The City of Delight | Page 2

hour? Did he not name it the abomination of desolation? Said he not that the city and the sanctuary should be destroyed, that there should be a flood and that unto the end of the war desolations shall be determined? Desolations, Costobarus! And Laodice is but a child and delicately reared!"
"All these things may come to pass and not a hair of the heads of the chosen people be harmed," he assured her.
"But Laodice is too young to have part in the conflict of nations, the business of Heaven and earth and the end of all things!"
A courier strode into the hall and approached Costobarus, saw that he was engaged in conversation and stopped. The merchant noted him and withdrew to read the message which the man carried.
"A letter from Philadelphus," he said over his shoulder, as he moved away from Hannah. "He hath landed in C?sarea with his cousin Julian of Ephesus. He will proceed at once to Jerusalem. We have no time to lose. Ah, Momus?"
He spoke to a servant who had limped into the hall and stood waiting for his notice. He was the ruin of a man, physically powerful but as a tree wrecked by storm and grown strong again in spite of its mutilation. Pestilence in years long past had attacked him and had left him dumb, distorted of feature, wry-necked and stiffened in the right leg and arm. His left arm, forced to double duty, had become tremendously muscular, his left hand unusually dexterous. Much of his facial distortion was the result of his efforts to convey his ideas by expression and by his attempts to overcome the interference of his wry neck with the sweep of his vision.
"Whom have we in our party, Momus?" Costobarus asked. As the man made rapid, uncouth signs, the master interpreted.
"Keturah, Hiram and Aquila--and thou and I, Momus. Three camels, one of which is the beast of burden. Good! Aquila will ride a horse; ha! a horse in a party of camels--well, perhaps--if he were bought in Ascalon. How? What? St--t! The physician told me even now. Let none of the household know it--above all things not thy mistress!" The last sentence was delivered in a whisper in response to certain uneasy gestures the mute had made. The man bowed and withdrew.
A second servitor now approached with papers which the merchant inspected and signed hastily with ink and stylus which the clerk bore. When this last item was disposed of, Hannah was again at her husband's side.
"Costobarus," she whispered, "it is known that the East Gate of the Temple, which twenty Levites can close only with effort, opened of itself in the sixth hour of the night!"
"A sign that God re?ntereth His house," the merchant explained.
"A sign, O my husband, that the security of the Holy House is dissolved of its own accord for the advantage of its enemies!"
Costobarus observed two huge Ethiopians who appeared bewildered at the threshold of the unfamiliar interior, looking for the master of the house to tell them what to do. The merchant motioned toward a tall ebony case that stood against one of the walls and showed them that they were to carry it out. Hannah continued:
"And thou hast not forgotten that night when the priests at the Pentecost, entering the inner court, were thrown down by the trembling of the Temple and that a vast multitude, which they could not see, cried: 'Let us go hence!' And that dreadful sunset which we watched and which all Israel saw when armies were seen fighting in the skies and cities with toppling towers and rocking walls fell into red clouds and vanished!"
"What of thyself, Hannah?" he broke in. "Art thou ready to depart for Tyre? Philip will leave to-morrow. Do not delay him. Go and prepare."
But the woman rushed on to indiscretion, in her desperate intent to stop the journey to Jerusalem at any cost.
"But there are those of good repute here in Ascalon, sober men and excellent women, who say that our hope for the Branch of David is too late--that Israel is come to judgment, this hour--for He is come and gone and we received Him not!"
Costobarus turned upon her sharply.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"O my husband," she insisted hopefully, "it measures up with prophecy! And they who speak thus confidently say that He prophesied the end of the Holy City, and that this is not the Advent, but doom!"
"It is the Nazarene apostasy," he exclaimed in alarm, "alive though the power of Rome and the diligence of the Sanhedrim have striven to destroy it these forty years! Now the poison hath entered mine own house!"
A servant bowed within earshot. Costobarus turned to him hastily.
"Philip of Tyre," the attendant announced.
"Let him enter," Costobarus said. "Go, Hannah; make Laodice ready--preparations are almost