The City of Delight

"I, with my voice, expressed the yearnings that they felt in their

victorious breasts, and plotted for them. After council and

organization we went forth by night and finding Idumean patrols by the

score sleepy and inert from overfeeding we robbed them of that which

was our own. Then we sought out hungry Bezethans and fed them when

they promised to become of our party. Nothing was more simple! By dawn

we had a hundred under our ruin, bound to us by oath and the

enticements of our larder, and hungry only for fight! Will you believe

me when I boast that I have an army in Jerusalem?"

She heard him with a strange confusion of emotions. In her soul she

was excited and eager for his success; but here was a strong and

growing enemy to Philadelphus, who was reluctant to become a king! Her

impulsive joy in a forceful man struggled with her sense of duty to

the man she could not love.

"Why do you tell me these things?" she said uneasily. "It is perilous

for any one to know that you are constructing sedition against these

ferocious powers in Jerusalem."

"Ah, but you fear for me; therefore you will not betray me. None else

but those as deeply committed know of it."

He had confided in her, and because of it his ambitions took stealthy

hold upon her.

"But--but is there no other way to take Jerusalem, except--by

predatory warfare?" she hesitated.

"No," he laughed. "We are fighting thieves and murderers; they do not

understand the open field; we must go into the dark to find them."

"Then--then if your soldiers have the good of the city and the love of

their fellows in their hearts, and if you feed them and shelter

them--why shall you not succeed?" she asked, speaking slowly as the

sum of his advantages occurred to her.

He dropped his hand on hers.

"It lacks one thing; if I have discouragement in my soul, it will

weaken my arm, and so the arm of all my army."

Intuition bade her hesitate to ask for that essential thing; his eyes

named it to her and she looked away from him quickly that he might not

see the sudden flush which she could not repress.

"Tell me," she said, "more of that night--"

"That would be recounting the same incident many times. But one thing

unusual happened; nay, two things. In the middle of the night, after

we had brought in our second enlistment of patriots, we were feeding

them and I was giving them instruction. At the entrance, I had posted

a sentry; none of us believed that any one had seen us take refuge in

that crypt. Indeed, we were all frank in our congratulations and

defiant in our security. Suddenly, I saw half of my army scuttle to

cover; the rest stood transfixed in their tracks. I looked up and

there before me in the firelight stood a young man, whom I had not, I

am convinced, brought in with me. He was tall, comely, dressed as I

have seen the Hindu priests dress in Ephesus, but in garments that

were fairly radiant for whiteness. But his face gave cause enough to

make any man lose his tongue. Believe me, when I say he looked as if

he had seen angels, and had talked with the dead. His eyes gazed

through us as if we had been thin air. So dreadful they were in their

unseeing look that every man asked himself what would happen if that

gaze should light upon him. He stood a moment, walked as soft-footed

and as swiftly as some shade through our burrow and vanished as he had

come. In all the time he tarried, he made not one sound!"