"God can not perish," Eleazar put in. "Fear not; it can not come to pass."

"Nay, but evil can enter the souls of men and point them after false prophets so that God is forgotten," the Levite retorted. His lean figure bent at the hips and he thrust his face forward with triumph of prophecy on it. Saul looked at him.

"What hast thou to tell, Joel?" he asked with command in his voice. The Levite accepted the order as he had worked toward it—with energy.

"Listen, then," he began in a whisper. "Dost thou remember Him whom they crucified at Golgotha, a Passover, four years ago?"

Eleazar nodded, but Saul made no sign.

"Know ye that they killed the plant after it had ripened," the Levite hastened on. "The seed of His teaching hath spread abroad and wherever it lodgeth it hath taken root and multiplied. Wherefore, there is a multitude of offspring from the single stem."

Saul stood up. He did not gain much in stature by rising, but the temper of the man towered gigantic over the impatience of Eleazar and the craft of the Levite.

"What accusation is this that thou levelest at Judea?" he demanded.

"A truth!" Joel replied.

"That Israel hath a blasphemer among them, which hath been spared, concealed and not put away?" questioned Saul.

"Dare ye?" the Levite cried.

"Dare ye not!" Saul answered sternly. "It is the Law!"

The Levite came toward him. "Go thou unto the High Priest Jonathan," he whispered evilly; "he hath work for thee to do!"

Eleazar doubled his huge hand and whirled his head away. There was tense silence for a moment.

"Is there a specific transgression discovered?" Saul demanded.

The Levite weighed his answer before he gave it.

"Rumor hath it," he began, "that certain of the sect are in the city preaching—"

"Rumor!" Saul exclaimed. "Hast rested on the testimony of rumor?"

"Can ye track pestilence?" he asked craftily.

"By the sick!" was the retort. "Go on!"

"It is the High Priest's vow to attack it," Joel declared. "He hath no other thought. It is said that one of the disputants, who yesterday troubled them in the Cilician synagogue with an alien doctrine, preached the Nazarene's heresy."

"In the Cilician—in mine own synagogue!" Saul repeated, in amazement.

"In thine, in the Libertine, the Cyrenian and the Alexandrian."

"And they suffered him?" Saul persisted with growing earnestness.

"They did not understand him, then; he is but a new-comer from Galilee."

"And I was not there; I was not there!" Saul exclaimed regretfully. "What is he called?"

"Stephen."

There was a sound from the direction of the silent pupil. They looked that way to see that he had dropped his scroll and had sprung to his feet. The Levite dropped his head between his shoulders and scrutinized him sharply. But the young man had fixed his eyes upon Saul, as if waiting for his answer.

"Stephen of Galilee," the Levite added, watching the young man. "A Hellenist; and he wrapped his blasphemy so subtly in philosophy that none detected it until after much thought."

The young man turned his face toward the speaker and a glimmer of anger showed in his black eyes.

"It is bold blasphemy which ventures into a synagogue," Saul said half to himself.

"Ah! thou pointest to the sign of peril," the Levite resumed. "Boldness is the banner of strength; strength is the fruit of numbers; and numbers of apostates will be the ruin of Judea and the forgetting of God!"

Saul caught up his scrip which lay beside him, but Eleazar continued to gaze at the beam of light penetrating the chamber.

"Wherefore the High Priest is troubled, and, laying aside all his private ambitions, henceforward he will devote himself to the preservation of the faith," the Levite continued.

"Which means," Eleazar interrupted, "the persecution of the apostate."

The Levite spread out his hands and lifted his shoulders. The Rabbi Eleazar forged too far ahead.

"It is our duty, Eleazar," Saul said, "to discover if this Galilean preaches heresy. Let us go to the synagogue."

Eleazar arose, a towering man, broad, heavy and slow, but his rising was as the rising of opposition.

"I am enlisted in the teaching of the Law, not in the suppression of heresy," he said bluntly. "Furthermore, my work here is not yet complete. Wilt thou excuse me, my brother?"

"Let me not keep thee from thy duty," Saul answered courteously.

"Joel! Come with me," Eleazar commanded, and together the two disappeared into the interior of the college.

Then the young man who had held his place came out of the shadows into the broad beam of the sun, which fell now over Saul.

"Peace to thee, Saul," he said; "peace and greeting." The voice, in contrast to the tones of the men who had lately discussed, was very calm and level, restrained by cultivation, yet one which is never characteristic of an undecided nature.

"Thou, Marsyas!" Saul exclaimed in sudden recognition. He extended his hands to meet the other's in a greeting that was more affectionate than conventional. The young man with sudden impulsiveness raised the hands and pressed them to his breast.

"Saul! Saul!" he repeated with a quiver of emotion in his voice.

"And none hath supplanted me in thy loves, Marsyas?" Saul smiled. "Art thou come hither for instruction? Am I to have thee by me now in Jerusalem?"

The glow of warmth in the rabbi's manner did not contribute its confidence to the young man. He seemed not less troubled than moved. With searching eyes, he looked down from his superior height into Saul's face. As the two stood together, physical extremes could not have been more perfect.

The rabbi was not well-formed, and his frame had a note of feebleness in its make-up in spite of its youth and flesh. The face was pale, the eyes so deep-set as to appear sunken, the hair, thin, curling and lightly silvered, the beard, short, full and touched with the same early frost. Though no recent alien blood ran in his veins, his features were only moderately characteristic of the sons of Jacob. He was not erect, and the stoop in his shoulders was more extreme than the mere relaxation from rigidity, yet less pronounced than actual curvature. The veins on the backs of his hands stood up from the refined whiteness of the flesh, and when his head turned, the great artery in his throat could be seen irregularly beating. It was the physique of a man not only weak but sapped by a subtle infirmity.

He wore the head-dress and the voluminous white robes of a rabbi, girded with the blue and white cord of his calling. But his class as a Pharisee was marked by the heavy undulating fringes at the hem of his garment, and by the little case of calf-skin framing a parchment lettered in Hebrew which was bound across his forehead. Herein, by fringe, phylactery and the traditional colors, he published his submission to the minutiæ of the Law.

In so much the rabbi could have had twenty counterparts over Judea, but his aggressive nature stamped him with an individuality which has had no equal in all time. Over his countenance was a fine assumption of humility curiously inconsistent with a consciousness of excellence which made an atmosphere about him that could be felt. Yet, holding first place over these conflicting attributes was the stamp of tremendous mental power, and a heart-whole sweetness that was irresistible. The union of these four characteristics was to produce a man that would hold fast to theory, though all fact arise and shouted it down; who would maintain form, though the spirit had in horror long since fled the shape. Thus, inflexibly fixed in his convictions, he was unlimited in his capacity for maintaining them. In short, he was a leader of men, a zealot, a formalist and an inquisitor—one of great mentality dogmatized, of great spirit prejudiced, of immense capabilities perverted.

Such was Saul of Tarsus.

But the other was a Jew of blood so pure, of type so