The City of Delight

"Then what of myself, when I love where I should not love?" the

Maccabee insisted.

"You may suffer and sin not," the Christian said kindly.

The unhappy man dropped to his knees.

"O Christ, why should I resist Thee!" he groaned. "Thou hast stripped

me and made me see that my loss is good!"

The Christian laid his hands on the Maccabee's head.

"Dost thou believe?" he asked.

"Will Christ accept me, coming because I must?"

"It is not laid down how we shall baptize in the thirst of a famine,"

Nathan said, "yet He who sees fit to deny water never yet hath denied

grace."

But the Christian's hand extended over the kneeling man was caught in

a grip steadied with intense emotion. The unknown had seized him.

But for his feeling that this interruption was necessary to the

welfare of another soul, the Christian would not have paused in his

ministry.

The phantom straightened himself with a superb reinvestment of

manhood.

"Thou, son of the Maccabee, Philadelphus!" he exclaimed to the

kneeling man.

The Ephesian's arms sank.

"Who art thou that knoweth me?" he asked in a dead voice.

"I am all that plague and sin hath left of thy servant Aquila," the

phantom declared.

The Maccabee lifted his face for what should follow this revelation.

It was only a manifestation of his subjection to another will than his

own. He was not interested--he who was hoping to die.

"Hear me, and curse me!" Aquila went on. "But save thy wife yet. I say

unto thee, master, that she whom thou hast sheltered in the cavern is

thy wife, Laodice!"

The Maccabee struggled up to his feet and gazed with stunned and

unbelieving eyes at this wreck of his pagan servant, who went on

precipitately.

"Her I plotted against at the instigation of Julian of Ephesus. Her,

my mistress, Salome the Cyprian, robbed and hath impersonated thus

long to her safety in the house of the Greek. This hour, through

ignorance of thine own identity, through my fault, she hath gone

reluctantly to his arms. Curse me and let me die!"

The Maccabee seized the hair at his temples. For a moment the awful

gaze he bent upon Aquila seemed to show that the gentler spirit had

been dislodged from his heart. Then he cried: "God help us both, Aquila! My fault was greater than thine!"

He turned and fled toward the house of the Greek.

The four legions of Titus swept after him.

Aquila lifted his eyes for the first time and gazed at Nathan.

"I cursed thee for sparing me to such an existence as was mine!

Behold, father, thou didst bless me, instead. I am ready to die."

"Wait," the Christian said peacefully.