in the words. A wave of pallor succeeded by hardness swept over his face, and Marsyas, observing the change, seized the Tarsian's hands between his own.

"Wait until I have seen him," he besought, "and if there be any taint in his fidelity to the faith, I shall stop at no sacrifice to save him. He is, if at all, only momentarily drawn aside, and as the Lord God daily forgives us our sins, let us forgive a brother—"

Saul tried to draw away, but the young Essene's imploring hands held his in a desperate clasp.

"I will give up mine instruction," he swept on. "I will retire into En-Gadi and take him with me! I will give over everything and become one of their husbandmen; I will have no aim for myself, but for Stephen! And if I fail I will take sentence with him! Wait! Wait! Let me return to Nazareth and get my patrimony! I will come then and take him at once to En-Gadi! Saul!"

But Saul threw off the beseeching hands and stepped back from the young man. The two gazed at each other, the Pharisee to discover a crisis in the Essene's look; the Essene to see immovability in the Pharisee.

Then the distress in Marsyas' face changed swiftly, and an ember burned in his black eyes. He straightened himself and stretched out a hand.

"I have spoken!" he said. Turning purposefully away, he went back to his place and took up his scroll. For a moment he held it, his eyes on the pavement. Slowly his fingers unclosed and the scroll dropped—dropped as if he had done with it.

Catching up his white mantle, he walked swiftly out of the chamber and Saul looked after him, yearning, wistful and sad.

Joel came out of the interior of the building.

"I will go with thee to the synagogue," he offered.

The Pharisee looked at him with cold dislike in his eyes, and, inclining his head, led the way out.

At the threshold of the porch he halted. In the street opposite two young men were walking slowly. One was slight, young, graceful and simply clad in a Jewish smock. The other was Marsyas, the Essene, who went with an arm over the shoulders of the first, and, bending, seemed to speak with passionate earnestness to his companion. The faces of the two young men thus side by side showed the same spiritual mode of living, and youthful purity of heart. But the expression of the slighter one was less ascetic than happy, less rigorous than confident.

As Marsyas spoke, the other smiled; and his smile was an illumination, not entirely earthly.

Joel seized Saul's arm, and held it while the two approached, unconscious of the watchers in the shadow of the porch.

"That is he," he whispered avidly. "That is he! Stephen, the apostate!"

Stephen turned his head casually, and, catching the Pharisee's eye, returned the gaze with a little friendly questioning; then he raised his face to Marsyas and so they passed.

The pallor on Saul's face deepened.

CHAPTER II

A PRUDENT EXCEPTION

After he had separated from Stephen, Marsyas went to the house of a resident Essene with whom he made his home, to be fed, to be washed, to offer supplication and to announce his decision to go on a journey. At the threshold of his host's house he put aside his sandals and let himself in with a murmured formula. In a little time he came forth with a wallet flung over his shoulder and took the streets toward Gennath Gate. It was not written in the laws of his order that he should make greater preparation for a journey. He had already acquainted himself with the abiding-places of Essenes in villages between Jerusalem and Nazareth and, assured of their hospitality and the provision of the Essene's God, he knew that he would fare well to the hill town of Galilee.

So he passed through the city by the walk of the purified, garments well in hand lest they touch women or the wayside dust, meeting the eye of no man, proud of his humility, punctilious in his simplicity, and wearing unrest under his shell of calm. He had an unobstructed path, a path ceremonially clean. He had but to hesitate on the edge of a congestion, and the first gowned and bearded Jew that observed him signed his companions and the way was opened. For the Essenes were the best of men, the truly holy men of Israel.

He went down between the fronts of featureless houses, through the golden haze of sun and dust that overhung the narrow, stony mule-ways, until the distant dream towers of Mariamne, of Phasælus and of Hippicus became imminent, brooding shapes of blackened masonry, and the wall cut off the mule-ways and the great shady arch of the gate let in a glimpse of the country without. On one hand was the Prætorium, the Roman garrison encamped in the upper palace of Herod the Great; on the other, the houses of the Sadducees, the Jewish aristocrats, covered the ridge of Akra. Marsyas came upon an obstruction. At a gate opening into the street, camels knelt, servants of diverse nationality but of one livery clustered round them, several unoccupied Jewish traveling chairs in the hands of bearers stood near. In the center of the considerable crowd, a number of Sadducees, priests of high order and Pharisees in garments characteristic of their several classes were taking ceremonious farewell of a man already seated in a howdah. No one took notice of the Essene, who stood waiting with assumed patience until he should be given room.

Presently the camel-drivers cried to their beasts which arose with a lurch, priests and Sadducees hurried into their chairs, the servants fell into rank, the crowd shifted and ordered itself and a procession trailed out alongside the swaying camels toward Gennath Gate. A distinguished party was taking leave under escort.

Marsyas repressed the impatient word that arose to his lips and followed after the deliberate, moving blockade.

The rank of the departing strangers did not encourage the city rabble to follow, and as the escort kept close to the head of the procession the hindmost camel was directly before Marsyas and the occupant of the howdah in his view. Over head and shoulders the full skirts of a vitta fell, erasing outline, and, contrasting the stature with that of the attending servant, he concluded that the small traveler was a child.

Under the dripping shade and chill of the ancient Gate they passed and out into the road worn into a trench through the rock and dry gray earth and on to the oval pool which supplied Hippicus, where a halt for a final farewell was made. Again Marsyas was delayed, and for a much longer time. He might have climbed out of the sunken roadway and passed around the obstruction, but the banks above were lined with clamoring mendicants, women and lepers, and he could not escape ceremonial defilement that might more seriously delay his journey.

Meanwhile the courtly leave-taking progressed with dignified sloth. Gradually Sadducee, priest and Pharisee moved one by one from the departing aristocrat. At the hindmost camel the Pharisees stopped not at all, but saluting without looking at the traveler, the priests merely raised their hands in blessing; but the Sadducees to a man salaamed profoundly, and passed on if they were old, or lingered uncertainly if they were young.

A little flicker of enlightenment showed in the young Essene's brilliant eyes, an angry tension in his lips straightened their curve and he drew himself up indignantly. The young aristocrats tarried and laughed his precious time away with a woman! That was the traveler in the last howdah! Twice and thrice the time they had spent speeding the rest of the party they consumed bidding the woman farewell, and every moment carried danger nearer to Stephen.

Then an old voice, refined and delicate as the note of an ancient lyre, lifted in laughing protest from the front, the young men laughed, responding, but moved away to their chairs, the camel swung out into a rapid walk, and crying farewells the party separated.

With abating irritation