The City of Delight | Page 7

take it with her," he said, speaking aloud. "Here," lifting a cylinder of old silver exquisitely chased, "are her marriage papers; this," lifting delicately embroidered squares of linen, "her marriage tokens, and here, her dowry."
He opened the inner box and laid the sheepskin wallet in upon the gems. He closed the lid, and, locking the case, lifted it and set it beside him on the divan.
When he looked up, he saw a man standing within a few paces of him and perfunctorily gazing at anything but the display of Laodice's fortune.
He was lean, muscular, somewhat younger than forty but already gray at the temples, of nervous temperament, direct of gaze and of attractive presence. He wore a tunic of gray wool bordered with red, and a gray mantle hung negligently from his shoulders. Limbs and arms were bare and his head-covering of red wool hung from his arm.
Costobarus, a little discomfited that he had been surprised with Laodice's dowry exposed, spoke briskly.
"Well, Aquila? Prepared?"
"Everything is in order. I am ready to proceed at once."
"How many in your party?"
"But myself."
"Have you ever been to Jerusalem?"
"Never."
"How, then," Costobarus asked, with a keen look, "came Philadelphus to appoint you to conduct Laodice to the city?"
"His retinue is small; he could not come himself, and he chose me as safer than the other member of his party," was the direct reply.
Costobarus studied this reply before he questioned his son-in-law's courier further.
"Jerusalem, they say, is in disorder. How will you get my daughter to shelter when you have reached the city?"
"Philadelphus hath instructed me that there will be a Greek at the Sun Gate daily, awaiting us. He will wear a purple turban embroidered with a golden star. He will conduct us to the house of Amaryllis the Seleucid, who is pledged to the Maccabee's cause. Philadelphus will be in her house."
"Why hers?" Costobarus persisted.
"Because it is the only secure house in Jerusalem. She stands in the good graces of John of Gischala and she is safe."
Costobarus ruminated.
"There is too much detail; too many people to depend upon and therefore too many who may fail you. Aquila!"
"Sir?"
"I am going to Jerusalem with you."
He turned without waiting to see the effect of this speech upon the Maccabee's courier and clapped his hands for an attendant. To the servitor who responded he said:
"Send hither our party. It is time. Bring me my cloak."
He looked then suddenly at Aquila. The Roman's face had cleared of its astonishment and discomfiture.
"Well enough," the courier said bluntly and closed his lips. The servitor reappeared with his master's cloak and kerchief. After him came Keturah, the handmaiden, and Hiram, a camel-driver, prepared for a journey. The mute Momus presently appeared. Costobarus got into his cloak without help, made inquiry for this detail and that of his business and of his journey, gave instruction to his attendants, and then asked for Laodice.
There was a moment of silence more distressed than embarrassed. Momus dropped his eyes; Keturah looked at her master with moving lips and sudden flushing of color, as if she were on the point of tears. Aquila stared absently out of the arch beyond.
Costobarus glanced from one to the other of his company and then went toward the corridor to call his daughter. As he lifted the curtain, he started and stopped.
[Illustration: At her feet Hannah knelt.]
The lifted curtain had revealed Laodice. At her feet Hannah knelt, as if she had flung herself in her daughter's path, her arms clasping the young figure close to her and an agony of appeal stamped on her upraised face. The last of the rich color had died out of the girl's face and with pitiful eyes and quivering lips she was stroking the desperate hands that meant to keep her for ever.
Except for the sudden sobbing of the woman servant, tense and anguished silence prevailed. The old merchant was confronted with a perplexity that found him without fortitude to solve. He felt his strength slip from him. He, too, covered his face with his hands.
At the opposite arch another house servant appeared, lifted a distorted, blackening face and, doubling like a wounded snake, fell upon the floor.
A moment of stupefied silence in which Hannah, with her mother instincts never so acutely alive, turned her strained vision upon the writhing figure. Then shrieks broke from the lips of the serving-woman; the hall filled with panic. Hannah leaped to her feet and thrust Laodice toward her father.
"Away!" she cried. "The pestilence! The pestilence is upon us!"

Chapter II
ON THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM
News of the appearance of the plague in the house of Costobarus traveled fast after the death of the gardener, who had fallen in the open and in sight of the watchful inhabitants of Ascalon. So by the time the house servants of the merchant were made