Marsyas moved after them. At the intersection of the first road, he would pass these travelers and hasten on.

A breeze from the hills cut off the smell of the city with a full stream of country freshness. Marsyas lifted his head and drew in a long breath that was almost a sigh. His first trouble weighed heavily upon him and its triple nature of distress, heart-hurt and apprehension, sensations so new and so near to nature as to be at wide variance with anything Essenic, moved him into a mood essentially human. Then an exhalation from aft the fragrant spring-flowered groves stole into the pure air about him, bewildering, sweet, and through it, as harmoniously as if the perfume had taken tone, a distant hill bird sent a single stave of liquid notes. The small figure in the howdah at that moment turned and looked back, and Marsyas for the first time in his life gazed straight into the eyes of a beautiful girl.

Spring-fragrance, bird-song and flower-face were harmony too perfect for Essenism to discountenance. Without the slightest discomposure, and absolutely unconscious of what he was doing, Marsyas gazed and listened until the vitta fell hastily over the face, the bird flew away and the garden incense died.

He passed just then the intersecting road, but he continued after the last camel. He walked after that through many drifts of fragrance, and many hill birds sang, but he knew without looking that the flower face was not turned back toward him again.

He halted for the night at a little village and sought the hospitality of an Essene hermit that lived on the outskirts. But in the night, terror for Stephen, of that unknown kind which is conviction without evidence and irrefutable, seized him. He endured until the early watches of the morning and took the road to Nazareth while the stars still shone.

He had forgotten his fellow wayfarers of the previous afternoon until their camels, speeding like the wind, overtook him beyond Mt. Ephraim. In a vapor of flying scarves he caught again a glimpse of the flower face turned his way.

Then for the first time in his life he reviled his poverty that forced him to walk when the life of the much-beloved depended upon despatch. Nazareth, clinging like a wasps' nest under the eaves of its chalky hills, was many leagues ahead, and the sun must set and rise again before he could climb up its sun-white streets.

His hope was not strong. His plan had won such little respect from him that he had not ventured to propose it to Stephen. It was extreme sacrifice for him to make, a sacrifice lifelong in effect, and in that he based his single faith in its success. Stephen loved him and would not persist in the fatal apostasy, if he knew that his friend, the Essene, was to deny himself ambition and fame for Stephen's sake.

He would get his patrimony of the old master Essene who held it in trust for him, formally give over his instruction, bind himself to the perpetual life of husbandry and seclusion, and then tell Stephen what he had done and why he had done it.

Everything else but the appeal to Stephen's love for him had failed, and he had shrunk from forcing that trial.

But Saul had meant to go to the Synagogue at once; there were innumerable chances that he was already too late.

At noon he came upon the party of travelers again. A fringed tent had been pitched under a cluster of cedars and the slaves were putting away the last of the meal. He saw now as he hurried by that there was a spare and elegant old man, in magistrate's robes, reclining with singular grace on a pallet of rugs before the lifted side of the tent. The girl sat near. He noted also that the master and the slaves fell silent as he approached and looked at him with interest.

But he sped on, forgetting that it was the noon and that he was hungry, heated and weary, and remembering only that the time and the distance were deadly long.

There was the soft pad-pad of a camel-hoof behind him and a servant of the aristocrat that he had passed drew up at his side. With a light leap the man dropped from the beast's neck and bowed low. The ease of his salaam and the purity of his speech were strong evidences of training among the loftiest classes of the time. The attitude asked permission to address the Essene.

Marsyas signed him to speak.

"I pray thee accept my master's apologies," the man said, "for interrupting thy journey. He bids me say that he is a stranger and unfamiliar with the land. We have found no water for the meal. Wilt thou direct us to a pool?"

Marsyas checked his impatience.

"Save that I am in great haste I would tarry to direct him. But let him send hence into the country to the westward, half a league to the hill of the flat summit. There is a grove by a well of sweet water."

"Nay, the country is as obscure to us as the whereabouts of the pool," the servant protested. "We are Alexandrians and as good as lost in these hills. If thou wilt speak to my master, he will understand better than his foolish servant."

Irritation forced its way up through the Essenic calm. The servant salaamed again.

"The Essenes are noted even in Alexandria for their charity," he said deftly. Marsyas turned with him and went back to the fringed tent.

The old aristocrat still lounged gracefully, as no thirsty man does, on his pallet of rugs, but the girl had drawn farther away and her eyes were veiled.

"I perceived by thy garments that thou art an Essene," the old man said, "and therefore a safe guide in this land of few milestones."

Marsyas thanked him and waited restlessly on the inquiry.

"We have not found a well since mid-morning and I crave fresh drink. The water we bear is brackish."

"Bid thy servants go westward without deviation for less than half a league, until they come unto a hill with a flat summit, which can be seen afar off. They will find there a grove with a well."

"And none is nearer?" the old man asked idly.

"There is none nearer."

"My servants were bred to the desert; they are ill mountaineers. Thou wilt show them the way?"

"They can not lose the way," Marsyas protested; "it is the flock's well and all the hill paths lead to it. Think not ill of me, that I can not go, for I am in haste."

The old man smiled a little.

"An Essene, and he will not stop to give an old man water?"

Marsyas frowned resentfully, but turned to the servant at hand.

"Get thy fellows and the water-skins and follow!"

He turned off the Roman road and struck into the hills to the west. The servitors of the Alexandrian caught up amphoras and hastened after him.

In less than an hour he reappeared before the man under the fringed tent.

"Thy servants are returned. Peace and farewell."

"Nay, but it is the noon. Wilt thou not tarry and rest?"

"I go," Marsyas said resolutely, "to save a life."

"Ah, then I did wrong to delay thee! I remember that Essenes are physicians."

"We can not cure the wicked of their evil intent, so I haste to save one threatened with another's malice. My friend is in peril. I must go unto Nazareth and return unto Jerusalem, before I can save him. And even now I may be too late!"

The magistrate searched the young man's face and then the half-incredulous curiosity passed out of his manner.

"Pardon mine idle wasting of thy precious minutes," he said soberly. "Go, and the Lord speed thee!"

Marsyas bowed low, and keeping his eyes fixed on the gray earth, lest they stray in search of the flower face, he turned again toward Nazareth. He heard a very soft, very hurried and almost imperious whisper, as he moved away, but he knew that it was not for him to hear, and he did not tarry. But a word from the magistrate brought him up.

"Stay! It is not customary for any outside of thine order to offer an Essene assistance, since we would spare thee the pain of refusal. But—it hath been suggested that thy haste may permit thee to waive thy scruples and accept help from