pronounced, that the man of mixed races before him appeared wholly foreign. His line had descended from the persistent love of Jacob for Rachel, through the tents of them that slew the Midianitish women in the wilderness, through the households of Esdras and the camps of Judas Maccabæus.

He was above average height, and built ruggedly, as were Judah the lion, and Jacob who wrestled with the angel. One of in-door habit, he was fair on the forehead, under the soft young beard and the shining black curls at his temples. But his cheeks were crimson, his eyes intensely black and sparkling, his teeth, glittering ranges of shaded ivory. And the bold strength of his profile and the brilliance of his color seemed finished by the deep cleft distinctly discernible.

On his face was written an attribute common among men of a time of Messianic hopes and crises. Asceticism with its blank purity of brow set him apart from the sordid souls in his walk. Yet about him there seemed to be an atmosphere surcharged with physical radiations, with human electricity that fairly sparkled in its strength.

Even Saul, his long-time friend, on this occasion of sudden meeting, remarked this equal power of body and spirit. The Pharisee glanced at the young man's garments,—simple robes without fringes, without gaud, and white as the snows of Hermon.

"Strange," the Pharisee said after his peculiar manner of talking with himself, "strange that thou shouldst elect to be an Essene." A little proud surprise appeared on Marsyas' face.

"I can not be anything else," the young man answered.

"Thou hast not ventured. But, nevertheless, thou wilt be noted in the college. The Essenes are very few these days in Jerusalem; En-Gadi receives them all. And thou art a doctor of Laws—a master Essene. How long wilt thou study here?"

"Five years, Rabbi."

Yet the young man was at least twenty-five years of age. What course of instruction was it which carried a man into middle life before it was finished? What but the tremendous complexities of the Mosaic and the Oral Law. But these things had been taught the young man in the forecourt of the little synagogue in Nazareth where he was born. So, because his learning extended beyond the reach of the provincial Essenic philosopher who had taught him in his youth, the young man had quitted the little hill town in Galilee to come to the feet of the master Essene in the great college of Jerusalem.

To be an Essene was to live a celibate under the regime of community laws, under a common roof, at a common board; to be bodily and spiritually spotless, to believe in the resurrection of the soul, the brotherhood of man, and the frailty and the incontinence of women; to accept no hospitality from one not an Essene and to own no possessions apart from the common ownership of the order. But to be an Essenic doctor was to be the most ascetic scholar and the most scholarly ascetic in the world, at that time.

But Marsyas had no thought on Saul's contemplation of him.

"I heard the talk of the Levite," he said. "Because it concerns me much, I could not shut mine ears against it. I, too, have heard the creed of the Nazarenes."

"How, Marsyas? Harkened unto the heretics?"

"I have heard their creed," he persisted in his calm way. "It differs little from the teachings of mine own order, the Essenes, except that they believe in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth and the receptiveness of the Gentile."

"And thou callest that a little difference?"

"Not so great that one going astray after the Nazarenes could not be satisfied with the Essenes, if he were obliged to give up his apostasy. I seek a remedy."

"Moses supplied the remedy," Saul averred with meaning.

"The Essenes are not inflicters of punishment," was the even reply.

The Pharisee made a conciliatory gesture. "It is then only a discussion of the practices of my class and of thine."

But Marsyas was not satisfied.

"Thou knowest Stephen?" he asked after a pause.

"Stephen of Galilee? Only by report."

"Perchance, then, thou knowest Galilee," the Essene resumed after a short pause. "Galilee that sitteth between Phoenicia the menace and Samaria the pollution, and is not soiled; that standeth between the Middle Sea, the power, and the Jordan, the subject, and is not humbled. She is Israel's brawn, not easily governed of the mind which is enthroned Jerusalem.

"We are rustics in Galilee, tillers of the soil, mountaineers and fishers, simple rugged folk who live in the present, expecting miracles, seeing signs, discovering prophets and wonders. We are patriots, bound and hooped against an alien, but bursting wide with whatever chanceth to ferment within us. Let there but arise a Galilean who hath a gift or a grudge or a devil, and proclaim himself anointed, and he can gather unto himself a following that would assail Cæsar's stronghold, did he say the word."

He paused and seemed to recall what he had said.

"Yet, we are good Jews," he added hastily, "faithful followers of the Law and such as Israel might select to die singly for Israel's sake. No Galilean is ashamed of himself except when he permits himself to be led so far into folly that he can not turn back."

The Pharisee foresaw intuitively the young man's climax.

"The Law does not remit punishment for blasphemy, even if a soul turn back from its folly," he observed.

Marsyas' face became grave and he gazed at the place on the wall where quivered the reflection from the splendors of the Temple.

"Stephen is my friend," he said earnestly, "a simple soul, generous, fervid, and a true lover of God."

"If he be such, he is safe," Saul replied.

The young man fingered the scarf that girded him.

"The brothers at En-Gadi would receive him," he said.

"What need of him to retire from the world if he be a good Jew?" Saul persisted.

Again the young man hesitated. Saul was driving him into a declaration that he would have led forth gradually. Then he came to the Pharisee and laid a persuading band on his arm.

"Go not to the synagogue," he entreated. "Wait a little!"

"Wait in the Lord's business?" Saul asked mildly.

"Be not hastier than the chastening of the Lord; if He bears with Stephen, so canst thou a little longer. Give love its chance with Stephen before vengeance undoes him wholly!"

"Marsyas," Saul protested in a tone of kindly remonstrance, "thou dost convict him by thy very concern."

"No!" the young Essene declared, pressing upon the Pharisee in passionate earnestness. "I am only troubled for him. Let me go first and understand him, for it seems that there is doubt in the hearts of his accusers, and after that—"

"Thine eye shall not pity him," Saul repeated in warning.

"Saul! Saul! He is my beloved friend!"

"Moses prepared us for such a sorrow as apostasy among those whom we love. What says the Lawgiver—'thy friend, which is as thine own soul, thy hand shall be the first upon him to put him to death!'"

The lifted hands of the young Essene dropped as if they had been struck down.

"Death!" he repeated, retreating a step. "Wilt thou kill him?"

"I am more thy friend, Marsyas," the Pharisee went on, "because I am zealous for the Law. The heresy is infectious and thou art no more safe from it than any other man. And I would rather sit in judgment over Stephen, whom I do not know, than over thee, who art dear to me as a brother."

The young man drew near again.

"Dear as a brother!" he said. "Stephen is that to me. Even now didst thou ask if any had supplanted thee in my loves. No; yet my loves have broadened, so that I can take another into my heart. The Lord God be merciful unto me, that I may not be driven to choose one, for defense against the other! Even as ye both love me, love one another! Saul! Thou wast my earlier friend! I can no more endure Stephen's peril than I can uproot thee from my heart!"

Saul flinched before the concealed intimation