The City of Delight

Julian's words had been more lively than the Maccabee had expected. He

was obliged to give attention before his kinsman made an end.

"You are fond of summaries, Julian," he said, "dealt in your own coin.

Look you, now, at my hope. You confess that these Jews lack a leader.

They have lacked him so long that they hunger and thirst for one. Also

they have suffered the distresses of disorder so intensely that peace

in any form is most welcome to them. Titus approacheth reluctantly. He

had rather deliver Jerusalem than besiege it. I am of the loved and

dethroned Maccabaean line--acceptable to every faction of Jewry, from

the Essenes to the Sicarii. Titus is my friend, unless he suspects me

as coming to undermine his better friend, the pretty Herod. I shall

help Jerusalem help herself; I shall make peace with Rome; I shall be

King of the Jews!--Behold, is not my summary as practical as yours?"

Julian laughed with an amusement that had a ring of contempt in it.

"There is naught to keep an astronomer from planning a rearrangement

of the stars," he said.

But the Maccabee rode on calmly. Julian sighed. After a while he

spoke.

"Well, how do you proceed? You tell me that these very visionaries

whom you would succor have never laid eyes on you. What marks you as

royal--as a sprig of the great, just and dead Maccabee?"

"I bear proofs, Roman documents of my family and of my birth. Certain

of my party are already organized in Jerusalem and are expecting me,

and I wear the Maccabaean signet. Is not that enough?"

"Nothing of it worth the security of private citizenship and a whole

head!"

"No? Not when there is a dowry of two hundred talents awaiting my

courage to come and get it?"

"Ha! That wife! But will you enter that sure death for a woman you do

not know?"

"And for a fortune I have not possessed and for a kingdom that I never

owned."

"She will not be there! Old Costobarus is not so mired in folly as to

send his daughter into the Pit to provide you with money to--pay

Charon."

"Aquila sent me a messenger at Cæsarea," Philadelphus continued

calmly, "saying that Costobarus was transfigured when he had my

summons. He feels that his God has been good to him to choose his

daughter to share the throne of Judea. Hence, by this time my lady

awaits me in Jerusalem."

Again Julian sighed.

"And there is none in Jerusalem who knows your face?" he asked after a

silence.

"None, except Amaryllis, and she has not seen me since I was sixteen

years old."

"And there also is an obstacle which I had forgotten to enumerate,"

Julian said argumentatively. "You have put your trust in a frail

woman."