerrant to its aim, like lever-arm

Of long bright steel by some machine flung forth

To do prehensile office and fetch home—

Darted upon the man in hiding there,

And brought him prisoner to the chiliarch.

"Knowest thou this man?" the chiliarch asked of Paul.

"Shimei his name, an elder of the Jews,"

Responded Paul; turning, the chiliarch then

Said: "Thou—Stephen, I think they call thee—speak.

Thou toldst me yesterday, not naming him,

Of one all-capable of crime, the head

And chief of a conspiracy to slay;

Answer—thou needst not fear—is this the man?"

Stephen flushed shame; "The same, my lord," he said;

He dropped therewith his eyes, and head declined.

"Thou stayest," the chiliarch said to Shimei;

"On, and with speed!" he to the soldiers said.

To a centurion, then, attending him:

"Relieve the sentry set outside the port,

And hither bid the man released to me."

"What wast thou doing at thy sentry-post,

That miscreant such as this should sit him there

Unchallenged? Sleeping? Soothed perhaps to sleep

With chink of gold sweet-shaken in thine ear?"—

A perilous frown dark on his imminent brow,

The chiliarch thus bespoke the sentinel.

But with full steady eye, the man replied:

"I crave thy pardon, if, through ignorance

I erred, but I nowise forgot myself,

Or failed my duty of strict challenging.

Indeed, sir, if the man in presence be

Aught but a loyal, honest gentleman,

Then am I much deceived, and punish me;

But not for slackness or base traitorhood.

As I my oath and office understand,

I was true soldier and true sentinel."

'Sound heart, if addle head,' the chiliarch thought,

"Thy oath and office, my good sentinel—

Thou needest to understand them better," said.

The sentry, fain to clear himself, began:

"He told me"—

"Doubtless some amusing tale,"

Smiling an easy scorn, the chiliarch said.

Surging with zeal and conscious honesty,

The sentinel again his part essayed:

"He said, sir"—

"Aye, I warrant thee he did,

If but thou hearkenedst," said the chiliarch;

"Tongue seldom lacks, let ear be freely lent.

Sharp question and short answer, there an end—

That is the wisdom for the man on watch.

Words are a master snare, beware of words,

Thine own or other's, either equal fear;

No parley, is the sentinel's safe rule.

Whet up thy wits, my man, but this time—go!"

The sentry thus dismissed, retiring, shot

Into the chiliarch's ear a Parthian word:

"Beseech thee, sir, prejudge nor him, nor me;

Wait till thou hear the gentleman explain."

"Thou hast bewitched him well," to Shimei

Turning, the chiliarch said; then, with cold eye

Regarding and repelling him, exclaimed

"Hoar head, thou lookest every inch a rogue!"

Shimei had marked with a considering mind

The chiliarch's manner with the sentinel;

In dilatory parry, he replied:

"Not what we look, but what we are, we are."

"But what we are, conforms at length our looks,"

Surprised, amused, in doubt, but dallying, matched

The Roman his rejoinder. Then the Jew,

Adventuring on one more avoidance, said:

"Well dost thou say 'at length'; for it might chance

That looks were obstinate, requiring time."

"Coiner of wisdom into apothegm!

An undiscovered Seneca in sooth,

Where least expected, seems I meet to-night!

But spare to bandy sentences with me."

With change to chilling dignity from sneer,

The Roman so rebuffed the cringing Jew;

Who, cringing, yet was no least whit abashed,

But answered: "Pardon, sir, thy servant, who

Has missed his mark in his simplicity.

I thought, 'If I might spare my lord his time!'

And dutifully thereto spared my words.

The farthest was it from my humble aim

To mint my silly thought in adages.

Forgive me, if, unconsciously set on

By thy example of sententious speech—

True wisdom closed in fitting words and few—

I seemed to match my worthless wit with thine.

I have a helpless habit of the mind,

A trick of mimicry that masters me;

When I observe in them what I admire,

I can not but my betters imitate.

I fear me I have compromised my cause;

Had I been deeper, I had less seemed deep!

I lack the art to show the artless man

That in my own true self, sir, thou shouldst see.

With my superiors, I am not myself;

I take on airs, or seem to, copying them.

Quite other am I with my proper like;

I feel at home, and am the man I am.

Ask that plain-spoken, honest sentinel—

He now was my own sort, I never thought

To strain myself above my natural mark

With him; we were hail fellows, he and I,

And talked the harmless wise that such know how.

With thee—oh, sir, myself I quite forsook,

And slipped into a different Shimei.

Pity my weakness, I am sick of it;

To ape the great is folly for the small—

But small may hope forgiveness from the great!"

The chiliarch listened, unconvinced; yet charmed,

Like the bird gazing by the serpent charmed.

"Pretend that I am of thy kind," said he,

"And show me how thou with the sentry talkedst."

Now Lysias nursed a proudly Roman mind

Disdainful of all nations save his own—

Disdainfully a Roman but the more,

That he by purchase, not by birth, was such;

The nation that he ruled he most disdained.

Child of the high-bred fashion of his time,

By choice and culture he a skeptic was.

Skeptic, he yet was superstitious too,

Open and weak to supernatural fears;

He easily believed in magic powers,

Charms, sorceries, witchcrafts, incantations, spells,

And all the weird pretensions of the East.

His habit of disdain and skepticism

Made him a cynic in his views of men;

Whereby he oft, wise-seeming, was unwise.

He took upon himself laconic airs

In speech, in action airs abrupt, as who

Bold was, and strong, and from reflection deep—

The manner, rather than the matter, his.

To any chance observer of his ways

In use of office and position, these

Could but have seemed comportable and fair.

Accesses too of gentleness he had,

Wherein a strain of kindly in the man

Opened and gushed in flow affectionate,

Or well-becoming courtesy and grace.

This Roman chiliarch, Claudius Lysias, now

Found himself much at leisure and at ease,

Rid of that worrying case of prisoner strange;

Unconscious satisfaction with himself

Warmed at his heart, a pleasurable glow—

He had so neatly got it off his hands!

He was quite ready, mind acquitted thus,

Heart buoyant, to disport himself. He saw

That in the man before him he had met

No dull mere mediocrity, but one

Who, besides being ruler of the Jews,

As Paul pronounced him, had a quality,

An individual difference, all his own.

Claudius might test this man, get him to talk—

An interesting study, learn his make.

Besides the pleasure to his appetite

For piquant knowledge of his fellow-man,

It might in some way, indirect the better,

Give him a point or two of policy

To guide the conduct of his rulership

Among a people difficult to rule.

In such mood, idle, curious, partly wise,

This half-wise man, unwise through cynicism,

Gave himself leave to say to Shimei:

"Pretend that I am of thy kind, like him,

Let me hear how thou with the sentry talked."

Hardly could Shimei, through the mask he wore

Of feigned simplicity, help leering out,

Confessed the mocker that he ever was,

In that sardonic grin, as he replied:

"Pretense, of whatso sort, be far from me—

Save when my betters wish it of me; then,

I think it right to put my conscience by;

Or rather place it at their service—that,

The dearest thing the poor good man can claim!

I reason in this way, 'Why should I presume

To scruple, where those wiser far than I

Are clear?' That sure would be the worst pretense—

Pretending to be holier than the saints.

My will, thou seest, is tractable enough;

But how, with thee, to feel sufficient ease

To do what thou desirest, go right on

And talk and chatter as we simple did!

"First, then, perhaps I said: 'This is dull work'—

And no offense to thee, sir, that I said it—

'Dull work,' said I, 'to stand, or pace, and watch,

Long hours alone, and nothing like to happen

That makes it needful thou shouldst thus keep watch!'

'Aye,' grunted he; I thought him stupid like,

But I had something I could tell him then

That might rub up his wits and brighten them.

'There is a plot,' said I. 'Aye, plots enough,'

Said he. 'And something thou shouldst know,' I said.

'I doubt,' said he; and added: 'Soldiers should

Know nothing but their duty, how to watch,

March, dig, fight, slay, be slain, and no word speak.

Thou hadst better go,' said he, like that, more frank

Than courteous, thou mightst think—he meant no harm,

But only like a loyal soldier spoke.

I did not go, but said: 'The plot I mean

Is of escape from prison.' But he replied:

'Nobody can escape these times from prison;

The emperor has a hundred million eyes,

That never wink, because they have no lids,

And never sleep, because they never tire,

And these run everywhere and all things see;

The emperor's arms are many, long and strong,

East, west, north, south, they range throughout the world.

Oh, he can reach thee wheresoever hiding,

And pluck thee thence and fetch thee safely home;

The world is all his prison, the emperor's.'

'Thou thinkest that?' said I. 'No doubt,' said he.

'But captives still,' said I, 'might try to escape?'

'Oh, aye,' said he, 'that is quite natural.'

'And should they try,' I said, 'with thee on watch,

And should they somehow skill to get by thee,

Then—and although they be thereafter caught—

How fares it then with thee?' said I to him—

'Yea, how with thee that lettest them go by?'

'Then there would be,' he said, 'account to give,

And I should wish I had not been on watch.'

'Nay, better wish, man, thou hadst better watched,'

Said I, 'and thyself caught the fugitive.'

'Aye, that were something better yet,' said he.

'Why, yea,' said I, 'that, laid to thy account,

Might win thee prompt promotion out of this.'

'I never dream,' said he, 'of anything

To lift me from the common soldier's lot.'

'Dreaming is idle, yea,' said I to him,

'But waking thought and action need not be.

For instance, now,' I then went on and said"—

The subtle Hebrew, drawing out his tale,

Mock-artless long, of gossip with the watch,

Had never intermitted an intent,

Considerate, sly, solicitous regard

Fixed on the chiliarch's face, therein to read

The reflex of the phases of his thought;

And now he marked with pleasure how their mere

Indifferent or incredulous cold scorn

Was fading from the haughty Roman's eyes,

Merged in a dawn of curious interest.

Disguisedly, but confidently, glad—

His course seen smooth before him to his goal—

Shimei thence eased that tension of the will

To simulate simplicity of speech,

As, more directly, his ambages spared,

He almost blithely, in his natural vein

Of fondness for the false and the malign,

Slid on, in fabrication of report,

Or in report of fabrication, thus:

"Inside those castle walls there is a man,

A Jew, one Paul, I know him very well,

Prisoner for crime that richly merits death.

The outraged people yesterday were fain

To wait no longer, but at once inflict,

Themselves, with righteous hands, the penalty.

The gentle chiliarch rescued him from them,

Not knowing, as of course how could he know?

What a base wretch he plucked from doom condign.

So here Paul is in Roman custody,

Safe for the moment, but full well aware,

As he deserves to die, that die he will,

Whenever once he shall be justly judged.

He therefore schemes it to attempt escape,

This very night, from his imprisonment.

He has his tool, tool and accomplice both,

In that young fellow thou hast seen pass by,

Entering and issuing through the castle-gate.

'Aye, I have seen him plying back and forth,'

The sentry said, 'a likely Hebrew lad;

I challenged him, but he had documents.

Wicked, ungrateful!—that good chiliarch

Had shown such grace to him for his fair looks.'

'Well, I will stay,' said I, 'and watch with thee,

And help thee foil their game, and thy chance mend.

But let us have two stout young fellows ready,

I can provide them, hidden nigh at hand—

No call for us to spend our breath in running!—

To give the prisoner chase, should need arise.

Arise it will not, if my guess is right,

And I know Paul so well, I scarce can miss.

Paul stakes his hope on craft, and not on speed;

Still, it is good to be at all points armed,

And should craft fail, there will be test of speed,

No doubt of that, since Paul would run for life,

And life is prize to make the tortoise fleet.

Paul is no stiff decrepit—far from such;

Old as his look is, he is light of heel.

Running, however, only last resort,

The desperate refuge of necessity;

Paul's main reliance is on something else,

To wit, a pretty ruse and stratagem.

A wary fellow Paul, and deep in wiles!"

Shimei was entered on a mingled vein

Of true and false reflection of his thought,

Wherein himself could scarce the line have drawn

To part the fabrication from the fact.

Partly, he thought indeed that Paul was such

As he was now describing him to be,

In image and projection of himself;

Partly, he painted an ideal mere,

Conscious creation of malicious mind.

He did uneasily believe, or fear,

That Paul would somehow cheat the malice yet

Of those who hated him; perhaps contrive

Escape by night from prison. His restless mind,

Hotbed of machination, equally

Was hotbed of suspicion and surmise.

His mere suspicion and surmise became,

To his imagination, certainty;

Or else he took, himself, for certainty,

At length, what he for certainty affirmed,

Swearing the false till he believed it true.

He thus the story of his talk prolonged:

"'Now hark thee, friend, and hear me prophesy,'

So to the worthy sentinel I said,

'Thou sawest Paul brought in, and he was Paul—

Tell me, was not he Paul, when he came in?

Aye, Paul he was, thou sayest. Well, what I say—

And this now, mark it, is my prophecy—

Paul will come out, not Paul, but some one else;

In short, will hobble forth—Gamaliel!

Gamaliel, thou must know, I said to him,

'Is the old man that lad this morn led in;

Making, forsooth, a touching sight to see,

So tenderly and gingerly the lad

Guided and stayed the steps of that old man.

A pretty acted piece of loyalty

To venerable age from blooming youth!

Watch, thou shalt see it acted over again

To-night, with haply some improvement made

On the rehearsal, when he leads out Paul.

Paul's hair and beard will not need dusting white,

Being as white as old Gamaliel's now;

But edifying it will be to mark

The careful studied totter of the step,

The tremble of the hand upon his staff,

The thin and querulous quaver of the voice,

The helpless meek dependence on his guide,

And all the various aged make-believe,

Wherewith that subtle master of deceit,

That natural, practised, life-long actor, Paul,

Will put the guise of old Gamaliel on.

'He-he!' I chuckled to the sentinel,

'To me the spectacle will be as good

And laughable, as I should guess a play,

A roaring one, of Plautus were to thee!'"

Shimei was venturing to let lapse his part

Of mere reporter to a talk supposed

Betwixt himself and the dull sentinel—

This to let lapse, or, if not quite let lapse,

Mix and confound with his own proper part,

Inveterate, unassumed, of scoffer free;

He saw the chiliarch sink so deep immersed

In hearing and in weighing what was said,

He deemed he might thenceforward trust his speech,

With scant disguise of indirection, aimed

As frankly for a keen intelligence—

The chiliarch's own, and not the sentinel's—

To snare his listener's now less warded wit.

Paul was clean gone indeed, gone otherwise

Than through the guile that he had dared impute;

But he, meantime, would such a chance not miss,

A golden chance that might not come again,

To prepossess the chiliarch's captive mind

With pregnant ill surmise concerning Paul.

There yet was unexhausted circumstance

Suggestively at hand, seed that but sown

Would a fine harvest of suspicion spring.

Point-blank his aim shifted to Lysias now,

He said: "Why did Gamaliel stay so long?

Why, indeed, come at all, but, having come,

Why so long tarry, wearing out the day?

Where is Gamaliel now? What did it mean

That that officious Hebrew youngster—he

Who, at Paul's wish, Gamaliel hither brought,

Who back and forth has flitted through the gate

All day, carrying and fetching as he liked—

What did it mean, I ask, that he bore in

Flagons of wine and loaves of bread? What mean?

Why, this, provision got to serve Paul's need,

When, issuing in Gamaliel's vesture, he

Should shuffle forth, Gamaliel, on the street,

To try the fortune of a runaway,

A hopeless runaway in Cæsar's world.

The clement chiliarch never would be hard

On an old dotard of a hundred years,

Found aider and abettor in such wile,

Where left behind in ward to take his chance;

Or, possibly, Gamaliel might not know,

Much more, not share, the stratagem of Paul.

It would be easy to put him to sleep

And strip him of his raiment, unawares,

For the exchange, unbargained-for, with Paul.

Paul has much travelled everywhere abroad

And freely commerced with all kinds of men.

He has the skill of many magic arts,

The virtue knows of many a mighty drug;

He can compound thee opiate drinks to drown

Thy thought and senses in oblivion.

He could compose thee in so deep a sleep,

Fair like an infant's, that not all the blare

Of all Rome's trumpets loud together blown

Could rouse thee ever from that fixéd sleep.

A dangerous wicked man to wield such power!"

The chiliarch stood suspended in fast gaze

On Shimei, not perusing him, but lost

In various troubled and confounded thought.

'Had he indeed been tricked? Was Paul such knave?

Had that young Hebrew, with his innocent

Bright look of truth and faith and nobleness,

Had he been hollow, false, base, treacherous,

And played upon a Roman father's heart

To rid a rascal out of custody?

Gamaliel—was that reverend-looking man,

That image of a stately-fair old age,

Was he a low complotter of deceit?

Or, if not that, had nameless turpitude

Abused such dignity into a tool,

Helpless, unwitting, of ignoble wile?'

Thought, question, doubt, suspicion, guess, surmise,

Tumbled, a chaos, in the chiliarch's mind.

Shimei paused, watching, with delight intense;

He felt the chiliarch fast ensnared, his prey.

Wary as was his wit, and ill-inclined

Ever to take a needless risk, or dip

His feet in paths wherein, once entered, he

Perforce must fare right forward, no retreat—

Though such in temper, such in habit, yet—

Either that instant suddenly resolved

That his true prudence was temerity,

Or trusting his resourceful craft to pluck

Desperate advantage from the jaws of chance—

Shimei dared interrupt the Roman's muse:

"Will not my lord the chiliarch now think well

To call Gamaliel into presence here?

Well frightened, the old man perhaps might tell

What passed in his long interview with Paul,

Something to help thee judge betwixt us twain,

Which it were well to credit, Paul or me."

The chiliarch started from his reverie;

"Go bring that Hebrew ancient here," he said.

Then neither Jew nor Roman uttered word,

Each busy with his own unsharéd thought,

Till the centurion from his quest returned,

Alone, and serious, no Gamaliel brought.

"I found"—but scarcely the centurion,

Faltering, had so essayed to make report,

When the wroth chiliarch snatched the word from him:

"Was not he there? Did he refuse to come?

The more loth he, the more to be required!

Gray hair will not atone for stubbornness;

Thou shouldst have brought him, though by greater force.

Something lurks here lends color to the tale

This hoar-head Jew has filled my ear withal.

I will Gamaliel see and learn from him—"

"But, sir," spoke up the loth centurion,

"Nothing from that old Hebrew wilt thou learn,

For—" "I will hear no 'fors,'" the chiliarch said,

"But, hark thee, have the man before me straight!"

Mute, the centurion, left no option, turned,

And, with four soldiers bidden follow him,

Went to the lodgment where Gamaliel slept.

Those five men, used to death in many forms,

Yet in the presence of such death were awed.

The four in silence took the sleeper up,

Motionless, with the couch whereon he lay,

And bore him, as to honored burial,

Into the court beneath the starlit sky,

And set him down before the chiliarch.

Like one of those gray monuments in stone,

Oft seen where church or minster of old days,

In secret vault or holy chapel dim,

Gathers and wards its venerated dead—

Marmoreal image of some man, supine,

Deep sunken, in marmoreal down, to sleep,

Safe folded in marmoreal robes from cold,

The meek, pathetic face upturned to heaven,

And thither-pointing hands forever laid

Together on the breast, as thus to pray

For the shriven spirit thence to judgment fled—

So, stretched upon his couch amid the court,

White with his age, yet purer white with death,

An unrebuking, unrebukable

Reminder of the nothingness of time,

Unheeding who beheld or what was spoke,

Silent, and bringing silence touched with awe,

There in marmoreal calm Gamaliel lay.

The simple presence of the living man,

In native majesty august with age,

Would have subdued who saw to reverence;

But the ennoblement and mystery

Of death, now added, wrought a mightier awe,

And almost breathless made the hush wherein

The chiliarch for the moment from the spell

Of Shimei's woven words was quite set free,

Seeing things true by his simplicity.

Breaking that hush, while never once his gaze

Unfixing from the features of the dead,

"Thou shouldst have told me this," said Lysias

To the centurion, gently chiding him.

But the centurion understood aright

That his superior's words were less as blame

Than as atonement meant for fault his own

In that his late too peremptory air—

This the subaltern knew, and answered not.

Shimei, alone not capable of awe,

Coolly had used the interval of pause,

To take the altered situation in,

And to his own advantage fit his part.

Two points of promise to his profit he

Saw, and at once to seize them shaped his course:

First, to release himself from duress there,

And, further, still to sow the chiliarch's mind

With seed of foul suspicion against Paul.

"Gamaliel mute," said he to Lysias,

"Might, peradventure, if but understood,

Even better witness to thy purpose prove

Than should he waken from his swoon to speak."

The sleight of tone with which was uttered "swoon"—

No emphasis, insinuation all,

Subtle suggestion, naught to be gainsaid,

Since naught was really said, however much

Without the saying got itself conveyed—

This well subserved the wish of Shimei.

For, like a sovereign solvent, that, with soft

Assiduous chemistry insensible,

Some solid to a fluid form breaks down,

There stole from Shimei's speech an influence in,

Which, by degrees not slow, dissolved the charm

Shed from the solemn spectacle of death

Upon the chiliarch's mind; his childlike mood

Vanished, his simple wise credulity!

Lysias reverted to his cynicism,

And, unawares lured on by Shimei,

Followed false lights to a conclusion vain.

Once more he overweened to be astute,

And, with astuteness recommencing, fell

From the brief wisdom reverence brief had brought.

His faith in human virtue undermined,

He doubted and believed exactly wrong;

There where he ought to have believed, he doubted,

And where he should have doubted, there believed—

The captor fallen into the captive's snare.

Lysias resumed to do what Shimei wished;

The tissue of sophistication set

Already well aweaving in the loom

Of fancy and false reason and unfaith,

Which had before been humming in his brain—

This to piece out, and make a finished web.

"'Swoon,' sayest thou?" To Shimei, Lysias thus;

"That is not death, thou thinkest, but a swoon?"

"It looks indeed like death," the crafty Jew

Responded; "yea, it looks like death indeed.

It was not meant, but death it sure must be."

"What wilt thou say?" said Lysias. "'Was not meant!'—

Thy words conceal thy meaning; speak it out."

"Why, sir, I have no meaning to conceal,"

The Jew replied, "no meaning to conceal.

I only thought, I could but only think—

Why, see, Paul was Gamaliel's pupil once,

And loved his master, so as such can love;

At least I thought so. Paul, for sure I know,

Gamaliel like a doting father loved."

"Thou dost not thus explain, 'It was not meant';

Out with thy thought, sir Jew," the chiliarch said.

"What was not meant? By whom not meant? Forsooth,

Not by Gamaliel meant that he should die?

Except the suicide, none means to die;

And death like this is not the suicide's."

"Oh, nay, sir," Shimei said, "no suicide

Was our Gamaliel; far the heinous thought!

A good old man, whom all the people loved,

Paul even, yea, Paul—I thought—till now—but now—

But I will not believe so base of him,

Even him; he did not mean it, did not mean

Worse than to make Gamaliel deeply sleep.

Paul's drug belike was stronger than he thought,

Or weaker waxed Gamaliel with his age.

Paul would himself repent it, now, too late—

Particularly since of no avail,

Thy wise forestalling plan defeating his,

And fruit none from it ripening to his hand!"

"This is too foully base!" said Lysias,

And Shimei's heart misgave him with a fear.

'Too foully base insinuation mine,

Does Lysias mean?' he closely asked himself;

But calmly, with deep candor, said aloud:

"Yea, even for Paul, beyond belief too base!

Paul never meant it, I shall still insist.

He meant at most such sleep as should prevail

Over Gamaliel's scruple to take part

Willingly in his surreptitious flight.

And such a master of his arts is Paul,

I shrewdly doubt if here his mark he missed.

Were Paul but now at hand to try his skill,

I should not wonder yet to see this swoon

Yield to some potent drug of counter force,

And good Gamaliel wake to life again.

Once, as they say—in Troas, I believe—

Where he all night was lengthening out harangue,

After his manner, in an upper room,

A youngster, tired to death of hearing him,

And sensible enough to go to sleep,

Not sensible enough to seat him safe,

Fell headlong out of window, whence he sat,

A good three stories' fall—which finished him.

Stay, not so fast—thou reckonest without Paul!

Yea, Paul performed some sort of magic rite

Over the body of the luckless lad,

Which, presto, brought him round as brisk as ever!

A mighty master in his kind, that Paul!"

"Perish thy Paul with his accurséd craft!"

Burst out the chiliarch in indignant heat.

"Would I but had him back here safe in thrall!—

I should have let them rend him limb from limb!"

A sudden hope beyond the bounds of hope

Flourished up rank, gourd-like, in Shimei's breast.

Were it but possible to have Paul back,

To take that walk yet to the judgment-hall!

The forty faithful should not fail their task!

"Might I propose if it be yet too late?"

With timid daring, Shimei inquired.

"A fleet-foot horse should overtake the troop,

If so thou choose, and turn them hither back.

And thou couldst cause that Paul exert his power

To lift this corpse into a living man—

Which were a famous spectacle to see!

Besides that then thou mightst assure thyself,

Through counsel of our Sanhedrim, what crimes

Worthy of death are proved upon this Paul."

"Thou art a superserviceable Jew,"

The chiliarch frowned and said. A choleric man,

He choleric now, through self-expression, grew.

Exasperate thus, he added: "'Ruler' thou

Of thine accurséd nation—as I hear—

Me too thou fain wouldst rule, with thy advice

Officiously advanced unsought. Know, then,

That I confound thee with thy race, and curse

Ye all together, pestilent brood—not less

Thee than thy fellows, whom thou rulest, forsooth,

Worthy to rule those worthily so ruled!

Like ruler to like people, vipers all!

If I believe thee of thy brother Paul,

It is no wise that I suppose thee true

Rather than him; but only that I reckon

One rascal feels another by mere kin,

And can, and, if so be he hates him, will,

Into his own soul look and paint him that— Making a likeness apt to two at once! Nay, nay, thou wretched, reptile Jew, all thanks! I would not have Paul back upon my hands. I am well rid of him, and now hence thou! Go tell thy fellow-elders of the Jews That here Gamaliel lies, dead or aswoon, And bid them haste to bear him hence away. Go, not one further word from thy foul mouth, Lest whole thou never go!"

Red with his wrath,

Abruptly on his heel turned the wroth man

And disappeared within. The Jew so spurned—

Though disappointed, imperturbable—

With wry grimace hugging himself, made speed

To use the freedom thus in overplus

Thrust on him, and incontinently went.

Scarce was he well without the castle gate,

When a brusque message from the chiliarch

Summoned him back. He came, with supple knee

Cringing his thanks and deprecations dumb.

"So act thy abject language, if thou will,

But no word speak, edging thine ear to hear,"

The chiliarch, from his heat of passion passed

To a grim mood of resolution, said;

"I will that—no delay—thou hither bring

Large satisfaction from thy countrymen—

Just measure of their estimate of thee!—

That thou wilt duly bide within command

The suddenest from this castle, and appear,

Whenever I may call for thee, to go

Whithersoever I shall bid thee hence,

Whether to Cæsarea or to Rome,

Whether now presently or hereafter long,

Accuser meet and witness against Paul.

Count it that thou thus much at least hast gained,

Through thy this night's adventure, chance, to wit,

Assuréd chance, thy famished grudge to glut

Upon thy brother rogue and countryman—

Be he, that is, the wretch thou paintest him,

And, mark it well, be thou his overmatch In lying eloquence to make appear Likeliest whatever best thy turn shall serve. Perhaps twin rascals, of each other worthy, Will, both at once, and each the other, prove Just to be what they are, and earn their doom!" "Send with this worthy," thus the chiliarch, To his centurion turning, said, "some man Who knows, if nothing more, thus much at least, How to be adder-deaf and death-like dumb— To dog him hence about and hither back!" "I wish thee pleasure of thy evening walk!" To Shimei, in mock courtesy, he said.

With pleasantry as bitter as his own

The mocker found himself a second time,

And now to discomposure worse, dismissed.

Of his own will he gladly would have gone

From east to west as wide as was the world,

To weave the meshes of his witness false

About Paul's feet, or still to ambush him

With instant bloody death at unawares;

But thus to go, a lasso round his neck

Held in the hand of Rome—it irked him sore.

His heart misgave him heavily; he felt:

'And here perhaps is destiny for me,

Perhaps, who knows? at last, at last, for me!

On mine own head do I Paul's house pull down?'

Strange, but, born with the boding sense thus born

Of unguessed danger for himself, there crept

Into that case-hard heart, long exercised

To plot of mischief for his fellow-man,

A softness, that was nigh become remorse,

A kind of pity from self-pity sprung,

Toward whoso was endangered, yea, even Paul!

It was the slow beginning of an end—

Slow, liable to be quenched like smoking flax,

Yet not so quenched to be—with Shimei.

Meanwhile, from this to that there stretched much road,

And Shimei still had demon's work to do.