The City of Delight

"Sir?"

"I am going to Jerusalem with you."

He turned without waiting to see the effect of this speech upon the

Maccabee's courier and clapped his hands for an attendant. To the

servitor who responded he said: "Send hither our party. It is time. Bring me my cloak."

He looked then suddenly at Aquila. The Roman's face had cleared of its

astonishment and discomfiture.

"Well enough," the courier said bluntly and closed his lips. The

servitor reappeared with his master's cloak and kerchief. After him

came Keturah, the handmaiden, and Hiram, a camel-driver, prepared for

a journey. The mute Momus presently appeared. Costobarus got into his

cloak without help, made inquiry for this detail and that of his

business and of his journey, gave instruction to his attendants, and

then asked for Laodice.

There was a moment of silence more distressed than embarrassed. Momus

dropped his eyes; Keturah looked at her master with moving lips and

sudden flushing of color, as if she were on the point of tears. Aquila

stared absently out of the arch beyond.

Costobarus glanced from one to the other of his company and then went

toward the corridor to call his daughter. As he lifted the curtain, he

started and stopped.

[Illustration: At her feet Hannah knelt.] The lifted curtain had revealed Laodice. At her feet Hannah knelt, as

if she had flung herself in her daughter's path, her arms clasping the

young figure close to her and an agony of appeal stamped on her

upraised face. The last of the rich color had died out of the girl's

face and with pitiful eyes and quivering lips she was stroking the

desperate hands that meant to keep her for ever.

Except for the sudden sobbing of the woman servant, tense and

anguished silence prevailed. The old merchant was confronted with a

perplexity that found him without fortitude to solve. He felt his

strength slip from him. He, too, covered his face with his hands.

At the opposite arch another house servant appeared, lifted a

distorted, blackening face and, doubling like a wounded snake, fell

upon the floor.

A moment of stupefied silence in which Hannah, with her mother

instincts never so acutely alive, turned her strained vision upon the

writhing figure. Then shrieks broke from the lips of the

serving-woman; the hall filled with panic. Hannah leaped to her feet

and thrust Laodice toward her father.

"Away!" she cried. "The pestilence! The pestilence is upon us!"