The City of Delight | Page 5

earth the charity of
running vines and the new growth of the spring spread a beauty, both
tender and compassionate.
In such open spaces inner gardens were exposed and almond trees
tossed their crowns of white bloom over pleached arbors of old
grape-vines. Here the Mediterranean birds sang with poignant

sweetness while the new-budded limbs of the oleanders tilted suddenly
under their weight as they circled from covert to covert.
But the energy of the young spring was alive only in the birds and the
blossoming orchards. Wherever the solid houses fronted in unbroken
rows the passages between, there were no open windows, no carpets
swung from latticed balconies; no buyers moved up the roofed-over
Street of Bazaars. Not in all the range of the old man's vision was to be
seen a living human being. For the chief city of the Philistine country
Ascalon was nerveless and still. At times immense and ponderous
creaking sounded in the distance, as if a great rusted crane swung in the
wind. Again there were distant, voluminous flutterings, as if neglected
and loosened sails flapped. Idle roaming donkeys brayed and a dog shut
up and forgotten in a compound barked incessantly. Presently there
came faint, far-off, failing cries that faded into silence. The Jew's brow
contracted but he did not move.
From his position, he could see the port to the east packed with lifeless
vessels. The stretches of stone wharf and the mole were vacant and
littered with rubbish. The yard-arms of abandoned freighters were
peculiarly beaded with tiny black shapes that moved from time to time.
Far out at sea, so far that a blue mist embraced its base and set its sails
mysteriously afloat in air, a great galley, with all canvas crowded on,
sped like a frightened bird past the port that had once been its haven.
A strange compelling odor stole up from the city. Costobarus glanced
down into his garden below him. It was a terraced court, with
vine-covered earthen retaining walls supporting each successive tier
and terminating against a domed gate flanked on either side by a tall
conical cypress.
He noted, on the flagging of the walk leading by flights of steps down
to the gate, a heap of garments with broad brown and yellow stripes.
Wondering at the untidiness of his gardener in leaving his tunic here
while he worked, Costobarus looked away toward the large stones that
lay here and there in gutters and on grass-plots, remnants of the work of
the Roman catapults the previous summer. In the walls of houses were
unrepaired breaches, where the wounds of the missiles showed. On a

slight eminence overlooking the city from the west center-poles of
native cedar which had supported Roman tents were still standing. But
no garrison was there now, though the signs of the savage Roman
obsession still lay on the remnants of the prostrate western wall. So as
Costobarus' gaze wandered he did not see far above that heap of striped
garments in his garden walk, fixed like an enchanted thing, moveless,
dead-calm, a great desert vulture poised in air. Presently another and
yet another materialized out of the blue, growing larger as they fell
down to the level of their fellow. Slowly the three swooped down over
the heap on the garden walk. The tiny black shapes that beaded the
yard-arms in port spread great wings and soared solemnly into Ascalon.
The three vultures dropped noiselessly on the pavement.
Cries began suddenly somewhere nearer and instantly the tremendous
booming of a great oriental gong from the heathen quarters swept
heavy floods of sound over the outcry and drowned it. The vultures
flew up hastily and Costobarus saw them for the first time. A chill
rushed over him; revulsion of feeling showed vividly on his face. He
shut the window.
Noon was high over Ascalon and Pestilence was Cæsar within its walls.
It was the penalty of warfare, the long black shadow that the passage of
a great army casts upon a battling nation. Physicians could not give it a
name. It seized upon healthy victims, rent them, blasted them and cast
them dead and distorted in their tracks, before help could reach them. It
passed like fire on a high wind through whole countries and left behind
it silence and feeding vultures.
As Costobarus turned from his window to pace up and down his
chamber, Hannah's argument came back to him with new energy. He
felt with a kind of panic that his confident answer to her might have
been wrong. When a girl appeared in the archway, he moved
impulsively toward her, as if to retract the command that would send
her out into this land that the Lord had spoken against, but the strength
and repose in her face communicated