The City of Delight | Page 4

it is said."
"Yes," Philip assented with a little more spirit. "It hath reached us, who have dealings with the East, that there is a better feeling in the city. Such slaughter has been done there among the Sadducees, such hordes of rebels from outlying subjugated towns have poured their license and violence in upon the safe City of Delight, that the citizens of Jerusalem actually look forward to the coming of Titus as a deliverance from the afflictions which their own people have visited upon them."
"The hour for the Maccabee, indeed," Costobarus ruminated.
"And the hour for Him whom we all expect," Philip added in a low tone. Costobarus bowed his head. Presently he drew a scroll from the folds of his ample robe.
"Hear what Philadelphus writes me:
C?sarea, II Kal. Jul. XX.
To Costobarus, greetings and these by messenger;
I learn on arriving in this city that Judea is in truth no man's country. Wherefore it can be mine by cession or conquest. It is mine, however, by right. I shall possess it.
I go hence to Jerusalem.
Fail not to send my wife thither and her dowry. Aquila, my emissary, will safely conduct her. Trust him.
Proceed with despatch and husband the dowry of your daughter, since it is to be the corner-stone of a new Israel.
Peace to you and yours. To my wife my affection and my loyalty.
PHILADELPHUS MACCABAEUS.
Nota Bene. Julian of Ephesus accompanies me. He is my cousin. He will in all probability meet your daughter at the Gate.
MACCABAEUS."
Slowly the old man rolled the writing.
"He wastes no words," Philip mused. "He writes as a siege-engine talks--without quarter."
Costobarus nodded.
"So I am giving him two hundred talents," he said deliberately.
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed.
"And I summoned thee, Philip, to say that in addition to my house and its goods, thou canst have my shipping, my trade, my caravans, which thou hast coveted so long at a price--at that price. I shall give Laodice two hundred talents."
"Two hundred talents!" Philip echoed again, somewhat taken aback.
Costobarus went to a cabinet on the wall and drew forth a shittim-wood case which he unlocked. Therefrom he took a small casket and opened it. He then held it so that the sun, falling into it, set fire to a bed of loose gems mingled without care for kind or value--a heap of glowing color emitting sparks.
"Here are one hundred of the talents," Costobarus said.
A flash of understanding lighted Philip's face not unmingled with the satisfaction of a shrewd Jew who has pleased himself at business. One hundred talents, then, for the best establishment in five cities, in all the Philistine country. But why? Costobarus supplied the answer at that instant.
"I would depart with my daughter by mid-afternoon," he said.
"I doubt the counting houses; if I had known sooner--" Philip began.
"Aquila arrived only this morning. I sent a messenger to you at once."
Philip rose.
"We waste time in talk. I shall inform thee by messenger presently. God speed thee! My blessings on thy son-in-law and on thy daughter!"
Costobarus rose and took his friend's hand.
"Thou shalt have the portion of the wise-hearted man in this kingdom. And this yet further, my friend. If perchance the uncertainties of travel in this distressed land should prove disastrous and I should not return, I shall leave a widow here--"
"And in that instance, be at peace. I am thy brother."
Costobarus pressed Philip's hand.
"Farewell," he said; and Philip embraced him and went forth.
Costobarus turned to one of his closed windows and thrust it open, for the influence of the spring sun had made itself felt in the past important hour for Costobarus.
Noon stood beautiful and golden over the city. The sky was clean-washed and blue, and the surface of the Mediterranean, glimpsed over white house-tops that dropped away toward the sea-front, was a wandering sheet of flashing silver. Here and there were the ruins of the last year's warfare, but over the fallen walls of gray 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