Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Juliet Thompson, I, Mary Magdalene, bahai-library.com.
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I, Mary Magdalene

Juliet Thompson
99 pages

New York: Delphic Studios, 1940

Foreword

In Juliet Thompson's vivid and
subtle word painting — which transcends and unifies the diverse media of
expression — poetry and the arts become one. The
illustrations — visions discerned in an ethereal realm — strikingly
portray ancient races and times.

As pilgrims we journeyed together
to the Holy Land — first to Carmel, that Mountain of the Lord, to meet
Shoghi Effendi; to the shrines of the Báb and `Abdu'l-Bahá; to 'Akká, the scene
of the long imprisonment of Bahá'u'lláh and his son, and to Bahá'u'lláh's
shrine and tomb at Bahjí.

So sensitive was the
author-artist to the vibrations that emanate from the spots which have been
frequented by the Holy Messengers and Martyrs, that she was irresistibly drawn
to an obscure path that led to a small dome-shaped dwelling, and I recall
poignantly her joy when she learned from a peasant that it was the traditional
site of the home of Mary of Magdala.

Perusing this book one is carried
back two thousand years, into the soul and consciousness of Mary, the
Magdalen — into that flaming heart of the archetypal woman of all cycles,
vessel created to receive in torrential measure the love of her Lord — a
link between His heart and all aspiring humanity.

This is, in very truth, the
age-long drama at its apogee of the evolving soul emerging from the prison of
the lesser love, through the fiery crucible of agony, to the freedom and
ecstasy of love divine.

— Marguerite
"Daisy" Pumpelly Smyth

I

ON THE GREAT DAY, the piping of a
shepherd woke me at dawn. I sprang up alarmed, for the shrill notes came from
just below my casement and Novatus still lay beside me. Praise God, he was a
sound sleeper!

Ah, I know who this is, I
thought. How dare John seek me out here...and at such an hour! Is he playing a
trick to anger Novatus with me? Or has he no sense at all?

I cast an anxious glance at my
lover's face, so comely in its swarthiness that for a moment I lingered. That
dear head on the pillow...the clustered hair curved to his temples, fitting their
breadth in dark angles; the upturned crescent of the brow; that mouth...a
quivering wound...the long oval cheeks flushed with sleep....

Again a high note fluted from the
garden.

This piping must stop, I thought.
And I slipped from the couch, snatched up a robe to cover my body and tip-toed
stealthily to the casement.

"John! Novatus is here. Do you
wish to bring trouble upon me? I would not anger or hurt Novatus if you could
give me the whole world."

The shepherd lifted his eyes to
me, liquid eyes, burning madly in their large orbits, and now there was a great
flame in them...which vexed me!

"I can give you better than the
world, Mary. I have a better gift for you this day."

I leaned through the casement. I
stretched forth my hand.

"Give it to me quickly then."

"But it might take long for you
to believe me."

This was too laggardly and I
frowned as I leaned lower.

"If it is something to be told,
tell it quickly."

"In a word then...Messiah has come!
I have seen Him, Mary. I want you, too, to see that beauty."

Now John, these past six years,
by one means or another, had sought to disturb my happy life, for he deemed it
sinful. Wherefore I laughed, to tease him.

"Is He as beautiful as my
beloved?"

John's smile glistened.

"Come and see!"

Over his shoulder as he turned to
go he whispered his last message: "On the mount above the city. At sundown. You
can trace him by the multitude
that follows."

"Come and see." "Come and see."
All day the words rang in my heart...a bell, waking the Hebrew woman in me, the child
of my mother, calling up memories....

A little dome shaped house on the
shore of Magdala. A woman, death written upon her, a young maid at her knee,
and a shepherd lad of the Essenes, the beautiful John of Capernaum. The woman,
my beloved mother, reading to us from a scroll. Again I could hear John say: "Truly,
from all these signs and dates, Messiah is due." And then my mother: "Remember,
John, He will come, not as a warrior, not, as the people think, to deliver
Judea from Rome, but as Enoch's Messiah, the Lord of the Spirits, the
Messenger, descended from a high realm to 'free the whole earth from fetters of
darkness.' Yet...remember, too, the warning of Enoch, that 'Men will believe the
Lord to be one with themselves and will see not the splendour wherewith God
hath clothed Him'...till too late."

Novatus himself could not have
kept me from the mount that night. Not that I yet believed John's words, but...if
he spoke the truth...no woman of Israel could let Messiah's day pass her by.

I had never deceived Novatus,
wherefore I told him frankly of the shepherd's message at dawn. This I had
feared to do and it took a load from me when he laughed.

"A pastoral?" he mocked, with
lifted brows and a flicker of fun on his lips. He could look so droll, my dear
one! Then, as I urged him to go to the mount with me, emboldened to do this by
his good mood: "Go yourself, my Mary. Sit with your prophet under your tree!
His wisdom," he deigned to say, "I shall hear later from you. I prefer it from
your sweet mouth."

Had I but left it at that! I know
not what madness it was in me that day that robbed me of all my arts. To my
beloved Gentile, general of the Roman legions in Judea, half-brother to Rome's
philosopher, Seneca, I quoted our Scriptures to prove our Messiah. In the end, wearied,
he broke forth:

"Oh, abandon such follies, Mary...prophets
and prophecies, visions, miraculous persons. Why must the world always have its
gods...crutches to lean upon! Strange how we pass unthinking, from one trivial
phase to another, never coming out into anything clear."

At sundown I climbed the hill
behind Tiberias, below me the roofs of houses, black steps to the sea; above,
on its pine-clad crest...a rabble! Drawing nearer, I saw their rough beards,
their coarse mantles. They were busily chattering...like magpies. I thought: "He
is not yet here. And...is this John's
multitude? This the following of the
Messiah...of the Lord of Spirits?"

Then through the rabble strode
John, and I saw he was searching the road, and also...because of the fire in his
eyes and his gravity...that it was not for me he searched. But as I climbed among
the rocks, my yellow tunic so bright in the sun that none could fail to see me,
his look singled me out and he came to me. Silent, he took my hand and led me
through the midst of those ill-smelling ones, who now turned hundreds of
curious eyes upon me, to where, upon a stone, two women sat. And as I
approached these women whose faces, framed in the length of dark veils, glowed
with an unearthly light, I crossed the boundary of a new world.

John turned first to the taller
of the two, the one with the strong and high-boned face, but with a mien so
gentle it seemed to give forth fragrance.

"O holy mother," thus he
addressed her, so that I knew her at once for the mother of Him I had come to see,
"this is my friend from childhood, Mary of Magdala. And this" — now John
spoke to me, but looked toward the other, younger woman, who was small, her
features chiseled so fine that light seemed to filter through them, her lips
moulded in a secret smile — "this is yet another Mary who has come hither
from Bethany to be near the Lord."

They rose. Each took me in their
arms and kissed me, and it was as if I had been kissed by angels. And when
again they seated themselves, I, Mary of Magdala, known as a sinner, sank to
the ground in my fine linen to sit upon clay and stubble at their feet.

And there I asked of the mother
what name she had given her Son and she told me His name was Jesus.

He came not by the road, but, all
unexpected, through the olive grove. Nor could I have seen his approach from where I sat, with my
back to the grove and my eyes lifted to His mother's face.

Now this mother rose.

"See! The Lord," she said.

I turned. Coming forth from the
olive grove, thrusting aside a branch that He might have free passageway,
strode one so mighty that my heart cried out, King of Men! Lion of the tribe of Judah! I spoke in my heart, for
no word could I have uttered.

And yet...was this "the Lord of
Spirits,"...this strong man, this man of vigorous body, of hawk-like face? True,
His head stood erect from His spine with a majesty greater than that of any
king. True, in that hawk's face the brow was moulded to ineffable compassion,
and above the hollows in His heart-shaped cheeks splendour flashed from his
eyes. But He was flesh and bone and blood, clad in rough homespun, and His
sandals were soiled from the dust of the road. Heated by the climb up the steep
mount, He thrust back his head-cloth from His sweating forehead and, under its akal, twisted up His hair at the neck.
And as I thought on these things, He stepped forward with the restless tread of
a lion. and His glance fell on me...and pierced me like a sword. Then I knew that
from such eyes nothing in the heart could be hid. Shamed, I looked away, but
His steadfast gaze drew my eyes back to His. And my heart took fright at their
holiness and the unearthly love that shone in them.

Ah! Who could this be but the
Lord of Spirits? Who else could press upon the mortal heart such a weight of
love as its frailty could not bear? Of a nature too high for the little heart
of desire?

Once more I turned away,
rejecting this love. Regally, He passed.

He moved to a clearing where
stood a tall pine tree, beneath which He seated Himself. And there for a little
He sat in silence, upright and still, while the hushed people gathered around
Him. And when all were assembled He turned His face toward them and I saw it
lit with an enchanted smile.

"Are you happy?"

And as He began to speak I heard
a voice swinging like to music, with a sound even as the wind of unknown
source. He was full of grace and winning, for the while He taught He gestured
not as the rabbis, with pointed finger, but with hands outspread, palms upward,
in sweet persuasion.

Of peace Jesus spoke, the peace
of the Kingdom of God, which He told us was the true peace. But He said this
peace could be established even in the kingdoms of our earthly world. For as
bronze when brightly burnished reflects the radiant sun, so the heart of man if
it be untarnished can flash to earth in one moment the Kingdom of God and all
the glory thereof. And as I harkened to His words, wings in me spread for
flight.

Now He rose to his feet and paced that circle of
people, holding speech with them one by one. And I saw with what meekness each
waited his turn, with hands crossed on the breast and bowed head, or with eyes
full of tears lifted to his Lord's face.

To some He spoke jestingly. To a
haggard woman who stood with a young maid beside her, He said: "Are you pleased
with your daughter, O Leah? Pleased now? When next you have to complain of her,
come and complain to me and I will do the chastising!" And He bent on the maid
a tender, mirthful look.

Like to a boisterous wind He was
in His laughter, and witty phrases fell from His lips. And again I said within
myself: Can this be the Lord of Spirits? He is man. Such a man as I never beheld, but man.

Now He drew nigh to His mother
and Mary of Bethany and me. And His mother and Mary fell on their knees in His
path. But I...I stood struck to stone. Wherefore He passed me by with but a
merciful smile. And my heart grieved for that He had passed and I yearned for a
word from Him.

He turned to go down the hill,
twelve men following Him. And I saw from the back His swaying gait, the strong
tramping of His feet, the restless might of His body and the grace of His
garments wrapping it as He strode. And I thought: Lion in the cage of flesh! Lower
and lower He sank on the rocky levels, till a turn in the path far below
snatched Him from my sight. And I was aware of a great loss and that the hill
was stark without Him.

II

BACK TO THE VILLA I hastened,
eager to tell Novatus, should he still be there, that in this man Jesus was a
greatness worth his seeing. But having repented my folly of the morning when my
zeal had wearied my dear Roman, I would leave it to him now to speak first.

I found him reclining in the
portico waiting to sup with me and we went together to the triclinium — a
pleasant place, cool and pillared and built of white marble. Black panels were
frescoed on its walls and in each a Bacchante soared with a cup. Novatus
himself had designed this dining-hall, wherefore it had beauty...which he loved.

Now, as we sat at the table, I
waited from one course to another for my lover to ask me concerning Jesus.
Then, since he asked not, I thought: It is because the slaves are here. Later
he will surely question me, if for no reason save that he is curious...or,
mayhap, a little jealous.

But out in the portico again he
did but fondle me. Twining my hair through his fingers: "Your hair is spun
amber, rollicking in curls. Your face..." he uptilted it... "a luscious fruit. Your
eyes? They are Sybil's eyes. Can you read me the future, Mary? Nay, you need
not, for I know it! Your lips....your lips...pomegranate wine...." And he played upon
me as if I were a harp and he a deft musician.

Now when morning was come I found
myself greatly torn in spirit. The mount overshadowing my villa seemed to have
taken on life and to be brooding, conscious, above me, a centre for the
diffusion of unearthly fragrance which reached me as a gentle breeze and drew...drew
me. My heart burned to return to its summit, but for Novatus' sake I dare not.
Last night when I had hastened him, eager to tell him of Jesus, he had
disdained to hear, and in his silence I had caught a warning. For the first
time I felt the bondage of his love and I chafed against it, for to seek Jesus
again had become my utmost need.

This man Jesus...He was too much
man to be Lord of Spirits...still...a chain had been forged betwixt His greatness
and my nothingness, and through that chain ran a power that pulled me back to
Him. Moreover, I knew not yet...and this I must know...if Jesus were indeed
Messiah, or some false prophet to be forgot...put out from this heart that was
now so troubled by him. Could I
but see Him once more! Could I but ease this heart tonight...!

In the cool of the day Novatus
was ever with me; wherefore to slip from the house in secret would be well-nigh
impossible, even, had such been my wont. I saw but one course: to be frank with
my dear lover and tell him I wished to go to the mount again and beg that he go
with me.

In the cool of the day Novatus
was ever with me; hence to slip from the house in secret would be well-nigh
impossible, even, had such been my wont. I saw but one course, to be frank with
my dear lover and tell him I wished to go to the mount again and beg that he go
with me.

And so, as we rested in the
colonnade after our mid-day meal, I led up to this artfully.

Concerning greatness, I asked:
How was it that some were born to it, their natures so compounded of it that
they shed a glamour about them and their very destiny seemed charmed, while
others for all their striving could attain not to this heaven-born thing?

He looked on me in his
world-weary way.

"Greatness is all outside of life
and not in it, Mary."

"Ah, that cannot be, dear one. In
all that befalls even if it be not good, I see a thread of beauty."

"No," he laughed, "life is a
round of jests. Mary, we creatures are but thin soil, and something is ever
occurring to prove this to us. Rock covered with thin soil."

"Novatus, I have thought that
even as in the womb the babe forms eyes and ears and all that it needs for use
when it comes forth, so we have hidden within us another sight and hearing and
new virtues, the use of which we know not in this world."

"But I am speaking of this world."

"Can we not get above this world
even while we are in it?"

"Mortals are not gods! Nay" — and
he sighed — "we are shallow vessels...of clay. Nothing enters in very deep
and nothing very wonderful happens. Even tragedy is but the result of something
being ill-timed."

"But yesterday, my Novatus, when
I saw Jesus I did see greatness. To me He was like to a mountain catching the
sun's first rays. I would have you see this too, beloved. For my own part I
long to make sure if He be verily Messiah. Will you not take me to Him tonight?"

"Nay, Mary, tonight I must be
busy. But you...you go. You need me not," he laughed. "A prophet can do no harm."

Thus once more I came to Jesus on
the rocky summit, in the midst of His multitude. Again He was seated beneath
the pine tree. Again I saw that mighty head, those eyes like to jewels in deep-hollowed
settings, that smile — a heady cup. Again I heard the chime of His voice: "Grace
and welcome unto you. Are you happy?"

So wedged were the people
together that I could find neither John nor those two women who had seemed like
angels. I was swallowed up in the crowd and it stank around me and some men
spat. I felt a little sick. Then tall men pushed to the front of me and Jesus
Himself was shut from my view.

Now He began to speak. He told us
the meek were blessed, for they should inherit the earth; the merciful were
blessed for they should obtain mercy; the pure in heart were blessed...they
should see God...and those whom men reviled for that they believed on Him, those
were greatly blessed and their reward was in Heaven.

And walled up in that roughness
and those stale odors, and wretched and faint with sickness, I said in my
heart:

What is all this? Meek creatures
never inherit anything! The merciful obtain not mercy. To my slaves I am too
merciful so that they flout me. Novatus, when young, had great merciful
thoughts towards the common people in Rome and for this he well-nigh lost his
life. And who can see God? Has not a prophet said that were we to look on Him
we would die? Moreover, the slandered, the persecuted...it is foolishness to call
these blessed. Are they then never to have peace on earth and naught but a
reward in heaven? What indeed has this Jesus to offer but trouble...to such as
would follow Him? This teaching is a gloomy thing. His face must have cast a
spell on me last night, for now that I cannot see it, I like not his words.

But words still harsher fell on
my ears.

"Every man that looks on a woman
to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart...."

"If your right eye offends you,
pluck it out and cast it from you."

I would hear no more! This Jesus
was much too stern in His judgment for me. Pluck out my eye, indeed...or...pluck
out my love for Novatus from my heart! Was this then adultery between him and
me? Nay, I knew it was not. And my Novatus was kind in judgment. I remembered
words of his of a gentle charity for which I had loved him the better as he
spoke them: "All these poor creatures who come our way, come with their excuses
hanging round their necks."

I edged through the crowd and
climbed down the hill alone. Yet, as I slid from rock to rock, my heart was
heavy and sore and I felt bereft, as one who has lost a great treasure.

III

TO THE MOUNT I went no more. And
soon Novatus and I were on our way to Jerusalem, where oft his duties held him
for the space of months, and where, on the Mount of Olives, I had a villa
– given me by my beloved.

A sweet villa this, I called it
my "House of the Sportive Loves," for the friezes along its walls on golden
panels were of rows of playful cupids, tipping scales in a merchant's booth
full of sealed packets, up to mischief with bows and darts, or marching with gifts — a
looped garland of flowers, urns of clustered fruits.

The villa was old, built in the
days when Rome first occupied Judea. On a stone at its entrance was inscribed "Salve"
[Lit., Hail] — relic of a more hospitable owner, for Mary of Magdala had
but one guest. The floor of the atrium, tiled in black and yellow, was worn
from the passing of many feet, and at its center a pool gleamed, bordered by myrtle.
My chamber was paneled in scarlet and painted with landscapes and birds, and
masks tragic and comic, and its hangings were of Tyrian hue. It looked on an
unkempt garden where cupids in marble stood out against cypresses and cedars,
and a fountain like to a small silver tree blew in the midst. I loved my villa
well.

And here now Novatus and I
revelled in unclouded happiness...though times there were when Jesus strode into
my thoughts, whereupon I quickly let down a curtain to shut Him out.

And then one night I dreamed.

In my dream I stood on the mount
above Tiberias with an invisible one who whispered to me: "He is coming." Then
I saw Jesus midst the olive trees. And now His garments were white and
glistening and His face like unto a lamp. And the invisible one said: "This is
a Beauty to die for."

Awaking, I marvelled at the
dream, and again my heart was sore troubled by Jesus, and again I felt that
chain and the power flowing through it.

Once more I dreamed. In this
second dream I was a captive in fetters, walking behind Novatus' chariot, my
feet bleeding on cobble-stones. Then this picture vanished and I saw another.
Here, deep in a bottomless chasm, I was climbing the rough stones of its wall
toward crags open to the sky, affrighted and weeping...when wings swooped down
upon me and flew with me into a golden void. And I saw, standing upon the air,
a great Being in shiny robes, having the face of Jesus. And while He looked
steadfastly on me, with a love that glowed and swelled upon me even as light
swells forth between bright clouds, He drew from the folds of His robe a white
veil and laid it upon my head and wound it about my cheeks and throat, and His
fingers stung me where they touched. And when I awoke from this dream, my head
and throat still tingled.

Now I felt a madness to see
Jesus. Yet to Novatus I dared not speak of this. A knowledge in my heart
forbade me. And times there were when fear smote me. For should this man in
Galilee who could draw my soul across miles to Him, who, while still in
Galilee, had looked on me out of the sky...should He be verily Messiah, what
choice had I but to follow Him? And should my beloved not follow with me...I
dared look no further.

Now I dreamed these dreams, one
upon another, on the eve of starting with our household for Tiberias. It was
then late spring.

The camels were loaded and at dawn
one day our caravan set forth, my dear lover and I in one litter, borne by the
slaves.

A fair land is Palestine, all but
shadowless in the morning light. The colours of its bosom are all pale...pale
henna, pale grey, pale brown, pale green and the soft yellow of maize...the thick
pebbling on its hillsides, white.

We jogged through Judea, peaceful
beneath its vineyards, guarded by round watch-towers. We came to the hill
country, where strange mountains rise, striped round the summits with ridges of
chalky white — having the look of coiled serpents — and, where farther
mountains, low-lying, tawny, like unto great crouched beasts, mark the boundary
of Samaria. We went on past Shiloh and by nightfall reached old Shechem, wedged
between two hoary mountains, the Mount of Blessing, the Mount of Cursing. There
we rested at the caravansary, and, in the morning, set forth again.

The henna-coloured tents of the
hills of Gilboa soared into view, then the round summit of Tabor, like to a
rising purple moon above a low spiking of crags; and by starlight we looked
from a height on the ruffled sea
of Galilee.

Now I was in Tiberias, but where
to find Jesus I knew not. None had told me where He dwelt. John's home was in
Capernaum, but of him I could not ask, since I would go not in secret to him.
There was naught to do but wait till by some happy chance news reached me.

Then one day as I stood at a booth
in the bazaar I saw Mary of Bethany in the distance treading her delicate way
among the pedlars, who shouted up and down the vaulted street, their baskets of
wares on their heads. Touching my wrist with her fingers and looking on me with
eyes full of light, she said: "This meeting is blessed." And at that touch and
look my heart was strangely stirred.

"Does Jesus still speak on the
mount?" I asked of her.

"Yes, He is here again, Mary."

Now when I went to my villa and
joined Novatus in the peristyle I took my courage in my hands and spoke out
boldly to him.

"My love," I said, "Jesus is here
and I am going at sundown to the mount. Would you not...."

But he shook his head.

"The Proconsul expects me at
sundown. I will return and wait here for you." Then he added with banter in his
tone, but a stiff smile on his lips, "I thought your prophet displeased you
that last time."

"I wish to assure myself,
Novatus, for truly this is no light thing," I said. "You have heard many times
of our Promised One. Think on this promise, I beg of you. For should you come
to believe in its truth and find that Jesus fulfilled it, that great hope of
your youth would also be fulfilled. More than fulfilled. Your hope was to see
the true glory of Rome restored, the virtues of the great republic. Messiah is
to restore a world!"

"Mary, this is but a built-up
dream. As for my own early dream" — he spoke sadly — "I have long since
come to see that man is a hopeless product of...we know not what, save nature,
and the existence of the gods but a concoction of his own mind."

IV

SO AGAIN I CLIMBED alone to that
summit. Now I chose another way, that I might avoid the multitude, and thus
came out upon the hill-top with my face toward the people. Wherefore it was a
simple thing to find the mother of Jesus and Mary of Bethany. As on that first
day they were seated on a rock apart from the others, and again I sank to the
ground at their feet.

Jesus had begun to speak. Today
He sat not beneath the tree, but with that straight majesty, hands clasped at
His back, He moved to and fro before the people, His speech flowing forth as a
life-giving shower.

Love, He said, was the greatest
law in this vast universe of God. It beat betwixt the realities of all things.
It beat betwixt the stars. (He took up a pebble and held it out on His palm.)
It beat betwixt the particles in this very stone and made of the stone a solid.
In the inner world of spirit it was like to a waving sea and the cares of all
men's hearts as drops of the sea. In the inner world it was the bond joining creator with creature. But, alas, the stranger...the
little self...had usurped the hearts of most men and sealed them against this
inflow of love. Whereas God, the Friend, had chosen the heart to be His own
home. Earth and heaven were as His garden, but the heart of man His
dwelling-place. Should His love reign in any heart, imperishable power would
radiate therefrom. This was eternal life. And when such life quickened all men
and the love of God linked hearts...even as it linked the stars throughout the
firmament, the atoms in this little stone...then verily would God's kingdom appear in the mortal world. And
the King Himself would be manifest in the midst like a resplendent sun.

And He ended thus, while my heart
became drunken as from a goblet of strong wine: "A moth loves the light, though
it burn his wings. Though he singes his wings he throws himself into the flame.
He loves not the light for that it confers benefit upon him. He loves it for
itself alone. Wherefore he hovers around the light, though he sacrifice his
wings."

Now the while Jesus spoke I had
observed a youth nearby, standing apart in a clearing, his eyes, gentle as a
doe's, fixed upon that holy face. Oft had I seen this youth in Tiberias, and I
knew him to be a prince of Israel. A strange figure he made against the dingy
rabble. The fillet binding his head cloth was of gold, his tunic of a rich
striped stuff and he wore gold bracelets on his upper arms. And no sooner had
Jesus ceased than this youth came quickly toward Him and, standing with modest
mien before Him, said: "Good Master, what shall I do to have this eternal life?"

Now Jesus had stretched forth His
hands and seized the hand of the youth in a firm grip which He relaxed not the
while He answered, and I saw that His eyes were full of great compassion as He
looked down on the prince.

He said: "If you would enter into
the life, keep the commandments."

"Which?" asked the youth.

"Thou shalt not kill," said
Jesus, and His voice rang as in a chant. "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou
shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy
mother. And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self."

"But," said the youth, raising
earnest eyes to Jesus, "all these things I do observe. What lack I yet?"

"Ah-h!" smiled Jesus, "if you
would be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you shall
have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me."

Will he do it...oh, will he do it?
My dream came back to me, "This is a Beauty to die for." And I leaned forward
in my eagerness and watched the young face closely. Which would he choose: — to
keep his poor baubles...nay, (for the choice meant more than this) to keep
friends and kin? Or would he dare cast all aside for this eternal love and life
that now stood in human form before him? Which...which would he choose? It seemed
I scarce could bear this silence.

The eyes of the prince fell
before the steadfast look of Jesus, who smiled the while He waited. Then shame
overspread the youthful face, as of one who knows not what to say. And sadly he
turned about and went.

Now when he was gone, Jesus came
first to those of us who stood near — twelve men and we three women — and
in His eyes was so great a sorrow that it seemed I saw God sorrowing.

"It is hard for a rich man to
enter the Kingdom of Heaven," He said. "Verily it is easier" ...and He smiled
again, albeit faintly, "for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle."

"But who then can be saved?"
asked one of the twelve men.

And another: "Did he not say he
observed the commandments?"

Jesus looked upon these and
gently answered: "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are
possible."

Now a third man spoke up.

"We have left all and followed
you. What shall we have?"

And this speech affronted me, for
I thought: Who gives, gives and asks
nothing.

But Jesus took up the words with
mercy and a promise whereat I marvelled, having seen and heard such men:

"In the day of the Re-birth, when
the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that has left
for my sake homes or brethren or sisters or father or mother or land shall
receive an hundredfold and shall inherit eternal life."

I whispered in His mother's ear: "Might
I speak with Him in secret?"

Ah, He could have my life!
Tonight I would fling it at His feet. One thing alone would I ask...that my lover
might wake to the knowledge of God and belief in Him, the Messiah. Messiah...had
I said the word? Well, now I knew...knew beyond doubt. Yet how had I passed to
this certainty, that Jesus was Messiah?

I would pray then tonight at
Messiah's feet that Novatus too might throw his life to the winds to serve the
Promised One with me. Had not Jesus said that very day that with God all things
are possible? And this was not wrong to ask. Nay, it was but the way of love
that prayed not for self alone. Moreover, what a great servant would Jesus gain
in Novatus...he who was called "the golden-tongued" and who wielded such power in
Rome. And my Novatus was not as this other prince, for when he gave...he gave all. Free and fearless
was Novatus, and by nature, as well as birth, noble.

The mother and I found Jesus
resting in the house of a believer. In a white-walled chamber lit by a
flickering taper He lay on a mat, His head pillowed on His arm. His eyes were
closed and that high-boned face, framed by the black bands of His locks, was
still as death. The mother led me softly in and we sat on the floor for a long
time, while Jesus stirred not. But the air in the room was astir! It was as
though incense burned there and an invisible life pulsed all about me. And I knew
not whether Jesus slept...or prayed. And as I sat, my eyes fixed on His pure
profile, I became aware that this dancing life was entering into me and that it
was opening my heart. I felt my heart open like to a rose in sunlight. Then I
felt a sunbeam stab it. My hand went to my heart and I sighed and closed my
eyes. When I looked again...lo! Jesus had risen and was standing above me, gazing
down. And now my opened heart burned as He gazed. He smiled and held out His
hands to me.

"Welcome! Welcome!" He said. And
His tones were so tender that my tears sprang.

I crept to His feet and knelt
before Him, for now I knew that I was at the mercy-seat. And shameless of my
tears, shameless of aught that was in me, I threw back my head and gazed up at
His beauty. Wherefore my veil fell to my shoulders, leaving all my hair
uncovered. Then Jesus, smiling, stooped and said: "I will cover your head
myself, my daughter."

And with fingers that thrilled me
where they touched, he wound my veil
about my cheeks, my throat.

"O Rabboni," I cried, "this...this
is not the first time...."

"Nay," He smiled, "verily this is
not the first time...nor yet the last."

Now so awed was I before His
mystery that I bowed my face on His feet. And again from above I heard the
tender tones: "What would you ask of me, Mary? Speak to me."

A new desire burned within me,
burst into flame in my heart...and I knew I should find no rest till I had died
for Him.

"In another dream, O Lord, I saw
your face and a voice said: 'This is a Beauty to die for.' "

Fire flashed from His eyes.

"That was a true vision and you
shall see it again."

"Then I may die for you?"

I looked up to behold Him — His
hands raised in blessing above my head, His face uplifted in prayer, His eyes
closed, His lips apart. Then He held my head against His heart...and I, Mary
Magdala, heard the heart of Jesus beat.

"For this," He said at last, and
I knew He meant the offer of my life, "you are accepted in the Kingdom. Go now.
I will send for you."

V

IT WAS LATE to be alone in the
streets, dark and deserted at this hour. I sped through a labyrinth of narrow
ways, flanked crookedly by black houses, and, timorous though I was, a song
sang itself in my heart as I ran — "I will send for you. I will send for
you."

Ah, when would He send for me? Must I wait to be summoned ere I taste
again the new wine of His presence? Was not the mount free to all? Might I not
follow with the multitude — unsummoned? I asked not to be seen or heeded by
Jesus...only to see, to heed, only to breathe the air He breathed. Mayhap...when
Novatus heard what I have to tell tonight, he too would go....

Novatus! I spoke the name aloud.
I stood still in the street. Till this moment I had forgotten him! And...that
prayer: that my dear beloved wake to the light of this new day and
share the love of its Sun with me...my heart had been full of it when I sought
Jesus. So much had hung on the granting of it...great issues...our very happiness...how
could I have forgot that prayer? Why...Jesus Himself had minded me of it! Had He
not said: "What would you ask of me, Mary?" He had given me leave then to ask
what I would, and I could think of naught else, with His glory shining down
upon me, but that I would die for such divinity. As I uttered those words: "Then
I may die for you?" — my mind, my will spoke them not. Nay, they upwelled
from depths unknown within me, called forth by that Mystery smiling on me
through the lips and eyes of Jesus. And He had accepted my life, even unto
death for His sake. Had I then taken a step...never to be re-traced...away from my
beloved? Alone in this dark alley, free of the magic of Jesus' presence, my
heart still burned to die for Him. But could love like to this part me from Novatus? No, ah no! Jesus was kind!

Before me at last stood our
villa, its marble in the midst of palm trees pale blue in the night. And, as I
approached the gate, I saw Novatus emerging from it.

"Mary! I have been hunting the
whole mount for you. Gods, but it is good to have you back, unharmed."

His arm around me, we entered the
atrium. In the light of the lamps he turned me about and with a keen look
searched my face. And I saw that deep in his eyes were points of torment.

"Ah, Mary, the fear I had lost
you made this clear to me," he said: "I would rather lose the whole world."

"Lose me, O beloved," I cried, smitten to the heart by his words and by
that look. "Am I then separate from you to be lost? Nay, we are so
interthreaded, you and I, fibre with fibre, that there is no such thing as you
and I, but to me...only you."

We turned our steps toward the
triclinium. Now surely, I thought, he will ask the reason of my delay and thus
start me on my wondrous tale. But again he deigned not to question me; nay,
when we were seated at our late supper, both reclining on the one couch, rather
he increased his ardor, spent his full charm in witty cajoleries, smiling upon
me...and when Novatus smiled it put me in mind of a great song. Yet though he
jested, still in his eyes flickered those points of torment. And as ever I
admired my lover for that he could mask his heart so well.

"There are three things that
cannot be hid" — his tender gaze plumbed mine — "a man on a camel, a
woman great with child, and...love!"

And when I cupped his face in my
hands and kissed him: "Oh, Mary, you are love itself. To kiss your lips is to
worship in a temple."

And though I knew well he
worshipped in no temple, I also knew he spoke as a poet and his words were
sweet to me.

From Novatus came in waves the
strength and seduction of warm earth. With his winged black brows, those eyes
of blue fire, that mouth like a crimson wound, the fine lips prone to quiver
when a rush of feeling shook his firm control, he was, as none I ever knew,
disturbing.

We went and reclined in the
atrium, its columns rising high above us; on the frescoed walls, Trojan battles
and Odyssean victories. And the spell of my lover and the spell of Rome stole
like a sleeping-draught into my veins. That face above me...so hungry...in its
dusky cap of circlet-bound curls, weighed down upon me, a focus like to a
burning-glass of all human love and passion, blotting out (alas, how could it
be?) — the holy majesty of Jesus.

"See what I have brought you,
Mary," and Novatus pressed into my hand an alabaster tear-jar from which exuded
a fragrance as of flowers at dawn. "Nard for you, beloved," he whispered, "nard
for your sweet body tonight."

On the morrow Novatus sought me,
bringing news. A matter of great urgency, he said, had recalled him to
Jerusalem. Would I make haste to pack? We were to journey on camels as speed
was imperative. Wherefore, when sundown came, I found myself far from that
hallowed mount in Galilee. The sun set for me that day behind the bleak
Samarian hills.

We broke our journey at Shechem
to rest for the night in its old caravansary; and as I lay in a great vaulted
chamber, pressed to my lover's heart, in the dark I heard him whisper;

"My whole life centers in you, O my
Mary. Without you, I exist not."

Alone with him I loved above all
earthly things, but bereft of that unearthly One who had opened to me the gates
of another Kingdom...what was this new loneliness?

I no longer dared speak Jesus'
name, for once when I did, Novatus had muttered an oath beneath his breath.
Wherefore, for the first time, I had a life separate from my beloved, a sweet
secret world wherein I would hide to worship my Lord. And Novatus sensed this
and feared and hated it.

Oh the pity of that blind fear!
Now I but loved him the more, with a quickened passion, tenacious as it had
never been, and a deeper, more poignant tenderness. For now I understood those words
of Jesus, "I will send for you." From Galilee to Jerusalem would He send — I
knew not how soon. And when such a call should come, what could I do but obey
it, though it tear me forever from my beloved?

Here, verily, was a cause of
fear, had Novatus but known it. But this too I must keep hid from him, a guilty
secret, gnawing at my heart, clutching it now and again with a grip so fierce
that I thought at such times I was dying.

Could I but prove to my poor
Novatus that my love for the holy Jesus had naught to do with human love, but
was in a realm apart, like to the worship of God, the burning of incense in a
temple! This foolish, impious jealousy was no more than an evil dream. Could I
but wake my beloved...while there was yet time!

Opportunity slipped with the
passing days. At last I dared wait no longer to speak out the truth though
against the barriers of that stubborn will, I know not how I should reach him.

One night as we sat in the porch,
looking out on a dusky wall of cedars and cypress trees, while my fountain
tinkled in the starlight, Novatus being in a tender mood and sitting with an
arm around me, I ventured upon my theme.

"Dear one," I whispered, "no word
you have ever said to me is forgot. By your words my mind has grown. And once...we
talked of tragedy. This, you said, was but the result of something being ill-timed.
But what of the scars of tragedy on the heart?"

He stiffened, for he knew me as I
knew him.

"They are never very deep. Take
the emotions. Though the relation be the closest, the loved one is certain to
be replaced by another if all things go not well."

So...he would threaten me!

"Should aught go wrong between
us, Novatus, there would be none other for me. And naught could go wrong if you
would but hear me. Jesus..." (at the name his lips curled; he withdrew his arm from
my shoulder) "...Jesus to me is Messiah,
whom one loves not with body but with the soul."

"You cannot, Mary, divide
yourself up in this way! Mind and body are one whole. You deceive yourself, my
child."

"Oh, listen, Novatus! Open your
mind. Try, try to think with the Jew. One thing wherefore I have loved you is
your gift of sympathy. Why withhold it...now...from me? Think of the faith I imbibed even with my mother's
milk. Consider this: I have been schooled all my life in one great Expectation,
the coming of the Messiah, and all my life this Expected One has been as a
living Person to me and I have loved Him...as I loved God. Long ere I saw Him living
in Jesus I loved Him. I look upon Jesus not as man, Novatus. To me He is Lord
of men, the holy Messenger of God, sent down upon earth with great power to
free this cruel, benighted age from its fetters of darkness."

He had heard me thus far with
cold impatience; now he broke:

"Fetters of darkness! The Hebrew
mind has a morbid twist, Mary. And I wonder that your Greek blood from your
father, philosopher that he was, rises not up against this. We live, dear child,
far removed from a dark age. Ours is the age of enlightenment, an age of clear
thinking, science, art. The arts of the Muses, the sciences of construction,
such as the past never knew, whether it be the construction of temple or
circus, aqueduct or government. All this...and this, I maintain is light...the civilization of Rome is
spreading throughout the world. Rome may be power-mad but she builds in
untrodden places. You are vague, my Mary. Define 'darkness.' "

"I think conquest is darkness, O
Novatus. I think war is darkness."

"But through conquest, I repeat,
Rome is spreading enlightenment throughout the world. And war is essential to
the strong nation. Without war the nation becomes, like the Greeks, effete."

"I cannot argue on such things
beloved. But I will tell you another form of darkness. It has come to me that
even love may weld fetters of darkness."

I know not why I spoke such words
unless from the carelessness of despair. They struck fire from my poor Novatus.

"What is this fanatic strain in
your race through which it falls easy prey to rebels whom you call prophets? And
you of all others, Mary! What would you do midst a dirty mob, trailing a
vagabond? What would you do without roof or bed, crawling into some cave by night
to sleep on clay...this delicate raiment" — he pinched up a fold of my tunic — "shredding
into rags? Nay, think you I would brook this while I lived? There are ways, my
Mary, to guard you from yourself. Rome has small use for rebels."

I met his eyes unafraid, and at
this the anger went out of him. Pleading stole into his voice.

"Mary, mistake not for lust that
which is love. Love to me is that awe wherewith one regards the sacredness of
another's person. And it is this I feel for you. Mary...till I met your loveliness
I had never known anything but lust. But when I saw you, a flame in you burned
through my hard fibre and — if you would know the truth — woke in me
something I cannot name; you might name it spirit. That day I found you...darling...so
young, scarce more than a child...alone in the door of an empty house, weeping
for your dead mother...."

"Ah, yes, that day when you came
down the path to water your horse in the sea."

"That day, my child. I knew that
never till then had there been any reality in my life. Yes, what you call
spirit, I call reality. And reality to me is what I can touch...feel."

His face yearned upon me. In pity
and passion woven together in too strong a mesh, I yielded to his formidable
love.

Now I knew the full cruelty of my
fate; that my heart was caught in a strait betwixt two giant loves which were
as enemies one to the other. My passion for this dear Roman I could not uproot.
My love for Jesus was a quenchless flame. In the nearness of Novatus the human
love overwhelmed the divine. The face of my so earthly lover blurred the memory
of the immortal face. The touch of the human hand, the human lips, I would
crave. And times there were when the echoes of that promise, "I will send for
you," would drive me, defiant, to the broad breast of Novatus to seek
protection there, in the bosom of this blinded creature, against a too jealous God.

Shamed was I in my soul. For one
who would throw away life, was I not holding fast to mine?

VI

RECLINING ONE DAY in my peristyle
alone (for Novatus was gone on an errand to Tiberias), I was meditating on a
dream, my heart swallowed up in fear as I re-lived it, lest it be a prophecy.

In my dream I stood wrapped in a
blue cloak beneath the great arch of the Fish Gate in Manasseh's Wall, looking
out from its mouldy shade into the glitter of noon. With jewelled hand I clasped
my veil. I faced Jerusalem. The rows of white houses enclosing the market-place,
glaring in the sun, dazzled my eyes. Of a sudden Novatus appeared in a doorway;
then crossed the square quickly toward me. He wore a red tunic banded with
purple and the golden circlet on his head ringed it with fire. His hands were
out-stretched; his face eager. I waited, my heart full in my throat.

The dream changed. Now my lover
had entered the gate, but, alas...and I knew not what this meant...he was striding
past me, seeing me not, robed for a journey in toga and white mantle, his profile
set and cold as marble. Fear laying low my pride, I cast an anguished glance
behind me, to see him in a green meadow, hand in hand with a woman. Her face I
could not see, for she too was wrapped in a cloak...a crimson cloak, the colour
of wine...or...blood. It seemed to me I died in my dream! I all but died now as a I
brooded on it.

Then it was that Mary of Bethany
came. At the sound of steps I turned. My little Greek slave stood at the door,
and in the portico, Mary. Her presence brought with it a breath from another world.
Her chastity seemed to rebuke me.

She came and sat at the foot of
my reclining chair, silent while she fixed me with a long gaze. Tears of
compassion shone in her eyes which, like to her mouth, had ever a secret look,
as of one who knows and veils a mystery.

"Mary," she breathed at last, "the
Master has sent for you."

My hand at my breast, I
stammered:

"But Novatus is away."

"This is your opportunity."

I liked not the words, though it
was she that spoke them.

"To run away would be cowardice,"
I said.

"It is your only chance to
escape."

"How poor a creature then you
think me!"

"I know your too tender, yielding
heart."

I turned from her. I rolled in
anguish. I bit my pillow.

"O God," I whispered, "to be
stronger, that what I must do I might do nobly."

"The Master knows all things,"
she said, and now she moved closer and knelt beside me and laid a soft hand on
my hand. "Today this word came from Galilee for you. And the moment of
obedience is the moment when the Lord speaks."

I rose and unclasped my jewels,
princely gifts from Novatus, and they dropped, a flashing heap, at my feet. I
stooped then and gathered them and took them to my little scarlet chamber and
laid them away in their casket. But even as I shut them from me, my eyes fell
on my jar of nard. I snatched it to me heart. A breath of ineffable fragrance
escaped its broken seal. With swooning senses I drank of its spice, remembering...remembering....
Essence of our rapture bottled in a tear-shaped jar.... No, I could not, would
not leave this! If I must be exiled from earth...dear earth!...I would take into heaven's
aridity with me this memory-evoking nard. But I hid it from those secret eyes
of Mary.

We started on our journey — oh,
immeasurable journey, from him who was the whole substance of mortal love to
me, unto the Lord-God-with-us.

Mary and I had joined a caravan
whose destination, like ours, was Capernaum, where our Lord was sojourning. We
had made the start from Mary's house in Bethany, a little white house, built of
carved tiles, with a pomegranate tree at its door. Mary's sister, Martha — that
dark, different sister — had met me with a grim face, and her brother,
Lazarus alas, with sly advances.

By now it was midsummer. The
countryside was parched and thirsty, the trees along the road powdered with
dust. In the shade of a tree here and there a leper crouched, crying out
raucously as he saw us, holding out a ghostly hand for alms, or a blind beggar sat
patient, flies swarming on his closed eyelids.

We left Judea behind, entered the
Samarian country, sighted the pointed peaks of Gilboa and the rising-moon of
Tabor; and at last, from a grassy mount, looked down on the sea of Galilee.

On the way, as we rested at an inn,
I made bold to confide in Mary, longing to bear my soul.

"Oh, Mary," thus I began, "I had
such pride in the choice of my heart. To have loved such a man.... To have so loved such a man.... Now I must deny
this love. And what will he do?"

But she broke in upon my words,
and I knew from a sudden sternness in her that she was far from love and grief
as is a star from earth.

"What is human love compared with
the divine? Man's love is no more than a mirage, or as waves that roll in upon
the shore, wave after wave, and break, and are lost."

"You have never loved!" I cried.

She raised her eyes heavenward.

"None but God," she whispered.

"How have you escaped...if you have
a heart?"

The sharp words sprang from my
lips ere I could think to withhold them, for all that was in me rebelled at
that heavenward look, that lofty answer; and I felt sad and sore because the angel
had no power to comfort me.

Softly she spoke.

"All my life, I believe, I have
been waiting for the Lord Jesus and His sacred love. Mary, the heart is never
content until it bestows itself on the highest. From my youth up I have guessed
this. Marriage meant naught to me. Then when I saw our Lord I knew why."

"But had you married with love,"
I said, "you would know that such love too is sacred, since it is veritable
oneness. Oneness of spirit, oneness of flesh...."

"Flesh?" she darted me a cold
glance.

Yes, flesh! Wherein spirit dwells
on earth...the flesh of two beings that are as one soul...."

"Mary" — she bent low to
me — "can you not drive out this stranger from your heart and truly admit
your Lord?"

I turned away despairing.

"How can I make you to see that
if there be any stranger I myself am interwoven with him. And now that we are
rent asunder can you look for less than agony? Could you cut the hand from the arm
without pain...and maiming? Could you cleave the heart in twain and still live?"

We came to Tiberias. Here I
lowered my veil, torn between terror lest I encounter Novatus and a mad desire
to turn back now, ere it be forever too late, and fly to him who was blood of
my blood, soul of my soul.

We passed brown Magdala, then
into level land, through the golden grain fields of Gennesaret. At last we
entered Capernaum. And there we traced our Lord to the house of Simon the
Pharisee, where He sat at the mid-day meal and awaited the many who came to hear
Him speak.

Following the multitude we
reached a great white mansion and, crossing its court, were borne with the
crowd up a stair leading to the second story and into a dim hall. Light
streamed through an archway — light and the strains of a chanting voice!

"Cause us to drink of the crystal
river of Thine, O Divine One!

"Cause us to walk in the garden
of Thy nearness, O Beloved!

"Cause us to attain the summit of
Paradise. Shepherd of the World!

"Make us steadfast in Thy love, O
Inspirer!"

God of my fathers...that voice! How
it struck into my heart...pierced, wounded it. As I drank even deeper of its swinging
cadences, in which a wrenched agony, as of the suffering of God, rose blended
with strains of triumph, earth with its poor delights, its puny sorrows, faded
away.

"Cause us to approach the throne
of Thy might, O Cleaver of Dawn!

Make us steadfast in Thy love, O
Inspirer!"

I could endure no more! Blind to
the throng gathered in the outer hall, blind to all but One who sat at Simon's
table, I ran through the arch to that One and cast myself down at His feet and wept...and
dared rain kisses on those holy feet.

What could I do now to pledge
myself forever to Him? Of what worth was my word? But one treasure remained to
me. I drew it from its hiding-place in my breast. Should I empty my nard,
should I shatter my jar at His feet, would He know this to be my mortal heart,
broken into fragments for His sake, and all its love spilled for Him? I drained
out the perfume to the last drop and dashed the jar upon the stones before Him.
And then I looked up...and His eyes were a fathomless mystery. So that none could
hear He bent low and whispered, "I
know." Once more I cast myself down, and His feet...so wet with my tears and my
nard...I wiped with the locks of my hair.

From afar...so it seemed to me...I
heard murmurings.

"She is weeping for her sins"...in
a woman's thin notes.

"Who is she?"

"The courtesan, Mary — famous
in Jerusalem. Once a poor maid from this neighbourhood — Magdala."

"Oh...she."

And after this the whisper of a
man.

"Why was this waste of ointment
made? For it might have been sold for more than three-hundred pence and given
to the poor."

I know not what it was that made
me to raise my head at those words and fix my eyes on that man. His whisper had
come from the seat next Jesus. Who was this that sat so near...and counted pence?
I saw a face drugged with earth.

The whispers buzzed on — now
whispers of men.

"It is polluted ointment.
Ointment used for shameful purposes."

"With this ointment she anoints
her body for her lovers...and she dares pour it on the Master's feet!"

Then the voice of Jesus Himself
lifted with authority, while upon my head I felt a hand, light as a rose-leaf,
firm as mail — and the centre of its palm burned me with its life.

"Let her alone. Why do you trouble
her? You have the poor with you always and whenever you will you can do them
good. But me you have not always. Verily, verily I tell you, that wheresoever throughout
the world this gospel shall be taught, this that she has done shall be
mentioned also as a memorial to her."

Silence, heavy with shame, hushed
that chamber; I more shamed than all to be the object of so great a bounty.
None but Jesus could break such silence. He called out now, as if to rouse one who
slept.

"Simon! Simon! I have somewhat to
say unto you."

His hands still comforted my head
and from His palm flowed life so strong that His palm was as fountain and my
body a vase to be filled from it. Wherefore, lost to all save this mystery, I heard
naught He said to Simon till I became aware He spoke of me.

"You gave me no water for my
feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair.
You gave me no kiss, but this woman since she came in has not ceased to kiss my
feet. You brought no oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with
her precious ointment. Wherefore all her sins are forgiven. For she loves much...."

I burst into sobs so wild that I
could hear no more.

And now I must be alone. To a
corner of Simon's garden I went and sat upon a stone bench, screened from the
house by tall bushes.

All my sins forgiven for this sin of loving...of a reckless spending
of my heart and counting not the cost? Did the virtues of the Kingdom then
centre in but one — unbridled love for God and all that He had made?

At a sound in the bushes I looked
up and saw a man plucking a rose. He turned. Why...this was he that had sat next
Jesus! Now he came toward me holding out the rose, his great body sinuous in its
gliding. At close hand I could observe his features. His nose hooked downward.
His mouth was a ruby crescent in his beard, his brows like a scimitar curved
across his forehead. The full ellipses of his amber-coloured eyes gloated upon
me. He smiled...as a serpent bares its fangs.

"Will you have a red rose from
me?"

"But it was you that questioned
my humble gift to Jesus."

"Your face was hid when I made
that speech! Beautiful Mary, I am Judas Iscariot, chief of the Lord's
disciples." He flung the words at me, his head tossed back, his red lips
curling.

"Chief of the Lord's disciples?
And you offer lust where your Lord gives love."

Judas' eyes flinched, his face
fell, and a look of strange despair engulfed his pride, as of one inured to
defeat, so that for a little space I pitied him...till he lifted those eyes, narrowed
with guile.

"I offer my heart, O cruel one."
Seduction lurked in his voice. "The rose, the hundred-petaled rose, Mary, is a
symbol of the heart and of the oneness of hearts."

"The nard was the symbol of my
heart offered to the Lord," I said. "With Him alone I wish oneness."

"Do you think you can have it
this way, when you scorn a fellow-creature?"

The thrust was sharp...and, alas,
true. Judas dealt it as if in soft reproach, his voice wistful. But my eyes,
piercing his mask, saw behind the secretive flesh a sinister self — like to
a column of black basalt, immovable and cold — and I gave him thrust for
thrust, though mine the worst by far.

"You, Judas, are a hypocrite. In
the Master's very presence you gossiped of my paramours. I will not trouble to
deny such slander. Yet you seek for yourself, from me, that same illicit love for which you dared judge me."

"It is you that judge me, Mary."
I marvelled at the man's patience. So deaf was he to my bold affronts that now
a dark laughter danced in his eyes. "And the Master has said, daring to jest
with holy words, " 'judge not that you be not judged.' You will have a fall,"
he chuckled in his throat. "Mark what I say, Mary of Magdala, you will have a
fall!"

Then, leaving his rose to die in
the dust of the path, he turned on his heel and went back into Simon's house...to
companion Jesus.

And I stood and grieved for that
I should hate him, when I had hoped at such a moment, fresh from the Lord's forgiveness,
to love all that God had made.

VII

AT SUNDOWN, again athirst for
solitude, I stole from our chamber at the inn, where Mary lay in a light sleep,
and set forth for the synagogue. Now the synagogue stands on that street which ends
in the highway, and when I had mounted the few steps to its court and turned to
watch the beauty of the sunset — the sky being an inverted golden bowl and
the sea a mirror to it — I saw in the distance a horseman galloping. His
face was hid in the shadow of his mantle, but that form...that form...broad in the shoulders,
lean, erect on his horse, well I knew!

Oh, to escape such a meeting! Yet
could I flee from it...from Novatus?
Nay, whatsoever the pain of it, this I would not do. I stood still, in full
view upraised on those steps, the long avenue of the colonnade behind
me — still as a statue — waiting.

Swiftly he drew nearer. Now I saw
the beetling brows below the white mantle, the oval drop of the chin, the thin
red mouth. And now I saw his eyes and the anger smouldering in them. He dismounted
and strode to my side.

"Mary" — his voice shook — "why
such a blow in the dark? You stabbed me, Mary, while I slept."

No answer had I, nor voice
wherewith to answer. I cast down my eyes, mute in my shame.

"What folly, this flight...and to
my very neighborhood. You have gone mad! The scene you made today in the house
of that Jew...ah, you wonder that I know of it? A guest present from Tiberias
quickly brought the news. Did it not shame you then to be held up a
gazingstock, exposed to a room full of hypocrites as a repentant harlot, your 'sins'
the apt subject of a parable? Nay, this has shamed both you and me. Come back
to me, Mary...to your own home...to my love that changes not, though you lose your senses...turn
coward...knife me in the back." I shrank from the hunger in his look. "Or" — seeing
me shrink, his eyes blazed — "or, by all the gods, Rome shall make short
work of this man Jesus, shall despatch Him before another sundown."

Now I found my voice. Terrified,
driven to the wall, lost to all thought of myself or my shame, now I found my
voice.

"Novatus, should you dare destroy
this Holy One of God, and do so because of me, I swear to you I will kill
myself."

He bowed his head and stood
lingering...for I knew not what. And my heart broke over him and I longed to take
him to my breast. But he had made the worst of threats and the life of the Lord
Himself was now imperiled by him. And I knew not what he might do. Resources
had he to carry out this threat, and also to defeat mine. Wherefore I spoke
once more, and my words were false as they were cruel.

"Whatsoever you may attempt, you
will find of no avail. Your hold upon me is loosed, O Novatus. And...you are too
proud to seek revenge."

"Mary, why do you weep?"

On the temple steps Jesus found
me in tears.

"Oh my Lord, I have driven my
lover away...broken him...with a lie. And...this worthless life of mine...would I had
never offered it to you! For now...it menaces your life. My Lord, Novatus would
kill you."

A touch on my head, a burning
current streaming from a light hand, and I lifted my face to His above me, and
to the compassion in His eyes.

"Why do you weep?" He said once
more, and now he was smiling. "When you have verily given up, your lover shall
come after you."

VIII

THREE DAYS HAD PASSED. On the way
to sup with our Lord in Peter's house, John and I strolled the highway. It was
the twilight hour. Through alleys betwixt the black houses that edge the beach,
women were coming up from the sea bearing jars on their shawled heads.

To John I could speak, as I could
not to Mary — the Mary that had never loved — as I dared not yet to the
holy mother, of the sorrow and dread in my heart.

"Dear John," I said, "you have
been patient these three days and have taught me much. I see now that to fear
Novatus was a great folly, since the Divine One cannot be slain by human hands.
And my heart is truly comforted by my Lord's sweet promise, which I could never
doubt, that some day my lover will come back. But...oh, in the meantime, I
tremble for him! I know not to what I have goaded him. Yet I can guess. He will
turn to some other woman, John. For without a woman's love Novatus cannot
endure his disillusioned life."

"Is that all?" said John.

The scornful question was softened
by his voice, which was melodious as a viol.

"But I once dreamed of another
woman...a woman in a crimson mantle. And crimson is the colour of blood. This
bodes ill to him."

"Mary, I swear you do doubt!
Yield him up to the woman...should there be one! Why be troubled since the end is
sure? The Lord has been merciful in giving you such assurance. He is all compassion
to His children. He feels with us, aches with our sorrows. Still...has He not called
us out from our private grief, our private happiness, to serve Him in His giant
task? If we would share this task, how strong we must be! Messengers of God
come not as physicians to babes, healing one of a fever, another of a heartache.
When the house itself is rotting they come to raise a the new structure amid
the ruin. To dare to serve so great a Builder should be enough for such humble
ones as we."

By now we were close to the home
of Peter, which stood on the narrow strip to our right between the highway and
the sea...a simple dwelling of black brick, criss-crossed with lines of mortar.

His disciples alone were to sup
with Jesus that night, the twelve men who were ever with Him and a few women;
the holy mother, the wife of Peter, the mother of John, and Mary of Bethany.
And to this meeting of near ones He had in His loving kindness bid me.

We entered a whited chamber lit
by candles. Here our Lord sat upon a bench, kingly in full white robes that
billowed from His wide-spread knees, casting a mighty shadow on the wall. His disciples,
seated on the floor, formed a half circle at His feet.

As we crossed the threshold, John's
mother looked up from that circle and I saw a small frown gather her forehead.
Yet she was a soft and lovely creature, with child-like cheeks and a round cleft
chin and, under two little arches for brows, great blue eyes that ever
worshipped Jesus.

Vashti, the wife of Peter, came
forward to greet me. Vashti had a fierce beauty. Her face was short and put me
in mind of a young eagle, and dusky tresses framed it, flying out from her white
veil. Her brows were like spread wings rising from low on the bridge of her
nose. Her mouth when she smiled could be merry, though today, alas, I saw a
tight-lipped smile. This woman bestowed her trust with caution and not yet was
it given to Mary of Magdala.

Peter followed his wife to bid me
welcome — a man of heavy build, but with the quick of his soul bared on his
broad face. He grasped my hands and tears filled his eyes. For Peter wept and laughed
readily. Love had he wherewith to weep; wisdom wherewith to laugh.

Behind Peter, Judas Iscariot
slunk my way with a grin. Plainly, Judas had forgiven me!

"Mary, you like me not, but I am
a good-fellow; try me! I will make you laugh, I will make you dance!" He whipped
out a flute from the breastfold of his robe and tilted it to his lips. "You
will dance to my piping!"

I swept past him, mute and
indignant, for there was a Presence in that chamber, and to that Presence I straightaway
went and took my place at His feet. The master smiled down on me and I thought:
now I know that God in heaven smiles.

We gathered round the table, spread
with a white cloth and strewn with jasmine and rose petals, The Master placed
Peter (who wept and begged for a humbler seat) at the head of the table. He himself
took the center, Vashti at His right hand. His mother sat at His left and we
other Marys across from Him. And when He had chanted, blessing the food, He
turned His face to me and said:

"You have journeyed far to be with
me. Some souls come here and are resuscitated. They come dead, they return
alive. They come sick, they return healed. They come in sorrow and return joyous.
They come in want and return having partaken of a share. They come athirst,
they return satisfied! Praise be to God, you are of these souls and you must
rejoice exceedingly therefore."

Now the mother of John turned
about to me that little frown gone from her face, and caught my hand and folded
it in hers. And the Master, seeing this, glowed upon her.

"Wife of Zebedee," He said, "you
have a tender heart." Then He looked on Mary of Bethany. "You have a kind
heart. And what sort of a heart have you, O Mary of Magdala?" His smile was
full upon me. "What sort of a heart have you?"

"Oh, what sort of a heart have I?
You know Rabboni!"

"You have a boiling heart,
Magdalene" — Laughing He rolled His lively hands one round the other. "You
have a heart in tumult! Now, were these three hearts made one...the kind, the
tender, the tumultuous...what a great heart that would be!"

Thus the meal went on, we happy
and gay in the presence of this Holy One, who could be gayer than any. And then
came a solemn change. The Master fell silent, His eyes uprolled, that luminous gaze
as it were turned within Himself. It was even as though He had gone away,
leaving only the shell of His body with us. Now,
I thought, I can drink my fill of His beauty! But He moved, caught me staring,
and smiled.

"Speak, Mary, speak," He said, "Your
eyes are all speech."

"Your presence," I stammered, "makes
of this meal a king's banquet."

"This is because of your great
love. Once a poet said, 'Wounds dealt by Thee are my healing. Poison from Thy
hand is honey.' "

"Wound me and give me poison that
my human heart may die!"

"I will. When afflictions and
bitter conditions taste sweet to man, this is a sign that he has found favour
in the sight of God."

Now Peter murmured:

"The Master is feeding His sheep."

Jesus bowed His head and lowered His
eyes and His hands lay open in His lap like cups.

"I myself am the food," He said.

In the silence I could all but
hear my tears fall. Then the Master raised His head with an ineffable smile.

"Eat, Mary."

Fool that I was and blind to
think He meant the food on my platter! To obey I ate of that food, though now
it was like to rough, coarse grains and I scarce could swallow the changed substance.
Or...was it my body that was changed and caught up into the Kingdom? Yes, the
change was in this body, so light was it now, so filled with sparkling life, as
if fashioned of air.

"I myself am the food," the Lord
had said.

So, it was heavenly food of which
He had bidden me partake. And verily I had
partaken, for what could this be...this life effervescing within me...if it be not
His life?

On the dark and deserted highway
Mary and I walked alone to our inn, the blue night enveloping us. To our left
the sea ran a liquid silver; to the right stood rows of black houses. The Synagogue
lay ahead, its columns pallid in the moonlight, casting long black shadows. Its
deep, colonnaded porch stood at the corner of the highway and the steep little street
that led to our inn. Weary as we were, we dreaded this climb and, when we
reached the Synagogue, we sat down on its steps to rest. Behind us stretched the
long recess of the colonnade, its pavement — flanked by those many columns — striped
with black shadows; the street at the side striped with black shadows. A white
moon soared over the sea, while her double danced on its ripples, and Mary
said:

"I never saw the moon so dazzling."

"But," I made answer, "when I
think of the lustre on Jesus' face tonight, this whole scene looks opaque to
me, even as a painting on a wall."

She pressed my hand and we both
fell silent. In the stillness of the night, as I watched the rippling, flashing
sea, I was again aware of that life like to wine within me and my heart opened
to a fragrance blown from white gardens.

A scream pierced and rent the
stillness. Mary had screamed! And at that instant the folds of a cloak flung
over me from behind, muffled me in thick darkness. Hands wrapped it around me, muscular
arms lifted me, and I knew that a man bore me down the steps and a little further
on level ground, and set me down in a chair. Then to the tramp of feet I moved
forward. At my side hoofs clattered on the stones. But soon all sound ceased as
we came to a halt. Again hands fumbled about my body, loosing the cloak,
freeing my face of it, and I saw (and this surprised me not) that I sat in my
own litter — Felix, Novatus' most trusted slave, on his horse beside me.

"I ask pardon, my lady, for such
rough treatment," he said, bending an anxious look upon me. "I could not have
done this, you know, but by the express command of my Master."

A great light seemed to break
upon me, and the while we jogged along the highway, through the little city of
Bethesda, through silvered wheat fields, past the black slabs of Magdala's
huts, Tiberias looming darkly ahead, a huddle of black and silver cubes descending
the mountain, my thoughts were as a song of triumph.

How swift the fulfilment of the
Lord's promise; that when I had verily given up my lover should come after me!
How easy...this giving up! I had done no more than breathe a prayer, "Wound me and
give me poison that my human heart may die." And my Lord, without death, had
immortalized my heart and without death changed me. Poison and wounds had I
asked, and instead He had fed me with His own life, refining my very flesh
thereby. And here I was now on the road to Tiberias...on the way back to my
beloved...a new Mary, ready to meet him, ready at last to win him to the Lord!
But yesterday Jesus had said, as I knelt at His feet, "You must become so free
and joyous; Mary, that you will be able to light in a cold heart a great fire."
Now indeed was I free and joyous!

True, Novatus himself had come
not after me. Lawless as Barabbas, chief of bandits, he had stolen me by the
hands of slaves. But...could he steal me from the Lord save by the will of the
Lord?

Late in the night we entered
Tiberias and, passing through its crooked streets, soon reached the terrace
where stood our villa, its white walls shining below the high feathers of the
palms.

Within, the villa was silent and
dark. I walked the length of the atrium, blue in a haze of moonlight, and,
approaching the colonnade, saw a light like a yellow star glowing in my cubiculum.
Lois, my little Greek slave, crossed the peristyle to meet me. She welcomed me
with happy tears and led me back to my chamber where she had wine and cakes set
out. There she tenderly served me, removing my rumpled tunic, preparing my
bath, and when I had come forth fresh from it, kneading me with perfumed
oils — with the oils of heady spices. Then, covering me with a broidered
sheet of silk, she bade me good-night...and left the lamp burning.

Impatient, now I awaited my dear
one, scarce able to wait, being at last so free to love him, to atone for my
baseness toward him, scarce able to wait to 'light in this heart a great fire.'

A step. The curtains at the
doorway parted and Novatus stood in the arch, in his eyes a look humbled and
shamed.

"Forgive me, Mary. I did a brutal
thing, but you left me no other way. I knew you had lied to me. I know in my very
fibre your love for me. The only thing in the world of which I am sure is this...this...and my love for you."

His voice quivered. I saw his lips
quiver. I held out welcoming arms.

"Yes...you can love...Novatus...."

With a cry he was on his knees
beside my couch. And the rhythm of our oneness pulsed in that chamber — a
great silent song.

IX

TWO WEARY MONTHS had passed. By
now the summer was far advanced. Long since, in my villa on the Mount of Olives — that
house of the little foolish loves — I had lost my joy, my freedom.

On a night of stifling heat
Novatus and I were reclining in the atrium, by the air-refreshing pool. From
the walls those cupids mocked us with their levity, their darts and balances
and gay garlands. Talk had flickered and died. I sat brooding.

Why...why had all gone wrong? No
means had I left untried to win my beloved to my Lord. He had grown but the
more implacable in his jealousy, the more ravenous for the whole of me. Mind
and soul I must yield as well as body, my every thought I must yield, ere I satisfy
his devouring greed. What could I do to break this net of falsity in which I
now found myself caught? Even my prayers had been in vain.

Novatus left his reclining chair,
seated himself on mine and bent a flushed face to me. Into his half-closed eyes
there came a crafty look and to his thin lips the hunger of a wolf. I shuddered
away from him.

"Come not near me tonight!" I cried,
"tonight, I tell you frankly, my mind is full of a better thing — that vision
I saw in Galilee in the heart of a true man — in the hearts of a few audacious
fishermen...."

"Mary!"

"You thought I had forgot? Never
can I forget. Can I stay with you, Novatus, and you mine so closed to truth? I
once thought you just. Were you verily so, you would seek out Jesus and see for
yourself."

"Mary...I...I have done this."

"You have done it!" I sat up,
amazed, and my anger dropped from me. "Oh, when?"

"That time I was in Tiberias...without
you, before I found you in Capernaum."

"You will tell me what happened?"
Not easy was it to curb my eagerness.

"He mocked me," Novatus muttered,
black fury on his face. "He laughed at me."

"He laughed at you? Oh
impossible. Tell me all He said. Tell me what you said. Why is it you have kept
this hid?"

"I could not grieve you, Mary.
But, since it is out, you may have the story. I went to Him privately...to the
house of one of your fishermen, where he was quartered. I too shall be frank. I
went for your sake, that I might...'see for myself' the true nature of His
influence over you. But I approached Him with courtesy. In His first question
was contempt. A subtle contempt. 'What was the news of Rome?' I answered
Him — truthfully — that Rome at the moment was occupied with the
Olympic games."

"And there was no contempt in
that, Novatus?"

"I but stated the truth. He then
said it was a pity men should be occupied with games. Still courteous, I
explained that these games had a serious object. The bodies of our potential
soldiers must be developed to the fullest strength to drive heavy swords through
coats of mail and to support the weight of the armour. He replied with
flippancy that man was too greatly concerned with this perfecting of the body,
for no matter to what extent he developed his sinews he could never become as
strong as the ox, as bold as the lion or as big as the elephant. And this
barbarian had the effrontery thus to trifle with me!"

So dismayed was I that I could
not laugh, even at Novatus' comic anger. Too great a riddle was this for me to
guess! Why was it the tender Jesus — He who would not crush a bruised
reed — had treated Novatus thus?

Sick to heart, I went to my
chamber alone, and my lover sought me not that night. Strange that the dawn
should have been so safeguarded!

A pebble flung against my
casement woke me. I went to the casement and looked down on John.

"One word," I whispered. "Where
may I meet you?"

John raised to my hand a small
clay tablet.

"At Mary's house in Bethany."
And, swift as a deer, he was gone.

Traced on the tablet in flowing
script I beheld...an epistle from my Lord. And life tiding back and flooding me
and a great joy lifting me up, I sank to my couch to read it.

"O tender lamb! How long will you
wander bewildered while the Shepherd seeks you? Without hesitation turn to the
flock, that led once again by the shepherd
over hill and wady, in the light of the Sun of Truth, you may renew your
spirit. Could you but know the love that awaits you, you would delay no longer
your return to the fold."

"Bewildered"..."wandering"...the
tablet dropped to my knees. Merciful Father, those words were addressed to a stray sheep!

So...I had failed. Failed my Lord.
Failed Novatus. Had I then lost
Novatus? Forfeited my Lord's promise? And...my hope...my great purpose to win to
the Lord this dear beloved who was more than half of me, who was the very tree
of my identity from which I grew as a branch.... If a hope so high be lost, if it
be verily true that I must be cut from the tree, then let me die...quickly...O my God!
I sank into a black abyss.

Ah, last night, last night...could
I but relive it with the wisdom born of this agony. Or...have another night!
Enough to abandon my beloved! Why leave him hopeless, bitter, believing I went
in hate, shuddering from his touch, where...I so burned for that touch now, when...I
so loved him? Nay, I would take this night. Such was my right and his. Yet...why
wait for night?

I sprang from my couch to seek
him, then paused to put my tablet in a chest. But even as I stooped to cover it
my glance fell on that flowing script, and I saw words verily hidden from me before....
"Without hesitation, turn to the
flock." Why...here was a command wrapped in such tender phrasing that it had been
hid from me till now. Another night was not mine to take. "The moment of obedience" — I
heard again Mary's voice — "is the moment when the Lord speaks."

I had no choice but to go. In the
Shepherd...in His forgiveness...lay my only hope.

I stood for I know not how long,
there in that familiar chamber, in whose narrow length the wall, painted so
bright in red, seemed to happily shelter me, from whose casement I could see the
cedars, the white cupids on pedestals in the grass, the showering fountain. My
gaze travelled round the little room, lingering on each dear object — my
couch set upon gilded lion's feet, its cover the hide of a lion, the tripod at
its foot capped by a winged Mercury, the chairs and the stools of old ivory cushioned
with Tyrian purple, the dressing-table of citrus wood strewn with precious
trifles...each one the gift of my lover, quick with his touch. At last I said
aloud:

"Lot's wife looked back. I dare
not."

I gathered up the few things
needful and, in trembling haste lest my resolution weaken, made ready to go.
One robe alone I took with me, a tunic of rich pomegranate stuff, broidered
with threads of gold, for Novatus himself had chosen this for me and had ever been
happy when I wore it. And in its soft fold I laid my tablet.

What could I say to my dear one
when I should bid him farewell? How explain this sudden fight save as my threat
of last night explained it? That the Lord had again summoned me — this he must
never know. I prayed God for strength...for words. Then I went to his door,
parted the curtains and peered within.

He lay so still that I knew he slept.
I stole to his couch and knelt. Pale morning light shone through the casement
and glinted across his face, illuminating it for me...and I saw that moving thing
which had ever roused my tenderness, its innocence in sleep.

Long I knelt with eyes fixed, to
imprint on my heart forever this face I might see no more...each loved feature of
Novatus...my lover. And then he woke, looked at me there on my knees, and stretched
forth his arms to me. Alas that, fearful of my heart, I drew back from those
dear arms!

He raised himself on his elbows
and a great pain dawned in his eyes.

"Mary...what is it?"

"Novatus...my dear...I must go."

"Go? What is all this?"

"Novatus...if I stay...we will kill
our love."

"Kill...our love?"

"Oh my beloved, do you not know?
Inwardly are we not parted now? In this outward union we do but wound each
other. And too many wounds mean...death."

"Nay, Mary, not in reality
parted."

"Ah yes, a shadow lies between us...naught
but a shadow, could you but see...in time...."

He cut me off in sudden rage.

"Shadow? That is a good word,
Mary. The shadow of your own fancies...from the accursed...."

"No! No! You must not say it!"

"May the gods grant that I see
the day when He is strung on the cross...with other thieves!"

Horrified by his blasphemy I fled
and he made not a move to hold me. Now I stood high on the mount. On its rocky
crest above me, the house of the pure Mary rose like a pillar of snow against the
blue sky. In the midst of vineyards below, my villa shone in the sun...as if no
shadow had fallen.... Irresolute I stood.

So...I had ceased not to blunder
till I had turned this dearly loved one into a vengeful foe to my Lord. Oh
never had I been bold enough, free enough with Novatus! I had trod too softly,
fearful of his jealousy, fearful...ever fearful...of my own heart, lest it be tempted
to yield its all to him and thus be faithless to Jesus...and in the end I had struck
him a mortal blow.

Could I but go back now — for no more than an hour — to my poor
beloved, alone...so bereft...in that villa, and bare my whole heart at last, with
all that was in it of anguished love for him, might he not for very pity forget
his wrath? Pain like to this must move him to listen. Verily, such pain proved
my love! And when he had heard me and knew...knew
that naught in earth or heaven could uproot this passion and that to leave him
was death to me, might he not lay down a little pride and go with me to Jesus?
To one so generous this should be an easy thing to do...a simple way out of our
sorrow. not yet was it too late!

I turned to run down the hill.
But ere I had run ten paces I saw a commotion within my garden walls. Slaves
appeared at the porch carrying a litter. Novatus came down the steps of the
house and seated himself in the litter. The slaves bore him forth to the highway.
Then I saw them swing about and set off briskly for the Golden Gate.

On what errand was Novatus bound
at this early hour, and in such haste? Trembling now for the life of my Lord, I
sped to that house on the summit.

Rounding a bend in the road, I
saw John.

"John! John!" I cried. "Thank God
you are here. When I left Novatus...he threatened. See, his litter...near the
Golden Gate. Where is the Master, John?"

"In Bethany."

"So near! And Novatus mayhap on
the way to Pilate."

"What power has he, or Pilate,
over the Lord, when His hour is not yet come?" John's eyes flashed. "This I
have heard Him say, Mary: — 'My hour is not yet come.' Look! Even now Novatus
turns back."

The litter had stopped and faced
about to my villa. What could have changed Novatus' purpose — there, at the
very wall of the city? Had he remembered my words, "You are too proud to seek revenge"?
Or was this but a last contemptuous gesture to dismiss me from his mind?

"John, why has the Master called
me from Novatus? Is it that I have failed?"

"I think not, Mary."

"Was it not then His will that
sent me back by means of that capture?"

"I think Novatus but captured you
and the Master had naught to do with it."

"John, I beseech you help me to
understand. In my soul I was never faithless to the Master. You know He
promised me that when I had entirely given up, my lover would come after me. That
night, at Peter's table, verily, verily, I gave up. John, even my flesh was
changed. I believed from my soul the Master had wrought a miracle on me that I
might quickly fulfil this great thing — the winning to Him of my gifted, my
powerful Novatus."

"Oh, think clearly, Mary. How
could a Gentile, a Roman, quickly see
with the vision of the Jew? The Jews themselves, despite their prophets, their
age-long belief in the coming of a Messiah, are not yet ready to welcome God's
Messiah. The great and powerful ignore Him. As for these crowds that dog His
footsteps and give Him no peace, do you think them fit for such a gospel as His?" John's strange eyes
sought the distance. "Did they know the cost of following Him they would flee
away."

"But...Novatus? Think you, John,
there is any hope for him now?"

"Where is your faith? You are
blown upon by every wind. Men break their promises. Not so the Master."

"Then...I have failed not...yet?"

"What could you do against a jealous
lover? Learn, Mary, from this" — stooping he plucked a bud — "that God
has a destined time for all flowering. Learn to bide God's time. Force not
closed doors."

We walked up the road that winds
beneath a rocky cliff.

"You are taking me to the Master,
John? He is with Mary and Martha?"

"'Yes, but a few steps away now.
The Master has planned a long journey," John spoke gently. "He would have you
with Him on this journey. Wherefore He has come Himself for you."

By now we were near to the house of
Mary. She stood in the arch of the door, behind the pomegranate tree, with the
mother of Jesus. And seeing us, both came out upon the path and, tenderly smiling,
embraced me, and the mother said:

"The Master is waiting for you,
Mary." Then she led me to his own chamber.

He stood gazing through a grated
window, sadly, toward Jerusalem, and I saw the kingly sweep of His profile. The
chamber was redolent of His musk. As we entered He turned and approached us.
Now His grandeur burned full upon me and, shame consumed in the fire of His
love, I ran forward and threw myself at His feet. Unsmiling, He raised me up,
and I felt the solemnity of His love. And while I stood awed before Him, He
drew a step closer and plunged His gaze into mine.

"I look into your eyes, O Mary,"
He said, "and I see your heart. Your pure heart is a magnet for the divine
bestowals."

And now He began to pace the
floor, hands clasped at His back, His eyes uplifted, their glory withdrawn from
us and turned in upon Himself, as though He would read God's secrets from a
tablet within His own being.

To and fro He paced between the
window and that spot where I stood with his mother, and the while He strode the
power of His tread shook me. Whensoever He wheeled about at the window and drew
swiftly nigh unto me, flashing on me His lofty glance, a whirling current of
life rolled from before His advancing feet. And caught in the onrush, my body
grew ever more buoyant and free, its substance lighter and lighter, till it
seemed to become light as air. At last I thought: I shall rise like a leaf in
the wind and soon shall be blown away if this walk of the Lord cease not!

He stopped and once more stood
close to me.

"I may tell you this," He said, "all
your hopes and desires are destined to be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God." In
the Kingdom of God, I thought, and not before? "Even as twins in the womb," the
Lord went on, "embrace and know not why, so it is with two that love in this
world. For man traverses as in a dream the life of the physical world but dimly
aware of its meaning, knowing little of the immortal powers wrapped within his
own being. But when he enters the world of the Kingdom he will become
acquainted with all mysteries, and even as he loves here, so there in that
heaven of light, that heaven of divine bounties, that heaven of the will of God, shall he love a
thousandfold."

Ah then, I said within myself, in
very truth I have lost Novatus and must wait till the life to come ere we meet.
And my heart bled from this wound dealt so suddenly by the hand of the Lord and
tears streamed down my cheeks the while I stood silent before Him, gazing
upward at His great might from the depths of my sorrow.

He brushed my wet lashes with his
fingertips.

"Weep not," He said, in tones so
piercing-tender that my tears broke forth afresh. "Weep not, Mary. You must be
happy because of this thing I have told you."

"Mary weeps from love," said the
kind mother, laying her hand on mine.

"I am cast into flames, my lord...the Flames of your love, your
presence...and in these I am melting away."

But His pitying eyes saw deeper.
Slowly He shook His head, and the one word He spoke in answer came as a sigh:

"Nay."

And now was my mind thrown into
confusion, for I knew not why this thing He had told me should make me happy
when it snatched from me for the whole of my earthly life my love and hope. And
I could scarce believe that "Nay". For, with the yielding of my hope to the
irresistible will of the Lord, it had seemed to me I adored Him but the more
for the very cruelty of His will, and that some of my tears had truly sprung
from the pangs of a fierce new love wakened in my heart for Him.

Then...behold a wondrous thing! For
while I still gazed through misted eyes on His glory, veils dropped from these
eyes. I stood no longer in a walled chamber, in the Lord's bodily presence. NOW
He loomed vast and blinding-bright, a form as it were built up of sunlight,
vistas of a softer light opening behind Him....

He Himself brought me back from
the vision. He led me to a plaque of polished bronze on the whited wall and with
a gesture strong in majesty, placed a hand on my head and laid my face to His.
So, standing before that mirror by the side of Jesus, I saw a young face
moulded from clay...pale clay, red-lipped, tear-stained...cheek to cheek with a
stern and immaculate Beauty, with eyes like to lamps in a watch-tower; I saw a
young soul shielded by the Lord of souls from all loves less than the love of
the Most High; I saw the Divine Shepherd enfolding His stray sheep.

Once only He spoke ere He
dismissed me.

"I am your Father. I am your
King. I...I am your Beloved."

The mother led me back to that
larger chamber wherein we had left John and Mary. Here we now found Martha and
a few of the twelve who always walked in the train of the Master. All were seated
on benches against the wall, awaiting the arrival of their Lord, the men darkly
mantled, their rough heads strong against the white wall.

Peter smiled on me, jovial and
kind. The publican Matthew crossed over and took my hand in his. In spirit Mathew
and I were kin. Philip and Thaddeus also came and spoke with me. James crossed not,
but smiled from His bench. James was of shorter stature than John and his nose
more hooked, and his eyes had less of depth than those strange eyes of his
brother, though his too were large and bright.

All these men had serene brows.

But now a long shadow fell across
the floor and I saw in the doorway...Judas, dark against the morning light. Curious,
I stared at him. What had he to do with this circle? Could it be that God's Messenger
traveled twinned with shadow, even as the sun? And was this man, Judas, such a
thing?

He came and placed in my hand a
lock of black hair.

"The Master's hair," he said. "When
he trimmed it this morning, Mary,
I saved this for you. I knew you would be here today."

My heart softened.

"Oh, Judas," I cried, "you have
given me what the whole world could not give."

And now we heard a step...that step
at whose strange commotion hearts suffocated with joy, rushing tears burned and
blurred the eyes. And all rose, hands crossed on the breast...awaiting our Beloved's
smile.

X

A YEAR PASSED; a year of far
journeyings on foot, we — the twelve men and six women — following ever
that "Cloud by day and Pillar of Fire by night."

Across Galilee we tramped, across
the misty Plain of Esdraelon, flat and wide within a high border of mountains, like
unto a striped cloth, with its long patches of sesame, maize and wheat and
purple-rich earth. Up the elephant's back of Carmel, "Vineyard of God" — a
gray-green heap beneath the white dust of its roads.

On Carmel the prophets of old
have left their footprints and holy presences hang above it. Once as we sat with
the Master on the terrace of a house built on its summit, of a sudden He lifted
His face to the sky, His eyes flashed a glad recognition into empty air, then
up went His hand in a high salute. So we saw the great Immortal greeting
invisible immortals.

On to Phoenicia we tramped, along
the white crescent of the beach to that ancient city Ptolemais, a crown of
pearls on the distant tip of the crescent; on and on, to Tyre and Sidon. And withersoever
we went the people were enthralled by our Beloved, though there were many that
knew not why. They that were Jews clamorously hailed Him, but, alas, as no more
than a leader who would deliver them from Rome. Howbeit, He patiently trudged on,
scattering the seeds of God's message on rich and stony soil alike.

Tramping in the footsteps of my
Lord, gladly had I accepted homelessness, for His footsteps were home enough
for me. But one thing there was I could not yet accept — that which seemed
God's blindfold bound upon my eyes to hide from me my poor Novatus' fate. It
had been a year since I had heard his name.

On our way to Phoenicia we
tarried awhile in a village at the base of Carmel, on that side where the
mountain fronts the sea, and here at sundown one day the holy mother and I went
walking with our Lord.

He led us along the highroad to
an ancient olive grove, where he
stood still and pointed out its trees, which were bent, gray and gnarled like to
old men, and told us Elijah himself had been wont to rest beneath them.

"Let us also rest here, "He said.

So we sat on the grass under
those hoary trees, while shepherds passed by on the road, singing, leading
their flocks to the fold; while swift dusk fell and the jackals set up their howls
on the mountain, and night came, studded with bright stars. I lifted my face to
the stars.

"All the lamps of the night are
lit, O Lord," I said, "but the holy mother and I sit in the light of the Sun."

"This is but the beginning, Mary.
You shall be with me in all the worlds of God. And none can know here in this
elemental world what it is to be with me in the eternal worlds."

"Ah," I murmured, "having such a
promise, how could I ask for a smaller happiness?"

The Master tilted His head and
the magic of His smile gleamed in the starlight.

"You will take your heart from this other and give it up wholly to God?"

"Oh, I will try."

"First you say you will and then
you say you will try!"

I bowed my head, shamed.

"What can I do with my heart?"

And now Jesus laughed with a
great delight.

"I am pleased with your answer,
Mary, for you have spoken to me one word of pure truth."

We strolled homeward in the
night, the holy mother and I dropping a pace behind Him. Often He turned to
speak to us, with some pleasantry; again, with winged words that lifted our spirits
skyward. And such sweetness streamed from Him the while that I said within
myself:

"Should He deign me not a
syllable or a glance, to see this sweetness shining before me I would follow
upon my knees, crawling behind Him in the dust, forever"

XI

TO CAPERNAUM we returned to rest,
though rest there was none for the Master, save when He fled us and sailed
alone to the shore of the Gadarenes and hid Himself in the hills. For by now
the news of His wondrous works had spread far abroad and ever greater multitudes
followed Him. And so compassed about by people was He that I knew not how He
bore it, till one day He told us the secret of this patience.

The young Salome had come to Him
with a little grief, then begged His forgiveness lest she weary Him, and in
tones ineffable He answered her:

"Were I to spend day and night on
your troubles I should never tire...I love you all so well."

And again He said:

"I work by the power of the Holy
Spirit. I work not by physical laws. If I did, I should get nothing done!"

Here He taught by the seaside,
standing on the pebbled beach. But soon such a crowd came jostling down on Him
that He must perforce find a boat, push out a little from the shore and sit on the
sea while He spoke. And a beauteous sight was this. For at sundown He taught,
in the cool of the day, and with fire above in the sky and below in the water,
He was like unto a form of light.

Now in Capernaum are many Greeks.
Greeks people the cities on both sides of the sea. And these flocked to Jesus,
loving His gaiety. Romans too came unto Him. Among the centurions He had friends.
And oft did He sit at the center of these Gentiles, the master-wit among them.
For to such He spoke not of the Kingdom, they believing not. Yet He made them
happy and, drawn by His love, they would let Him not alone.

In the synagogue too Jesus was welcomed. On many a Sabbath we followed
Him across that colonnaded pavement to listen with rejoicing hearts as He spoke
from the pulpit His words of life and spirit. Also at the house of Simon was He
kept busy, for there the rich and great from among the Pharisees, importuned by
the eager Simon, would oftimes gather to hear His discourse. Howbeit Jesus took
these lightly.

Even He made sport of one, a
strutting scribe whom Simon had tricked to His Presence. Ever shall I see this
puffed up man as he stood before the Lord of men, his raised eyebrows seeming to
pull him up on tip-toe, the while he delivered a speech such as he deemed
suitable. In too great haste to be gone to await our Lord's answer, he bowed
himself out, and the Master turned laughing to Simon:

"This is a dish you have cooked
for me!"

"I trust," the anxious Simon answered,
"that it is well prepared. Other dishes I have to set before you, also men of wealth
and learning."

"Let us hope they are light,"
smiled the Master, "and will rest easily on my digestion. Some of these dishes
are so heavy!" And then He sighed.

"Great is the power of the
intellect, but it is of no avail till it has become the servant of love."

While we tarried in Capernaum I
made my abode with John's mother (now widowed) in her fine stone house on the
beach. At first the Lord dwelt with Peter and Vashti, then in our household. And
each place in turn, as He filled it with His abundant life, was thronged to the
doors night and day with people .

Busy were the women serving, for
many came daily to sit at meat with our Lord. Vashti, John's mother, and I,
with the help of the men, prepared the food. Much time we lost over the ovens, away
from the beloved Presence. But the poor mother of James and Joses — another
Mary — that red-haired woman with the jocund face and fierily worshipping
heart, stood from morn till night in the kitchen, washing with Salome's aid the
mounting piles of pots and platters.

While the Master dwelt with John
and his mother sometimes I served as His door-keeper. I would meet the people
at the door and lead them to that upper chamber wherein He spoke with them privately.
Hence, I saw many wondrous scenes, and others I scarce could bear!

There was the day when two great
ladies of the court came, taking Him for a soothsayer. One wished to know if
she should remarry, the other if it would advantage her to acquire a certain property.
And then did I witness the sternness of the Lord! All the while those bedizened
women trifled in that chamber He paced up and down like to a captive lion. And
when at last they minced away, none too satisfied with His answers — though
these had been more patient than His mien — He turned unto me with great
majesty and said:

"The people of the world are
sleeping. You must be awake. The people of the world are heedless...have you not
seen how heedless? You must be aware. The people of the world are steeped in darkness.
You must be immersed in a sea of light."

Vashti followed these women. She
had by the hand her son David, then but a babe of two years. (He remembers now
having played beneath the Lord's mantle when once, as he sat with a toy on the
floor, that mantle swept round and hid him.) The Master's sternness fled.
Smiles overspread His face. He held out His arms to the babe. Then, glancing on
Judas at His side, from the bag this disciple ever carried He drew forth a coin
of gold and bent with it to the little one.

"David, I give you gold," He
said.

Behold, the infant scowled!

"No, no!" he cried, and went
running.

"O Rabboni, Forgive him," — Vashti
hung her head.

But the Master laughed on a joyous
note.

"Gold will never buy that child!"

Beneath the rays of His power
whatsoever was hidden in the heart appeared above ground, even as seeds in the
earth sprout beneath the sun. He poured forth His love...and lo! evil sprang out into
the open. In the soul that was drawn unto Him, all that was good leapt to the
call of that love, while all that was mean crept away, shamed before such
greatness.

At another time I sat in the
sacred Presence with six others. One was a publican, Reuben by name, known to
be a sly man and a rascal. But our Lord, once passing his booth, had entered
into speech with him, and from that very hour Reuben was ever to be seen in the
multitude that followed us. At last, on a day when all were gathered about our
Lord, He beckoned to John and said: "Go, John, on my behalf unto Reuben and
tell him I have great love for him for that he is truly honorable." Whereat Judas
spoke up: "Why say you this of a man whose mind is so set upon money that he
extorts and cheats?" Then answered our Beloved, "There is naught I can give this
man but hope."

Thus it was that Reuben,
emboldened by such mercy, came seeking the Master in John's household.

The second stranger in our midst
that day was a Pharisee, a man of miserly heart, who, seated beside the
publican, drew his cloak tightly about his knees that it be not contaminated by
Reuben's cloak.

Now the five other sinners at the
feet of the all-forgiving Lord were the faithful disciples, John and Peter, the
mother of John, Vashti, and this woman of no repute, Mary of Magdala.

He of the miserly heart had come
last to the Master's presence. Till he entered Jesus had kept silence. Sitting
above us on a bench, He had been gazing on a rose He held and lifting it to His
face to smell it. But as the Pharisee joined us He smiled and bade him be
seated on the mat next Reuben.

Then He began to speak:

"I hope a great love may be
established among you and that day by day love will increase. I have gathered
you all together here that you may be gathered in the same way in the Kingdom
of God, and that you may verily love one another. If you love one another as you
should, it is even as though you had loved me as you should. I go away from
this world, but love stays always."

Mary, the mother of John, raised
worshipful eyes to the Master.

"Would I could be like that rose,"
she said, "and give forth such a fragrance."

Gentle as a breeze, wistful as a
sigh fell the Master's voice:

"One could be much more beautiful
than this rose. For the rose perishes. Its fragrance is but for a time. There
is no winter for the soul of man."

One day we went by sea with the
Master to Tiberias. And as we followed Him up from the shore into the
market-place I saw two Romans crossing the square. My heart leapt to my throat.
One was Lucius Vitellius, the Proconsul...but...that other...that vigorous body, that
head held high in its mantle, the beetling brows, the pinched, ironic nostrils,
the fine-drawn mouth....

That he had seen me I had no means
of proving. Well aware he must have been, there in that little market-place, of
the tumult about the Lord Jesus. Yet he cast not a glance our way, but keeping his
face steadfastly averted, turned up a side street with the Proconsul. And all
day I could think of naught else, but went about sunk in pain. An old dream
came back to torture me. Again I could see Novatus in the Fish Gate, wrapped,
even as now, in white toga and mantle, passing me by...to join a woman.

But at a later hour Jesus Himself
sought to comfort me, albeit with a stern comfort.

We sat encamped in a grove,
eating our mid-day meal from baskets, He in the midst, upraised on a rock. His
regal head, in the green light of the grove and lifted against its foliage, had
the look of an alabaster statue. From my seat on the ground I saw Him in
profile. Then of a sudden He turned, His eyes fell on my tear-stained face and
He beamed on me with that smile wherewith He would oftimes watch our little
behaviours — a smile spiced with wit and wisdom, sweet with tenderness,
deep with a mingled joy and sorrow beyond our knowing. I flung back my head,
brushed off the tears from my cheeks and flashed Him an answering smile. And at
this He broke into laughter:

"Ah, the sun is out again! The
sun is shining! I am well pleased. But" — ineffable tones gentled His voice — "if
the cloud weep not, how shall the meadow laugh? The hurricane, the cyclone and
the blast are but harbingers of spring."

Then He spoke of the tempests
that sometimes rage over Galilee's lake.

"Strong ships are not conquered
by the sea! They ride the waves like galloping steeds."

"Winds from every point, from the
north, south, east and west have beaten against my Ark" — smiling, He swung
both hands to depict a boat in a storm — "yet my Ark still floats. A single
wave has submerged many a great ship...yet, my Ark still floats!"

And now He sat straight and
triumphant.

"Though the waves should rise to
the zenith of heaven, I shall preserve an invariable heart. For I know my goal...it
is even as sighted land before me...and my eyes are fixed upon this and swerve not
from it."

Once more His glance fell on me
and he called:

"Come, Mary, sit beside me."

I rose and went over to Him and
sank on the grass at His feet and laid my hand on His knee, and He covered it with
His hand. And then, looking down on me with a great compassion, He said:

"Verily acceptance is the true
path. When man surrenders His will unto God he is always happy. Your heart must
become so tranquil, Mary, so invariable that neither trial nor woe will affect
its peace. You must be wholly submissive. Then you shall have no will of your
own and shall ask for naught but the Will of God. Whatsoever may happen, even
in this nether world, is by the Will of God. And when man forgets his own will,
his will is the Will of God, and all
that he does is the Will of God.

"I can hide nothing from you,
Lord," I murmured.

His hand rose high in the gesture
of a king.

"Nothing!"

And then He smiled.

"Be happy, Mary! Unhappiness and
the love of the Father cannot exist in the same heart, for the love of the
Father is happiness."

"This is my wish for you" — His
great eyes gazed beyond me — that you become the essence of purity; that
you become as a glowing lamp, diffusing the light of the love of God t all men;
that you become as a star and shine forever from the horizon of universal glory
upon centuries and cycles."

Nevertheless, when at sundown I
followed Him up the mount, the multitude also following, I went as before...sunk
in pain. And when all were dispersed and we came down the hill in the twilight
and the highway stretched before us, a wave of grief wholly submerged my small
ship. For, stirring the dust of the highway into clouds, I had seen horses and
a gilded chariot, and Novatus erect in the chariot holding the reins. And as I
stopped by the side of the road...my heart choking me...expecting — knew not
what — again he passed me by with averted face.

But there came a day when we who
served in the household being alone with our Lord, sad thoughts were forgot in
the abounding joy of His nearness.

Free of guests at the mid-day
meal, all sat at table with our Beloved, and the ever-toiling Mary, mother of
James and Joses — she who spent other days in the kitchen — was bidden
by Him to the seat at His right hand. Then He made merry with her, for He
greatly loved her laughing spirit.

That day so full was her heart
for that she was sitting next the Lord, she scarce could touch her food.
Smiling He heaped her plate.

"I perceive you are an angel,
Mary. Angels eat not! Or, mayhap, you are going home to a luscious meal, and
saving your appetite for that!"

Mary looked down, abashed.

"You are kind to me," she said.

"God knows the degree of it!" He
answered with a deep sigh.

"I am not an angel, then," I laughed,
"for I eat every morsel you set before me."

He held out to me on a platter three
dried dates, black as though burnt to a crisp.

"Here, Mary, are Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego." And I knew not if He were jesting or in earnest, for the
jests of the Master hid meanings — Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had been
cast into a fiery furnace — yet had come forth alive. When He spoke again it
was with gravity.

"You are wise, Mary Magdalena, in
that you eat all I give you, bitter or sweet."

Then He turned to the mother of
James and Joses.

"Mary's heart is pure like unto
the snow on Hermon. I am her witness that she is pure. She spoke one word of
truth to me which I shall never forget."

"Will you not tell us?"

"Nay, I cannot tell you, for this
was between Mary and me."

"Secret?" asked the other Mary.

"Oh, verily secret!"

"My Lord, I said, "if ever I told
you an untruth, it was that I deceived myself."

"There are degrees of truth," He
answered me, "but that one word of yours which has so pleased me was perfect
truth."

And I knew the word He praised
was this: What can I do with my heart?

"Rabboni," I cried, "You are the heart of God. You alone can drive out
the stranger from these poor hearts. Oh, do this for mine!"

He turned and His gaze burned
upon me and in it was a majesty of sorrow. Then He touched my eyes with His finger-tips,
as though drying tears yet unshed.

On another day Vashti came,
bringing Simon, her son of four years, and David, the babe. The house, as ever,
was full of people, among them two other small boys brought by their mothers to
be blest. And at early eventide all were assembled in the Master's chamber.
This chamber is large and high and faces the sea and its walls are whited.

Our Lord sat majestic in the
midst. The sun's rays, slanting through the windows, glistened upon Him. His
robes, spread out in white folds on the floor, were like the great base of a
statue. So upright He sat, so solemn, clothed with such might that I thought: Thus
Moses must have looked when he thundered forth the Law.

Then, while the children played
at His feet, He opened His lips to speak, and at this His austerity fell from
Him like a dropped cloak and with the sorcery of His unearthly joy He taught us
of happiness.

"Happiness is life. The happiness
of the spirit is everlasting life. This is a light which is not followed by
darkness. This is an honour which is not followed by shame. This is a life
which is not followed by death. This great blessing is obtained by man through naught
but the guidance of God."

"This happiness is the source
wherefrom man is born and spheres are framed and the Kingdom of God appears
like unto the sun at mid-day. This happiness is the love of God. This happiness
is the eternal might, the rays of which shine forth unto the temples of unity.
Were it not for this happiness the worlds would not have been created."

When the Master had ended and now
sat silent, gazing toward the sea, we women went into the kitchen, to return
with wine and cake for the guests and milk for the children.

Now our Lord turned to the
children and drew them up to His knees and gathered them to His breast. And He
caressed and played with them, while they, enfolded in his arms, raised
wondering faces to His smiles. Then He set them upon the floor and, calling to Vashti
to bring their bowls of milk and one for Himself also, He got upon the floor
with them. And there, in the midst of these little ones, He said:

"I am hungry too. We will take
our milk together."

Tenderness played on His immortal
face. He sipped from His own bowl and fed each child with a spoon.

In that chamber stood an old man,
hands crossed on his breast like lifted birds' wings, his eyes cast down, and
upon his cheeks, below the withered eyelids, trickled unheeded tears.

Now when night was come and the
people were leaving, one of the mothers passed by, her little son at her side,
and I heard the lisp of the babe:

"Is the Lord that blessed me,
mother, that same Lord who holds the moon and the stars in His hand and makes
the sunshine?"

Ah, those days in Capernaum...small
wonder that I dwell so long on their perfect joy. They came to a sudden end.

One night as we sat at meat with
our Lord, none being present but the twelve, those of our household and the
holy mother (lately arrived from Nazareth), He, turning to us with a solemn look,
bade us make ready at once to go with Him to Jerusalem for the Passover.

"We will go up in secret to the
Passover," He said.

And my heart gave a great leap.
At last, I thought, I shall have news of Novatus. Perchance, even I may meet
him! Then shall I know of a certainty if he has ceased to love me.

XII

NOW WE WERE on our way to
Jerusalem, walking in the footsteps of the Lord, a sun-clothed eagle treading
earth, who strode on before us, His garments swinging, the sleeves of His cloak
like great pinions; while Judas with His money-bag followed...in His shadow.

We went by way of Jericho, which
leads to that desert of salt shoring the Dead Sea. Unto this we drew nigh, down
a white aisle of pillars and pyramids. Bleached bones these strange forms seem
to be, standing about the sea called Dead, whose laughing waters hide the dead
sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then slowly, through murderous heat, licked by
breezes of fire, we mounted the lava wilderness that crags the sea and white
desert.

In the midst of this peaked and petrified
wilderness stands a small inn, into which we women crowded for the night, the
men sleeping out in the court, for the inn was already over-full. Now the holy
mother was with us and the mother of James and Joses, John's mother and the
young Salome.

With the dawn we set out again
upon our journey, and at last from a flowered plateau sighted Jerusalem. Its
spired temple on Mount Moriah,
uplifted above the great square of wall and with all of Jerusalem's domes
behind it, appeared to my eyes like a high-crowned bride, leading the
procession of the city forth.

All Bethany met these spent
travellers . All Bethany gathered at the house of Mary, wherein we rested. And
when the Lord made His entrance into Jerusalem, all Bethany companioned Him, a
surging, rejoicing band, strewing branches broken from the palm trees on the path
before Him, and He rode forward, mounted on a white ass.

From the day whereon we entered
Jerusalem, lo! our Beloved changed. A force at white heat had His body in its
grip, an inner commotion that all but burst His body and made it like to a mettlesome
charger.

Now, in the faces of Pharisee and
Sadducee, in the very Temple itself, He hurled anew audacities — claims
heretofore never whispered save to a few believing hearts; divine and perilous teachings
for the age-to-be; anathema on this brutish age; anathema on the Pharisees and
money-changers in the Temple...while we listened in mingled wonder and terror,
for among the multitude herded about Him, hanging upon His words, we saw
baleful priests and heard their mutterings.

One night, returning from Bethany
to Jerusalem, He gathered together Mary's household to depict a scene we had
witnessed not, when that very morning certain Rabbis had pursued Him to the Temple
cloisters.

Buoyantly He depicted this,
laughing the while He turned into foolishness the accusations of the Pharisees.
And yet...that laughter! What was this new sound in it that struck into my heart such
dread?

"When I had ended my discourse,"
smiled the Master, "a Rabbi answered me thus:

" 'As you well know we expect
plain signs in the day of the advent of Messiah, and unless these signs be
fulfilled, to believe He is come is manifestly impossible.

" 'It is written He shall appear
from an unknown place. You are from Nazareth. We know you and your people.

" 'According to the clear text of
the Scriptures, Messiah is to wield a sceptre, a sword, and to sit upon the
throne of David. But you! You have not so much as a staff or a net.

" 'Messiah is to fulfil the Law
of Moses, but you have broken it.

" 'In the day of Messiah the Jews
are to conquer the earth, till all mankind becomes subject unto them. In the cycle
of Messiah justice is to reign. Even among the beasts shall this prevail, so that
wolf and lamb shall quaff water from the same fountain, eagle and quail dwell
in the same nest, lion and deer pasture in the same meadow, cat and mouse be at
peace in the same house! But behold the oppression and wrong rampant in your
time. The Jews are captive to the Romans. Rome has uprooted our foundations,
pillaging and slaying us. What manner of justice is this?'

"But I made answer: 'These texts
have an inner meaning. Sovereignty I do possess, but it is of the eternal kind,
resembling not earth's empires. And I conquer not by the sword. My conquests are
through love. I have a sword but it is not of steel. My sword is my tongue,
which divided truth from falsehood.' "

"Ah, what said the Rabbi to that?"
I cried.

"He said naught to that," laughed
the Master, "but later I heard Him addressing a multitude. 'The Nazarene is a
liar. He is the false Messiah. Believe Him not. Beware lest ye listen. He will mislead
you; will lure you from the religion of your fathers, will create turmoil among
you.'

"And as I set forth for Bethany,"
said Jesus after a silent moment (and now the while He spoke, we were all aware
of a mystery and of a gathering darkness, and a fear clutched at our hearts...yet
we believed it not), "as I set forth for Bethany the whispers of certain
Sadducees, consulting together in Jerusalem, reached me...from afar. 'Let us hold
a conclave and conceive a plan. This man is a deceiver. We must do something!
What?' " — gaily the Master mimicked their confusion — " 'Let us expel
Him from the Land. Let us imprison Him. Let us oppress Him. Ah-h! Let us refer
the matter to Rome. Thus shall we be quit of Him.' "

Jesus rose to His feet. He went
to the window and gazed into the night. On His lips was a strange exultant
smile. His eyes gleamed like unto Jewels.

XIII

THERE CAME A DAY fateful for me...and
for two others.

We, the eighteen were seated with
our Beloved in one of the thin-columned cloisters of the Temple. People on
their way to the shrines, glimpsing the Lord from across the spacious pavement,
turned and came toward us, and soon a crowd compassed us about.

The master had but just begun to
speak, when of a sudden the noise of scuffling feet and an ugly swarm of
phylacteried men, like unto a flight of ravens, rushed upon Him. Two dragged
between them a woman.

Why...I knew the face of this
woman. This was Phyllis, one of the loveliest of Jerusalem's courtesans. What
had these Rabbis to do with her that they should force her to the Lord?

And now one stepped from the
midst, a man with a mouth flat and cruel, and tall eyebrows, and I heard him
say unto Jesus:

"Rabboni, this woman was taken in
adultery, in the very act. Moses commanded such to be stoned. What say you to
this?"

The man was mad! Phyllis taken in
adultery? She was no common harlot. Then all became clear to me. These priests
had seized her in a helpless moment, to be used as bait for "the friend of sinners"
that He be tempted to deny the law. And none would have dared to lay hands on
her but that she had lost the favour of Pilate. Had not my Lord been present I
would have fought them all for her.

The Lord seemed to hear not the
crafty question. A white peace enwrapped Him and made Him to shine. He stirred
Himself and bent low to the pavement to write thereon...to write with His finger on
the temple's stones. Was He
writing a new Law there — upon that foundation — a merciful new law? Who could doubt, as He crouched there,
the Lion of Heaven, that He and He alone was Lawmaker now?

So still was He, save for that
moving finger, that His very stillness (or was it His voiceless will?)
commanded silence. I stole a swift glance at Phyllis. Poor woman, she stood
cowering, white as the slim columns about her. My pity cried out to her. Yet I
knew these evil priests had but brought her to her eternal refuge.

And now the Master raised Himself
and His eyes flashed a terrible fire as God's answer to man's hypocrisy rang
from His lips.

"He that is without sin among
you, let him cast the first stone."

And again He stooped and lost
Himself in His secret writing. And one by one the priests slunk out...an old man
first.

Now none but Phyllis was left.
She stood gazing upon the Lord, where He still bent low above that traceless
script. Her lips were parted, as though in wonder. She laid a hand on her
breast. The curls of her head were dishevelled, her tunic torn, but her plaintive
disarray made her the lovelier.

And now Jesus lifted again that
mighty head and in His eyes, as He fixed them on this woman, was the burning
revelation of the love of God.

"Where are your accusers? Has no
man condemned you?"

"No man, Lord," she whispered.

"Neither do I condemn you." Oh
the music of the voice of Him who was more than man, who bore God's messages! "Neither
do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."

As the Master strode from the
Temple courts, descending the white cascade of steps, Judas crept to my side.

Judas had never abandoned hope to
win me, even though he knew...as who did not?...that my heart was torn between two deathless
loves, and of late this hope had waxed in effrontery. Now he whispered:

"Go after the woman, Mary. Jesus
bids you go after her."

"The Master said naught to me..." I
began, doubtful.

"Go, or you will be too late. He
wishes her brought back to Him."

"Go yourself, Judas."

"Stubborn one! I will come with you.
Hurry now. See, she is swift."

We followed the affrighted woman
through the Golden Gate and up the Bethany road. At last to a path so familiar...so
familiar...running through a vineyard to a Roman villa. Ah, what was this? The
woman was on her way to my villa! My gate opened and took her in.

"Judas," I gasped, "my house!"

"I heard it had been sold." His
voice was shallow and hard as metal.

Sick to the heart that Novatus
had sold my villa and Phyllis was here in my stead, I all but ran to the
entrance — too shaken to heed, or care, that Judas followed me not. Once
more I stood at my door, "Salve" inscribed on the stones of its vestibule...Salve!

A slave admitted me into the
atrium and bade me be seated by the pool till she asked of her mistress if she
would receive "one who came from Jesus."

By the pool again...the worn
pavement beneath me feet, the columns standing about the myrtle-bordered basin,
reflected in the clear water, the cupids at play on the walls...the old enclosure,
wrapping me about with the old spell. I sat in my own reclining chair, Novatus'
chair — vacant — beside me. Naught was changed. We might have been here
but yesterday.

Twice had the Lord summoned me
from this spot, through His messengers, Mary of Bethany, John. The Lord had
been stern concerning this house of the little loves. Now I found myself led back...to
a house empty for me, with Novatus gone from it. Worse than empty, aliens being
here. I found myself led back...sent back by the Lord, using me now for a
messenger, to summon another woman away from love. Oh strange....

The slave, re-appearing, bade me
follow her. As in a dream I followed. We crossed the court to the rear wing in
which were the cubicula. Beyond the looped curtains at the central exit,
between the columns of the portico, I could see my blowing fountain, silver against
the dark trees. And a sharp cry sprang from my heart for Novatus, my beloved,
and for a vanished delight. Till now I had sat; I had walked with the spectre
of my beloved. Now I demanded of God that I see him once more in the body.

The slave led the way unto my own
bed-chamber, my scarlet chamber opening on the evergreens of the garden.

The woman lay on my couch...while
the masks, tragic and comic, stared from the red panels above her, and as I
stood in the arch, she looked up with beautiful eyes hardened against me.

"You come from that great man who
saved me from those hypocrites? Devils! They lied, falsely accused me. They had
not that proof they claimed. But...who is He, that could shame them? Jesus of
Nazareth, I know. But in reality, who is He?"

I moved to her side and, sinking
to a stool, gazed at her long and sadly, for all that was struggling within her
I knew. Even in my own breast at this moment such a struggle was set up.

"You wish to know?" I said at
last. "For to know is to lose what peace you have, to barter it for a peace you
know not...yet."

"I guess what you would tell me.
You believe Him to be Messiah. But I tell you,
I will not believe! He said, 'Go, and sin no more.' I will not have a Messiah
who calls love 'sin'. Indeed, we need Him not who know the perfect love of
earth."

At the head of the couch, thrown
upon a chair, lay a man's cloak. This she seized and devoured it with kisses.

"Love is not sin," she cried, "love
is not sin! Love never divides the soul from God. Nay, hate alone does this."

Wordless I gazed, my grief
deepening. How poor a messenger was I! What had I to say to this sister...I...with
passion asurge in my own heart, desire for my own beloved aflame in me again?

A step. A heavy step. The
curtains were drawn aside. And Novatus himself stood before me — Novatus in
the flesh, even as-I had prayed to see him — glancing from Phyllis to me,
from me to Phyllis with dazed and unbelieving eyes.

There were prayers then that God
answered with a jest!

I drew my veil closer and moved
to the door that led to my garden. Novatus took a step toward me and I glimpsed
an outstretched hand. In the taut silence I could all but hear his misery
crying for me through his mute lips. Yet I gave no sign. For, as I turned
forever from him I had loved so long, though my knees were shaking and my body
weak, my heart was cold within me.

"Love is not sin," Phyllis had
said. "Only hate divides the soul from God." And my own soul had made obeisance
to the great truth of her words, and, victim myself of a love too strong for the
net of man's puny laws, I had had no answer for her. Then I must not, must not
hate — nor so much as scorn. But...how could it be...my Novatus, from whom I
had branched as from a deep root, as an artery from the heart, joined now with
this other woman in "the perfect love" — become one flesh with a stranger?

I dragged myself through the
garden, where those foolish marble cupids stood frozen beneath the dark boughs
of the trees. I glanced neither to right nor left, though my fountain as I
passed its basin sprayed my hand with a last caress. And when I had closed the
gate behind me and found myself out in the vineyard — alone — for a
little space I stood a lifeless thing, even as the wife of Lot...when she looked
back.

XIV

MERCIFUL grief came...and melted
me. Remembrance of my Lord stabbed through me, quickened my numbness to life,
released a flood of tears and all my love for the Highest.

In that white house on the
summit — the home of Mary and Martha — He with His loved ones dwelt for
a time. I would haste to Him who alone shamed not the heart.

Enough my own shame...wakened to
full awareness. Toiling up the steep ascent I lashed myself with my shame.
Long, long had the Eternal Lover wooed my heart for God's love, and I...ingrate that
I was!...for that my stiff-necked will was set upon a fellow-creature, had
withheld from this True Lover the heart I had vowed to Him — nor known that
I withheld it! Here I was now, on the way back to the Lord...the love I would
yield not snatched from me by a ribald jest of fate — creeping back, beaten
and broken.

Yet the filching of that love had
left my heart empty at last of "the stranger," and as I climbed the weary road
so great a love for the True One burned in this emptiness that, humbled and guilty
though I might be, I must perforce seek His presence. Could so small a thing as
shame deter me from the Forgiver? Now I knew the climax of all pain — the
pain of the spirit's passion, a passion forever hopeless of attainment, even by
winged spirit, its object being too pure, too high.

At the house in Bethany I found
none but the women, Mary and Martha, the mother of John and the holy mother.
Word had come from the Lord in Jerusalem that He would not be here till night,
for He and the twelve were to keep the Feast of the Passover in the house of
the mother of John Mark.

Ah, how could I wait? So parched
was I now for His nearness, so eager my heart to tell Him that it was verily
His at last to do with as He willed.

The sun sank in threatening
clouds and dusk fell to night, billowed with clouds. Midnight passed and the
first dark hours of the morning...and still the Master came not. Helpless to conceal
our fears, we women crowded at a window, our eyes strained toward Jerusalem.

At last I could bear the suspense
to longer. Driven by panic now, I made bold to seek my Lord. But that none
might know my purpose, I slipped unseen from the chamber wherein we had gathered
to watch the road and on tip-toe stole to the house door, then, myself out upon
the road, hugged the cliff lest those watchers discover me.

Out upon the road...out in the
night...alone...what was this I felt in the night that weighed so heavily on me,
this pall that stifled me? The black air was stiff with a living

Had my Lord been slain in
Jerusalem? Ah no, that could not be. We Jews well knew that no true prophet could be slain by human hands.
But what had they done to him,
then, tonight? Where could I find Him? Where?

I came to the gate of the Garden
of Gethsemane. It stood ajar. Could He be here — safe — in Gethsemane?
For often He stopped to rest here. But would He linger at such an hour? Still...I
would search this first, the gate being open.

I groped my way to the grove of
olive trees. Grey as ghosts they were in the night, their branches writhing to
heaven. Rumbling sounds reached my ears and, affrighted, I paused, thinking animals
might be here. Then under trees I saw forms huddled, and I knew these sounds
were the snores of sleeping men.

I drew nearer. Ah yes, there was
Peter, there James, and a little beyond them, John in quiet sleep. My Lord must
not be far now. And then I saw a lone figure, prostrate on a rock.

I stood, my hands clasped on my
breast, sighing for joy. I had found Him and all was well!

And now His voice quivered, into
a chant — so low that I heard not the words — then rose in a great wail.
And my heart stopped...for what was this He prayed?

"Abba! Father! Remove this cup
from me. Howbeit, not my will but Thine be done."

"This cup"? "This cup"? What cup?

Terror seized upon and shook me.
Thought blotted out, I knew but two things. I must stay. I must hide. I sank to
the ground behind a flowering bush, where I still could see (myself unseen) that
prostrate form on the rock...the arms outstretched...a white cross.

How was it I had rejoiced,
believing that all was well? Why had these eyes perceived not, till fear tore
the veils from them, the awful abandon of those outstretched arms...of that
rolling head with face buried? The rock, gray and flat, upon which He lay became
to me a stark island, lapped by waves of a sinister sea...and He on that island,
encircled by the impassable sea, sweated blood — alone.

Who then could gain access to Him...who
cross the boundary of this loneliness? God sorrowed here where men slept. God
here communed with God. A pitiful woman, wide-eyed, sleepless — watching — even
though her too bold heart yearned to soothe where none could soothe...might not
profane by mortal touch the majesty of such sorrow, nor raise so much as a
whisper to break the dread silence of such communion.

But oh...that cup...that cup...what
could it be, too bitter for the Lord to drink?

He rose to His knees and slowly
lifted His face. His head fell back till His eyes strained toward the zenith of
the clouded heavens. And again His voice soared in a chant. And though abysmal agony
wrenched its tones to a strange beat, I heard — in the few words that
reached me — love singing high above agony. For — the cup forgotten — He
prayed for us, for His poor disciples, who would have walked in His footprints,
but, slothful, had walked lagging; for those that slept under the trees...so
near.

"Father," He prayed, "I have
manifested Thy Name unto them Thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were
and Thou gavest them to me...I pray for them."

The deep tones sank to a murmur;
then rang forth strong.

"Neither pray I for those alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. That they all
be one, as Thou, Father, art one in me and I in Thee...that the love wherewith Thou
hast loved me may be in them and I in them."

And when He had ceased to pray,
He knelt for a long time motionless...a statue on that rock.

At last He staggered to His feet,
and I saw Him turn from the rock and move to the tree under which lay Peter,
nigh to my rose-bush. His robe was ghostly in the night. His arms hung down in the
loose white sleeves. His head drooped...and never before had I seen that head
bowed low. Enshrouded by His loneliness, He walked with faltering step. To me,
He was like a great white eagle — wounded. He stooped and stood above Peter
and called this disciple's name. And Peter stirred and half-rose; then sank to
the ground and straightaway slept again. And I heard the Lord groan:

"Oh Peter, could you not watch
with me one hour?"

And now...behold His coming, with
that slow step, toward the rose-bush. Fright overtook me; shame consumed me,
for here I was an unbidden guest...and a secret watcher.

Still...He came on. Beside the bush
He paused; then turned His face to where I sat cowering.

"Mary! You!" He cried. In that
cry was a note that rent the heart, a darkened joy — as a cry from one too
heavy-laden who finds solace in a little thing.

One step...and He stood over me,
and I cast down my eyes before His broken beauty, pale in its nimbus of sorrow.

"You, Mary, are awake."

I opened my eyes, I upturned
them, and, because He stood so near, I could dimly see that He smiled on me,
and that it was a wild smile gleaming through anguish.

"Forgive...Lord...forgive. Accept my
heart...now...I implore."

From His height He spoke.

"My daughter...the heart should
seek the Beloved of the World, for verily He is faithful. Henceforth forever...forever...be
the lover of the Sun, aflame with the fire of the love of God. This...this is
eternal."

And I fell on my face before Him.

My Lord still stood in the grass
of Gethsemane. Ah, I know, for my face now rested on His feet, imprisoning them
there, though I dared not...tonight...kiss their sacredness, nor had I the tears wherewith
to bathe them. He still stood upon earth, but his
words floated down as from a receding cloud.

The darkness had begun to lift
and now a jagged rip of crimson wounded the east.

"See, the dawn," He breathed. "Go
now, my daughter...Mary. I am with you always — in every world."

I looked up. He stood pointing to
the dawn. And as I gazed...oh not at the heavens, but at Him...Him...mutely pleading,
for had He not said, "Go"?...He flung back His head and His eyes blazed down with
such almighty love that in that look...again I saw God.

"Forever?"

"Forever...oh Beloved!"

I knew that I must go — must
leave Him to the awful secret of His "cup." I crept back from Him, facing His
glory till I could see no more, for the distance and the tears that came at
last.

Ah, where should I go? Could I
but cling to the wall of Gethsemane, to wait His coming forth, that I might follow...follow...to
I knew not what. But alas, He had dismissed me. And as I lingered hesitant,
there by the wall, I saw emerging from the Golden Gate a multitude with swords
and staves, a multitude of priests and elders and captains of the Temple, and leading
them — Judas! My senses reeled. In a lightening flash I beheld the form of
the cup. I turned to run back to Gethsemane — back to my Lord — to
drain that cup of blood with Him. But now my body reeled. I swooned.

A hand bathing my brow, then
holding a draught to my lips...and cruel life returned. Ah, I knew that hand and
the signet it bore!

"You are better...dear? Thank the
gods I have found you! Having watched you...yesterday...from...from your villa,
climbing toward Bethany, I came this way, seeking you. Mary...beloved...you are in
danger. The Nazarene...I grieve to tell you this...has been seized by Caiaphas. His
followers too, are suspect."

"I am glad, Novatus, to be
endangered. Have no fear for me."

"Mary, see...my litter...here on the
road. Will you not come with me?"

"I want but to share His fate.
Let me go."

"I cannot let you go, my dear, my
own! Mary...for what you have seen matters not. Your love only is love to me."

"What I have seen matters not?
Ah, indeed it matters not! Have they passed...from Gethsemane?"

"They have passed, Mary."

"They have taken my Lord to...."

"Caiaphas. Then Herod.
Afterwards, Pilate." The words were reluctant and spoken with great pity. "You
cannot reach Him...where He is now."

"Still, I shall go...wherever He is...."

"Come in my litter, Mary. "

"No...no. You detain me. Farewell."

And as I went, looking not back
(for I knew that Novatus followed to see that I came to no hurt), Palestine's
sudden sunrise, a great fan of fire, leapt above the mountains of Moab.

XV

I SOUGHT my Lord in the
Praetorium.

In the square before the
Praetorium already the mob was gathering. The great Roman house, upraised upon
many steps, the tall pillars of its porch, loomed above me, forbidding. The guards
at its doors threatened me from afar. As I passed through the mob, swift,
resolute, fixed upon my goal, the Beloved, I heard hateful muttering.

My heart-broken look, I think,
was my password at the doors. Unchallenged, I entered the vast hall. Within was
commotion. Dark-brooding Jews, messengers from the high priests and Herod, were
crossing and re-crossing the pavement, besieging Pilate's chambers.

As I drew near, a plan in my
mind, a door opened and John came forth. Pale as death was he, his lips set,
his eyes staring. He saw me not, till I spoke.

"You have talked with Pilate?"

"No, I could get no farther than
his antechamber."

"John...I know Pilate...a little."

"Try then to see him, Mary. Let
us do all we can. Though...after this morning...in the garden...Mary, He gave Himself
up, not to the hirelings of Caiaphas, but as to God. Even those ruffians fell
back before His high fortitude, ashamed to arrest Him. But He would have it so.
He advanced to them. He accepted Judas' filthy kiss as if it were a lover's."

"Where is He now?"

"Mary...His feet are in the stocks."

"Oh great God! Oh, could I but go
and throw myself at His feet — His feet in the stocks — and beseech Him
to deliver Himself. For, John, He can. Pray that Pilate may see me. Pilate
could refuse Caiaphas.

Alas that I too was driven from
Pilate's door.

Desperate, I sought a guard. For
a fever to act now burned in me...to move...move...nor rest till I had turned my last
stone.

"Take me," I pleaded with the
guard, "to the wife of Pilate."

The noble lady Claudia received
me. I found her pacing the hall, her face distraught.

"O Claudia...you love Jesus?"

"Mary, why do I love Him? I have
seen Him not, save in the distance. But all last night He troubled my dreams.
In my dreams He appeared...more than man! This execution...it must not go on." She wrung
her hands. "This must not be on Pilate's soul. Yet I cannot move him."

"You cannot move him? Oh try once more, once more."

"He is like unto rock. I cannot
penetrate. This is some political thing. No woman — nor I — could reach
him now."

"You are the one hope, Claudia.
Beg at least this of Pilate — that Mary of Magdala be admitted to Jesus."

"For your sake I will try, even
though it anger him."

I waited alone, forced to a
tortured interval wherein I was helpless to do aught but wait. When at last she
returned, her face bespoke her failure.

"Mary, at the door of Pilate's
antechamber I met your friend Novatus hasting from it. His look was furious.
Can it be that he has opposed this execution? What could you do with Novatus,
Mary? The hope is slight, since it seems plain that he and Pilate have quarreled.
Still, Novatus might find some means. What could you do?"

I faced her challenge, horrified.

"God knows. Even this, I will
try."

And now I sought...Novatus.
Claudia, the woman, having failed with her lord, perchance Mary of Magdala...the
woman....

God forgive me if this were sin.
Yet what mattered my small sinning, even should I forfeit heaven for it, if the
life of the Lord be spared thereby, to finish that work wherefore He had come? His
"cup"...had it not been this...that so soon His ministering to man must end...the
message of God silenced on His lips? Oh not pain, not death, His cup.

But where...where to find Novatus?
Of a surety not in that house where dwelt in my place, slept in my bed, that
other woman! Nay, not now. In his
house in the city, perchance...I recrossed the halls of the Praetorium. From a
corner I heard the strong sobbing of a man. I could not pass a broken heart.
There knelt Peter, his great body heaving, his face hid in tear-wet hands. I
touched his shoulder.

"Peter."

He uncovered his face...and I pray
that never again may I look on such despair.

"Mary, touch me not. I am
accursed...with Judas. No such traitor as he. No such coward as I. A pretty pair
we, to be travelling, arm and arm, through eternity. Mary, you know I love my Lord.
I was no coward in the garden. With my sword I struck off the ear of the
high-priest's servant himself. My Lord healed that wound...ah God!" Again sobs
rent him. "Because I could not leave Him, Mary, I crept after Him...though at long
distance...into the very court of the palace of Caiaphas! Then how could it be
that fear got me...fear of what a maidservant could do? When the wench accused me
saying: 'You also were with the Nazarene, you are one of them', 'I know not the
man' I lied, and spat and swore...to carry it off. In all the worlds to come,
Mary, I can lift not my face to my Lord's. And He warned me. He warned me even
last night that I would do this very thing. And I said, 'I will never deny you,
Lord. If I must die with you, I will not deny you.' "

"Poor Peter," I answered, "grieve
not. The Master's love is so great...so great, I think even this is as naught to
Him. He warned you? Then He knew you would do it. He has always known all that is
in you, and He loved you more than any...save John . Grieve not. I must go." And
I stooped and kissed the tears on his cheeks. "One word more. Whatever I do,
you will judge me not, I know."

"I judge?"

Now I hastened to a stair leading
to a back street whereby I might escape the crowds. When, as I approached the
arch from which this stair turns, a clutch on my arm held me fast. Who was this
impeding my flight to my so ignoble sacrifice? An iron hand wheeled me round
and I stood confronted by...Judas, his face thrust close to mine — oh sickening
close!

But was this Judas' face? For
this was a stone mask of evil. Darkness suffused his eyeballs and from his body
exuded a strange stench, as it were the stench of the dead. He stared at me gloating,
daring to smile.

I wrenched myself from his
murderous hand. Yet even then pity filled my heart for this creature, once
human, made of flesh and blood as I; having eyes and lips and a head and a
heart...all feeling members...and heart longings and some good deeds. Once he had
brought me a lock of the Master's hair.

"Judas," I said with a great
sadness, "your devil has eaten up your humanity. Judas, I hate you not."

"I will say you hate me not! I am
left your one strong man. Novatus has taken another woman into your own bed.
Jesus you behold a traitor to His trusting race, a hypocrite and coward; in actual
fact subservient to Rome, yet slyly cozening us with dreams of a free
hereafter, of a kingdom in the world to come," he sneered, baring his pointed
teeth; "now brought low indeed...sold to Caiaphas by Judas for thirty pieces of silver!
Soon will you see Judas mustering, as Jesus feared to muster, all Judea against
Rome. And more than Judea. The malcontent throughout Rome's dominions will
Judas unite under his banner. You will yet see Judas king of an empire. And if
Judas be not Messiah Himself, from whose loins should Messiah spring but from
mine and yours...."

I crimsoned his cheek with a
stinging blow.

"Go, poor creature!" I cried, "Can
you not see that you are but a burst bubble, and all you can ever hope for from
men is contempt?"

He fell back. Sinking to a bench
he raised his eyes to me. And those uprolled eyes, that stricken face, like
unto a dumb beast on whom a quagmire has seized to slowly suck him down, I
shall cease not to see while I live.

Turning my back upon him while he
still sat motionless, I tottered down the steps to the door. Weary unto death,
I dragged myself along Jerusalem's streets, down stepped streets, buttressed streets,
vaulted streets, past latticed and balconied happy houses, now decked for the
Passover, till I reached the abode of Novatus.

Felix, that slave who had ever
been my friend, opened the gate to me. When he saw me his eyes filled with pity
and grave concern, and I knew he dreaded to speak. Yet tidings like unto his
must be told at once.

"My master," he said, "has been
forced to speed to Rome, by the Governor himself. He went raging, my lady, for
that he must leave your neighbourhood. He put you in my care and you know I will
do my best. When you came, I was on the point of starting forth to trace you. I
would have sought you earlier, but that some trouble with the slaves..."

"He cannot be overtaken, Felix?"

"I am sure he cannot, my lady. He
left in a chariot drawn by his race horses, commanded to catch the galley which
sails today from Joppa . Sent on some trumped-up errand to get him out of Jerusalem
at this moment...when he would have interfered to save your Master. So I gathered
from what I knew of his purpose, and from his last words spoken to me. 'Those
who forced my going,' he said, 'would do well to look to my return.' He has
already been gone upwards of an hour."

So...Novatus would have saved my
Lord — of his own will would have saved my Lord — and now he was gone...gone....

After pressing on me a little
bread and wine Felix provided me a litter to convey me back to the Praetorium,
whither my heart panted to return, and himself came on foot to guard me.

But for his escort never could we
have reached the Praetorium, for by now the square before it was filled with a
churning mob and, as we clove away midst struggling bodies, I heard a cry go up
from a thousand throats:

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

Sick with horror I parted the
curtains and looked out. All around me was a sea of faces that were not as the
faces of men, but of wolves and hyenas and jackals. And creeping, coiling among
these wild beasts, I saw men with the Law bound on their heads. I saw these
pause to whisper, now here, now there, and knew they were whispering poison
into the mob's mindlessness.

Ravening wolves in sheep's
clothing...how could it be that such were triumphing, that darkness could defeat
light? Ah see! In the sky, uprolling clouds...and daylight blanching.

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"

I dropped the curtains to shut
out the sight of those crying mouths. But the cries...the cries...I could not shut out,
even with hands pressed against my ears. Oh, passing strange that at such a
moment hope should have flashed into my heart.

"Felix, " I called through the
curtains, "are we near to the Praetorium?"

"Here now, my lady."

We came to a halt and I stepped
from the litter. But alas for my poor hope, these doors were now shut, set with
a double guard. I turned to Felix.

"Take me to the sentinels. Make
them let me in."

"How can I, lady?"

"I have had a thought, Felix...nay,
more than a thought. Pilate can refuse to execute. The Jews cannot do it. The
law forbids. And something in my heart has told me that Pilate's will is
wavering. Oh take me to the guards."

"I am but a slave and my master
has been sent away."

"Felix! Felix! Why waste time? It
is certain that Pilate has talked with Jesus. And something in my heart tells
me...take me to those sentinels!"

But, confronting the sentinels, I
importuned faces of stone. The threshold was impassable. Crazed, I beat upon
the central door. Then a guard seized me by the arm and, despite Felix's fiery defense,
dragged me down the steps and thrust me into the mob. I found myself face to
face with John. In his misery he was stern with me.

"All this is useless — worse than
useless! Come with me now. I am seeking the holy mother, my mother, and Mary."

We found them at last — God knows
how — three mute women wedged in that sweaty pressure of bodies, cries for
the blood of our Beloved in their very ears.

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Give
us our king. Give us the king of the Jews!"

First I saw the face of John's
mother. This...dear God...was pitiable enough. But it was when those others turned,
the holy mother and Mary of Bethany, that my knees weakened and the beating of
my heart failed. For in the eyes of the mother, widened with an awful sorrow, I
saw mirrored the death of our Lord, while in Mary's eyes danced the gleam of
the mad.

The central door of the palace
opened. The churning of the crowd ceased and silence fell. A man strode
through, wearing a toga bordered with purple. The sleekness of his face was
broken into sagging flesh. His eyes stared, startled, uncertain. And I knew my heart
had told me the truth and Pilate's will was indeed wavering. He came to the
head of the steps.

"I find no fault in Jesus the
Nazarene," he began. He cleared his throat. "You have a custom that I should
release a prisoner at the time of the Passover. will you therefore that I release...the King of the Jews?"

A shout went up.

"Not this Jesus! Jesus Barabbas.
Give us Jesus Barabbas!"

Now was my opportunity. Now would
I cast myself at Pilate's feet and from the depths of my agony sway him to my
Lord, who, in some way I know not, had already half-persuaded him to courage.

With the strength of the
desperate I pushed my way through the mob and had all but reached the steps
when two steel hands pinned me. A priest, his phylacteries dropped between his
cruel brows, with a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, held me fast, dug the
talons of one hand into my wrist, clapped the other to my mouth. More birds of
prey closed me in. And ere I could move, Pilate turned on his heel and was
gone. The great door clanged behind him.

Now the priests let me go.
Towered about by those striking bodies, I struggled back to John and the women.
Felix had been lost long since.

"My child, all is vain," said the
mother, speaking at last, His hour is come."

"Yes," said John, "His hour is
come. I told you." John's face was ashen; its youth dead.

"His hour is come! His hour is
come!" babbled Mary of Bethany.

We waited...I know not how long. It
may have been a little time.

Then again the door opened. And
now two stood in the porch between the pillars — Pilate and with Him...Oh
God!...the Master. The Master, haggard, death-pale. On His brow was a crown of thorns.
From His shoulders hung a soldier's cloak...a scarlet cloak, soiled and tattered.
His submissive hand held a reed.

Wickedly mocked..."King of the
Jews!" Yet to that crown of thorns, to those red rags, He lent a terrible
majesty. And in the calm of His eyes, gazing down so steadfastly on the fury of
these "chosen ones"...in the very act of rejecting their Messiah, I saw naught
but the pity of God.

"Behold the Man, " cried Pilate.

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him!,"
roared the multitude.

Strong from the strength at his
side, Pilate spoke roughly:

"Take Him yourselves and crucify
Him, for I find no fault in Him."

And then from within that
multitude crafty voices: "You know we cannot crucify Him. You know well our law that forbids the taking of life.
But we have a law and by that law He ought to die for He has made Himself the
Son of God."

"He has made Himself king, and he
who makes himself king speaks against Caesar. If you release this man, you are
not Caesar's friend."

Threatening voices — not of
the common people, these. And Pilate flinched and turned, and my Lord tuned
with him...and I saw that the back of my Lord's red cloak was darkly stained...as with
blood.

"John," I groaned, "they have
scourged Him."

John bent his head.

The door closed. Then once again
it opened. And this time Pilate came forth alone, except that a servant
followed, bearing an ewer, a basin and a napkin. As before, Pilate stood at the
head of the steps, and his servant with him. He dipped his hands in the basin
and washed and wrung and dried them. In silence he washed his thin, white
hands. Then he turned to the throng in the square. Till now his eyes had been
downcast. Now I could see into them. God in heaven...they were more at peace! He
spoke.

"I am innocent of the blood of
this just man. See ye to it."

Sunk in abysmal despair for which
there are no words in any tongue, for no sorrow like to this, no loss like to
this, has ever before overwhelmed the human heart, I waited...we five waited...while
a lurid pallor, sickened the daylight.

To the right of the Praetorium
stands a low wing of the building, having grated windows set into its stones
and a door level to the pavement. At last the mother turned and with firm step walked
to this door. And we turned and went after her. I knew...I knew then. He would
come forth by this door.

The door clanked and swung open from
within...and through it protruded the great beam of a cross.

With the beam, His thorn-crowned
head emerged, and now His brow was dewed with blood from the thorns. Then His
body staggered forth. And then His gaze fell on us, His loved ones, and He stopped
and stood still before us . Oh fearful to see Him bowed beneath those heavy
beams, that martyred head weighed down, His eyes upraised, His eyes upraised to
us! Roughly the soldiers seized Him and swung Him round, and, ever submissive
He stumbled on.

From the door emerged another
cross, and behind it still another. Mean figures — culprits — bent
beneath these crosses, following after the Lord...none but these now following in
His footsteps. And thus we saw our beloved,
crossing the court of that prison, staggering toward a multitude poised to
leap.

Ah and how it leapt, this herd of
hyenas, wolves and jackals! The soldiers themselves could not restrain them.
Fleeing on ahead of John and the others, mad to be near my Lord while I could...while
I could...even though that herd trample me to death, I could see at close hand
the gambols of these animals, could see them spring to buffet the blood-flecked
face, to spit on that holy face...to mingle their spittle with the Lord's blood...agile
as monkeys, capering before Him; supple-jointed, bowing backward the while they
mouthed their mockery.

"Hail, King of the Jews!"

But some women dared to weep.

The soldiers at last cleared the
way, and, close to my Lord, I walked with Him to Golgotha. Ah, could I but have
borne His cross!

XVI

THE WALK was short. The hill
called Golgotha lies but a little beyond the Fish Gate. In shape it is like
unto a skull, white as a skull, being stony, and round it spread gardens. On
that spring day, flower-studded gardens, lilies and red anemones jewelling the grass,
which would have been a fair sight, but in the lurid darkness of that day the
very flowers had turned pale.

Golgotha rolls up, not high, but
oh steep, steep! Oh, cruel to see our Beloved struggling beneath His long cross
up that rocky hill.

Was it the agony on our faces
that clove a path for us through the soldiers' midst? For now, with our Lord,
with His guards, we stood alone on the summit...John, the holy mother, three Marys...while
singly, under their crosses, the thieves appeared above its chalky ridge.

The executioners took the cross
from the shoulders of our dear Lord and dropped it clattering to the stones. A
soldier advanced and loosed the scarlet cloak so that it fell in a heap on the cross
at the Lord's feet. And He stood robed only in the long white tunic His mother
had woven for Him, compassed about by soldiers. Then the executioners turned to
those others waiting, doubled beneath their crosses, and stripped them and laid
them out upon the beams.

I hid my face in my hands. And
there was a dreadful silence on that hill...and to me, with my fingers pressed
upon my eyes, darkness. Shrieks split the silence, followed by hammering and more
shrieks. Then the sound of scuffling feet, of stones being hauled and heaped...and
two awful separate shrieks. And I knew that the crosses of the two culprits had
been lifted with their wounded burdens, and sunken and steadied in the ground.

Now...now...it must be the turn of my
Lord. Now I must look. For, if I would drain His cup with Him, could I do less
than look? How else could I serve Him...now...save by faithful, following eyes that
suffered with Him? I prayed God for strength and turned to Him.

The soldiers had stripped Him of
His one garment, His body stood out majestic against a darkened sky, naked but
for that crown of thorns, and in His uplifted eyes shone the glory of the Godhead.

So it was that I saw...at last...the
Lord of Spirits "in the full glory wherewith God had clothed Him."

They stretched out His body on
the cross, flat on the ground. Now worse was to come — the hammer...the nails....

Ah, those hands! Those palms,
centres of a healing life; those fingers that had wiped away my tears!

I saw one of the executioners
pass to another, who knelt on the ground behind that prostrate Might, a hammer
and three long nails, one longest of all. Two nails, a long and a short, the kneeling
man placed on the ground beside him; then with unmoved face, he fitted the one
he still held into my Lord's relaxed palm, and with a single blow drove it into
that palm, deep into the wood. I clapped my hand to mouth to shut in a scream,
for this...this...was more than I could bear. But no sound came from my Beloved's
lips. His eyes now were closed.

"Ah, it may be He feels it not...that
now He is out of the body. God grant that He feel it not!" I prayed.

Clumsily the executioner rose
from his knees and came over to the left side. And now, because of the breadth
of this man's body, I saw not the second nail driven in. Only I heard the thud of
the hammer.

Still no sound came from that
cross. And when the executioner moved to impale the feet...those feet...those feet,
which I had kissed and anointed and dried with my hair...again I saw the divine face,
and I saw the same patience wreathing His lips, the same serenity on His brow,
though now His face was white and sharp, even as the stones of Golgotha.

At this moment a soldier stepped
forward, on his mouth a grin, in his hands the superscription of the
accusation. And he stooped and nailed it on the upper cross-beam. Black letters
stared from the parchment: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."

And now one of the executioners,
not he that had hammered in the nails, but the other who had held and passed
them, came bearing a cruet and a cup. I knew what was in that cruet — the
mixture of myrrh and wine whereby feeling is dulled. And I went forward to meet
this man, for I would assuage, myself, my Beloved's suffering. If indeed He
suffered.

The man glanced on me with
pitying eyes and in silence placed the cruet and cup into my outstretched
hands. And with body gone weak, I approached my Lord on His cross. His head
drooped now, His skin was stretched taunt over the high bones of His face.
There was the look of a slain lamb in that leonine head.

"My Lord," I breathed, "my
beloved Lord...."

His eyes opened. And again
upturned to me, I beheld the love of the Godhead triumphant on that peak of hell.
But mingled with that bright glory in His eyes I saw an awful bodily anguish,
and with heart stabbed through till it seemed to break into fiery halves of
pain I held out the myrrh and wine...in a cup.

Feebly He moved His head in
refusal. Ah, why should He not drink this? Why hold so fast unto torture? Now I
saw His lips tremble open and, bending close, heard one word:

"Forever?"

"Forever..." I sobbed.

Then the soldiers came to take
Him from me...to set up His cross. And as they lifted high His naked majesty, the
accusing scroll unfurled above, from the garden I heard a thousand voices, "Hail,
King of the Jews!" And shouts of laughter rang to that hill.

Till then, curtained close with
my Lord on Golgotha, I had know not the garden was filled with staring faces.

The cross jarred into the earth,
but still no cry, not even a moan, escaped the drawn lips of my beloved Lord. I
went, and with me the holy mother and John and his mother and Mary of Bethany,
now a child to be led, all walking as though in sleep, and together we sank to
the foot of that central cross. And then climbing the hill came Mary, mother of
James and Joses, and Salome, veils across their mouths to stifle their sobs.
And they, too, sinking to the ground, we all raised our eyes to the face of our
dying Lord. And He gazed on us, nor removed that gaze, but looked steadfastly
down on us. His lips were half open, giving up His anguish, or, as if He would
speak but for that anguish, His weary eyes shrouded in a mystery of pain. How
could we read that face, so great in death? But we could feel the yearning of
His love upon us.

With the settling of the cross of
our Beloved a few of the chief priests and elders had mounted the hill and now
stood clustered together, too near...too near that cross, whispering among
themselves, their faces satisfied.

To the right of us, close to
where one of the culprits writhed in pain, sat a group of soldiers at a game of
dice, their helmets bent low as the little dice rattled under the thief's
bloody feet.

Beyond stood four other soldiers,
wrangling over our Lord's seamless garment, for this, divided, could be of no
worth, but whole, it would be soft to lounge in! Dear robe, whose hem my lips so
oft had kissed, which had tingled as though alive to my lips, shot through by
the life of Him who wore it...at last the four threw dice for it. And when a
youth by a lucky draw won it, he laughed and said, "The Fates choose well, for
this will fit me!"

And now the priests sidled nearer
to this central cross, so near that the bells on their skirts jingled in our
ears. On their golden mitres was inscribed, "Holy to Jehova," and these mitres they
wagged at Him who hung above us, clothed only in His own blood, the while they
fell to mocking Him!

"If you are the Son of God, come
down from the cross."

"You that are able to destroy the
temple and build it again in three
days, get yourself down from the cross."

"Ho, dealer in miracles, you that
save others, how is it you cannot save yourself?"

"He trusts in God! Well then, let
God deliver Him if He will have Him. Did not this blasphemer say, 'I am the Son
of God?' "

"Come down from the cross, come
down from the cross and we will believe on you."

And pressing closer to gnash
their teeth on Him, they all but trampled us who wept.

At this, the soldiers nearby
looked up from their game of dice and got to their feet and stood among the
priests, and the youth with the seamless robe hung over his arm came also, and
others with him. And these Romans, for sport, joined their mockery to the priests',
taunting "the King of the Jews".

Our Lord closed His eyes. His
parted lips moved. Words fainted upon them. I strained my ears and heard:

"Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do."

Yet scarce had these syllables
died when from the cross on the left of our dear Beloved — from the beams
of which a thief looked down like unto an evil bird on the mitred and helmeted
heads — the last gibe fell:

"Are you not Messiah? If you are
He, save yourself and us."

And then it was that the Lord of
all mankind found one defender.

From the cross to the right a
voice was raised, a dying voice and feeble, yet I doubt not its echo shall ring
down the ages.

I looked up to see a suffering
head craned forward to the farthest cross.

"Do you not even fear God, you
who are in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive but the
due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing amiss."

And now this blessed thief turned
to the Lord's cross, and as he gazed at that face drooping below the placard — livid
and shrunk even as his own, lips blackened even as his own — wonder filled his
eyes with a great humility.

"Lord," he prayed, "remember me
when you come into your Kingdom."

Life tided back to our Lord. Once
more in His eyes I beheld the burning revelation of the love of God.

"Verily, this day," He said and
His voice rang strong, "shall you be with me in paradise."

My bosom swelled. My tears
gushed. I thought: His first guest...a thief.

Had He waited...waited, prolonging
His own torments, for the coming of this late guest? For now it was clear He
was hastening away. Now His glance roved from one to another of these upturned faces
at His feet, plumbing their sorrow with His, so that His sorrow sank into our
depths; seeking to assuage our hearts with a last flicker of the fire of His
unearthly love. And we knew — we who gazed through tears that blurred Him — that
His dimming eyes were bidding us farewell.

His eyes swooned back to John,
whose arms encircled the holy mother. Words struggled through those black lips:

"Behold your mother."

Then looking last upon her that
had borne Him:

"Behold your son."

And then He said:

"It is finished."

His head moved, His chin fell to
His breast, the long half-moons of His eyes beneath His fallen eyelids glazed.
And we knew that He — our life — was dead.

Now a soldier came forward. The
King of the Jews was dead. The death of the thieves must be hastened, for
tomorrow was a festal day in Jerusalem and the hill should be cleared of these
corpses before nightfall. Wherefore with smashing blows, which shook howls from
the thieves, he broke their legs and disposed of them. Then he stepped to the
cross of our dear Beloved and, raising his spear, plunged it into that body
which, God be thanked, could no longer feel men's weapons, neither scourge, nor
nails, nor cross, nor spear, nor...tongue.

One of the executioners, lifting
a ladder against the cross, climbed it and drew forth the nails from the
clotted palms, then scrambling to the ground, jerked the long one from the
feet. We had risen to make way for him. John stood supporting the tottering mother,
she who was now his own. But I...I cared not what he nor the others, not even the
holy mother did. Too cold was I now to feel, even to mourn, at this bleak moment.
Apart from all I stood, turned to stone.

And it was then there came to me
that centurion by whose orders my Lord had been mangled and done to death. His
eyes burned solemnly and as he reached my side, he spoke to me below his breath.

"Truly, this was a righteous
man."

"A god," I answered him dully.

We took our beloved down from the cross. Now He was
clammy and waxen.

That merciful executioner who had
passed unto me the cup and the cruet permitted John to support the feet and
himself held our Lord by the arm-pits; and the beautiful head of our Lord, with
eyes forever closed, rested at peace on the executioner's shoulder. Then the
two, John and this kindly man, laid down the body on the stones.

With the fading of our Lord's
last breath the chief priests and elders had jingled down the hill; the
multitude trampling the garden had begun to scatter. And now two came to Golgotha,
Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus. Men of small courage, these. Disciples in
secret of Jesus, they were also members of the Sanhedrin, which had met that
very day to try for blasphemy the Son of God. These two had been present at the
trial and had dared keep silence, defending not their Master. Now they joined
us beneath His empty cross, where we still stood in our mute misery, huddled round
the waxen form reclining mid the boulders of Golgotha.

Grief was in the faces of these
Sanhedrists, but uppermost a sneaking shame. Each wore a smitten look. Yet had
they come with their offerings. Joseph had his tomb to offer, one he had lately
hewn for himself in a cliff in that garden below — his garden, a corner of
the broad acres he owned beyond Jerusalem's wall. Nicodemus would bring us out
of his wealth one hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes wherewith to serve the dead
body of his Lord.

We left them on the hill with
that loved body (for Joseph asked not our aid in that which must be done) to
bury all that was left of Him who had come from above to exalt men and was now receiving
His fellow-crucified before His throne in Paradise.

In those days when the Son of God
walked earth and we, poor clods, companioned Him, if He withdrew from us but
for an hour the sun of our spirits set. Now the sun had set forever. He was dead.
Earth was dead. Alone we were left on its bare bones.

Life we had known. Now all was lifeless. Livid below that black
sky, the fields spread to shadowy mountains. Livid, the domes of Jerusalem rose
above the long ribbing of its wall. Livid, a company of wraiths, the satiated
mob moved, soundless, toward the city gates. A band of shades ourselves, John
and we six women, numbly our feet found the path dropping steep from Golgotha, numbly
followed the chalk-white road...back to Jerusalem.

As we went, the poor crazed Mary
groaned fearful words!

"The veil of His holy temple is
rent, and with it the veil that covers all things...rent. And now I see...I see...into
the darkness of all things. Those monsters that slew the life of God, that
march with us to Jerusalem...can none of you see what I see? Rotting corpses
marching with us. Corpses come out from the tombs to do this deed. The corpses
of those who ever since the world began have risen from the tombs to suck the
life of the prophet. The eternal dead."

Now, before us on the road we
saw, spectral in the dark, a tree, and dangling from it a man. And John turned
aside with the mother into a field and seized my elbow to drag me with them — but
too late.

"What is that hanging on the
tree, John?"

"You know."

"I know, Iscariot. That tree
bears bitter fruit."

"Rotten fruit," said John, with
hard-pressed lips.

XVII

IN THE first dark hours of the
third day I stole forth again from the house in Bethany, now to seek my Lord at
His tomb. To press my cheek on the stone sealing the door of that tomb — I could
hope for no more than this. I asked no more.

I came to the gate of Joseph's
garden. Beneath the dark sky, behind the blank pillars of the cypress trees,
the sepulchre loomed ashen white, and where the stone had been...gaped a hole!

What was this? I ran. Yes, the
stone was rolled away. Now I could enter, kneel close to my Beloved.

I plunged into the cave. Its chill
smote me. Its darkness closed about me. I was in a narrow passage. I stretched
forth my hands, feeling of the dank stones of the walls, groping my way to that
inner vault wherein I knew they had laid my Lord.

But at last in the vault itself I
could take not a step forward. For here I stood lost in pitch-black space with
no walls to guide me, even as one gone suddenly blind. And what was this
emptiness here? A musty breath, raw-cold — a void — this and naught
else I sensed. Then my eyes cleared a little and, far in a corner, I saw a flat
blur of white. An icy hand gripped my heart. I dragged my feet to that corner,
fear slowing every step; then, shivering, stooped...and touched my Lord's grave
clothes.

Where then was my Lord...where...where
was He? Turning, I fled, I scarce knew how, back to the mouth of the cave.

The air was fresh with the dawn,
the sky graying. I had but one thought — to find my Lord. But, alone I
could do naught. John must be told; he would help me. At the moment he lodged
in the city with Peter, in the square just behind the Fish Gate. I sped to Jerusalem.

The window of their room opened
on the square. I peered through its grating. The two men lay on their mats,
still asleep, but I saw John stir.

"John!" I called, "John!" — then
when he woke — "They have stolen our Lord from the sepulchre. Come...oh come!"

He sprang up and we went
together, running. But John outran me and was at the tomb when I was no farther
than the first trees of the garden. I saw him stoop and enter the tomb, then
come forth and stand still in the grove, with bowed head. As I neared him, he raised
troubled eyes.

"Mary...these grave-clothes...discarded!
This can mean but one thing — enemies have stolen Him."

"We must find Him...wrest Him from
them."

"But in such a case, how could we
even find Him?"

"John...love can find Him."

And now we saw Peter in the
distance, running to the garden. When at last he caught up with us, breathless,
staring amazed at the open tomb, and we told him our Lord had vanished from it,
he wept and rent his garments.

"Will they not leave us even His
body? What new sacrilege would they heap on it?"

"Find him, O Peter. Go...you and John...find Him."

"Who could find Him?" sobbed
Peter, "The devils of Caiaphas have Him. They would defile His body."

"The guards were set here," said
John, still in deep thought. "But it might be all were in the pay of Caiaphas."
Then his eyes flashed; he spoke as if to himself. "Howbeit...what matters the body?"

I cried: "It is His body, John...His blessed and beloved
body. Oh go...go...both of you...go!"

"I like not to leave you here,
Mary."

"Here is where I wish to be."

And now they were gone and I was
glad, for at last I was free to weep as I would. For this long time a crested
wave of tears had been poised above me. The wave must break...and now! And such weeping
should be done alone.

I bowed my head on the threshold
of the tomb.

None could weep long as I wept.
The fury of my sobbing spent itself, though my tears still flowed. I rose.

In the garden, his back to me, his
face to the sun, where it showed a bright arc above a hill, stood one whom I
took to be the gardener. Could it be he that had stolen the body of my Lord?

Not turning, but still with his
face to the sun, he spoke.

"Why do you weep? Whom do you
seek?"

How knew he that I stood there,
that I wept? Why were this man's tones so melting-tender? But I thought not
then on such things. Grief had me in too fierce a clutch that I should note the
mystery of the gardener. So that I answered him brokenly:

"sir, if you have borne my Lord hence, tell me where you have laid
him, that I might take Him away."

And now he wheeled upon me...this
gardener. O merciful God! O kind God! Had I too died? Where was I? For here was
my Lord...my Lord Himself...alive....

"Mary."

"Rabboni!"

Once again I was at His feet .
The sun leapt above the mountains of Moab. My Lord smiled down into my lifted
face.

Now I threw myself forward,
frantic to kiss His feet, but He put out a hand to ward me away.

"Touch me not, for I am not yet
ascended to my Father."

I heeded only "Touch me not" and
fell back grieving. Yet...I could touch His beauty, with a look! I drank my fill
of the adored face. How it glistened now! And His eyes beamed down like stars while
He smiled upon me.

Once more He spoke.

"Go, Mary, to my disciples. Say
unto them: 'I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your
God.' "

"Ascend, my Lord...ascend?" I murmured, "Will you then go away — again?
Oh leave us not again!"

Tears brimmed so full on my
lashes I could see naught for them, and when I had dashed them away, my Lord
was no longer there. How could He have fled so quickly? Alone...alone I knelt between
the tomb and Golgotha.

I staggered to my feet. I must
seek John now, though where to seek him I knew not. I turned my steps toward Jerusalem.
Then, on the further side of Golgotha, I saw him on his way back. As he neared
me, I ran to meet him.

"John, I have found our Lord," I
cried.

Gravely he spoke.

"Tell me how."

"I found Him living...not dead.
John, how is it He lives, more vigourous even than before, more radiant than
before, when the cross wounded Him so? There are no wounds on Him now."

"You have not yet told me how you
found Him. What happened, Mary?"

"After you and Peter left me I
went to the tomb and knelt there and mourned. And when I stood up, I saw a man
in the garden, His back to me . How was it that I knew not that back! He asked,
speaking with His face still hid, whom I sought and why I wept. Then, when I
told Him, He turned about and, oh, John...I saw my Lord. I all but died of joy...after
so much sorrow. John...His smile is the same."

"Yes, I know."

"You know? You too have seen Him?
Then He passed your way?"

"No, Mary — that is, I saw
Him not. But I heard His voice, His same voice. When we had left you, as we
neared the Fish Gate, He spoke to me."

"Spoke to you, and you saw Him
not? I know not what you mean, O John."

"Mary, what you have seen is not
that body whose blood still spatters Golgotha, but one the cross could not kill.
It was His heavenly body you saw."

"Ah, John...and it is the same...in
every way like to His own...and substantial. Will I see it again? Will you see
it?"

"Surely. From now on...always."

"John! I am alive again! But tell
me, what happened with you? Did Peter too hear?"

"No, and I bade him go on ahead.
Then I sat on that stone yonder, and our Lord spoke for a long time."

"Oh, what said He?"

"Some things you may know. He
said His earth-life had been His little life, but that His greater life, in
which we His loved ones share, had had no beginning and was endless, even as
the night-depths. He said men questioned not by night the wealth and strength of
the sun, nor by day the wealth and strength of the stars, for all these orbs
had been visible in full glory to the eye, and the disappearance of the sun by
night or the stars by day was but a manifestation of the will of the
All-Powerful Godhead. He asked if we, His disciples, questioned His wealth and
strength. Was it, He asked, that we had perceived not His full glory? His disappearance also was but a manifestation of
the Will of the All-Powerful Godhead."

"John" — I covered my face
with my hands, "He said this...that we share His greater life with Him? We, who
have felt so desolate, so helpless — who thought that all was ended? This
means a great thing, John."

"It means" — John spoke with
bowed head — "that He has accepted even us to take up that work cut short
by the cross."

"John, we must go at once to
Peter and to all the others. Yes, to those nine who seem lost to us I must go,
for our Lord has entrusted me with a message to them. Know you where to find
them, John?"

"I can find them. They are
scattered...hiding!"

"How they must suffer, poor souls...bereft
of faith...bereft of everything. Let us find them quickly...tell them what we know."

"They will not listen, Mary...not
now."

We found them and they listened
not. Such things could not be, they said. Even poor Peter shook his head. But
the women of Galilee believed, and also Mary, the mother of John Mark. And when
I went to Mary of Bethany, where she lay in her chamber, melancholy-mad, and broke
our glad-tidings to her, the darkness lifted from her mind as an evil dream
lifts with the morning. As to the holy mother, she ever walked with God.

And now to each of these
steadfast ones came our Lord in dream or vision. And to Peter mercifully He came
and wiped away his tears.

There followed a day of great
gladness, when all we, who had seen the Risen Glory, were bidden to the house
of the mother of John Mark — a large house with a porch on Mount Zion — that
we might pray in that chamber wherein our Lord had supped for the last time.

And behold the while we prayed,
the air of the chamber stirred and throbbed and our Lord's very presence burned
upon us, not manifest now to the eye and therefore most awful.

I whispered to John, who sat at
my side:

"He is here."

John's face changed. Light
trembled across it, moulding the features to a yet nobler beauty. He upraised
his eyes and glory spilled from them.

"The Lord is speaking. Take down
His words."

He put into my hand his stylus,
while Mary, the mother of Mark, went quickly and fetched me tablets.

"O my dear ones," John heard, "I
enfold you in my arms."

Our Lord spoke long with us that
day, while His life filled the room from wall to wall and from roof to floor
and we were immersed in a sea of love.

God's Messengers, He told us, all
come attended by the power of the Great Ether, and this Power men cannot slay,
nor confine below ground. From this Great Ether now would He pour out His love and
guidance upon us His chosen ones, till we should be lifted up into such
understanding of the divine mysteries as had never before been accorded to man
while he lived in the body. Thus, filled with the might of the Holy Spirit,
each one of us, single-handed, could enter and challenge a nation. And though
that nation should shed our blood, our very blood would conquer it for God. Our
weapons must be but two, Faith and His Love; our only battle-cry, His Name. So
we would build a new Temple, a mighty Tower, its stones many nations made one
in Him. And when in turn this Temple should crumble, the faith within it grown
weak, then lo! the Lord of Hosts would come again.

Now, as never before, the thought
of the faithless nine gave my heart no peace. Once more I went seeking them,
and traced them at last to a squalid upper chamber, wherein all had come together
in their fear and misery.

"Believe me that Jesus lives," I
pleaded. "It is indeed true that no human hand can slay the Prophet of God. For
the Prophet of God is a great spirit,
as ye have seen, not a thing of clay like a jar in a potter's hand, to be
broken and cast away. Did death end Moses, Elijah? Nay, it is said Elijah never
died. Wherefore, then should our Lord have died? His risen spirit dwells in our
very midst. Oh, believe that I have seen Him!"

And my words at last took effect
in their hearts and they did believe. Then two of them, Andrew and Cleopas, saw
for themselves, meeting the Lord on the way to Emmaus. And again He appeared
unto all the men as they sat at meat in their upper chamber, being also in the
upper chamber of their own souls, where doors open into the light.

Now at eventide on a day when
John and I walked Olivet alone, our Lord came and spoke with us there. John
heard the voices; I saw a majestic outline, a mist on shadows. And He bade me,
Mary, spread a feast on Olivet and call to it all His disciples, for now, He said,
great decisions lay before us.

On the morrow, therefore, at
sundown, I spread my feast, beneath a sycamore tree. And the eleven came and
six women. And as we ate, we talked of other days, when here on this very spot
our Beloved had sat in our midst, or when we followed Him across Judea, or
along the shore of Galilee, or to Carmel and Phoenicia, or dwelt with Him in
Capernaum. And each had some happy thing to recall — of a saying not
understood till now, or of some sweet event through which we had passed as in a
dream, unaware of its import.

"I remember," said James, "one
day, walking behind Him on Mount Carmel, fitting my sandals into His
footprints, I trod upon an adder."

"And I," said John, "a day when,
crossing Gennesaret with the Lord, walking alone with Him through the wheat, of
a sudden He stopped and uplifted His face and pointed skyward. And I, also looking
up, saw a hawk in pursuit of a little bird. And lo! While we stood and watched,
that little bird fluttered down and flew to the breast of the Lord, and
sheltered itself in His robe."

"I," said Peter, "recall a dark
night in Capernaum when, as we started down a stair, I would have lighted His
way with a lamp, but He laughed and picked me up as a man might swing a babe,
and bore my heaviness down that stair and set my feet on firm ground."

"I remember," said Mary, "when He
laid on my head a white veil."

And living again in those days,
so that we breathed the very scent of them, again we seemed to be flocked at
the knee of our Shepherd.

The sky turned opal, then dark.
The stars hung above us, bright drops ready to fall. A great hush descended
upon us.

And now behold One coming like to
the moon in glory. Through the trees He came, advancing with His swaying gait,
till He stood intolerably near. All saw Him and all fell prostrate at His feet.
And then the divine voice spoke. We heard it as a rushing wind, resounding from
every side:

"All power has been given unto me
in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, my disciples, and make disciples of all
the nations, teaching them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo!
I am with you always, even to the consummation of the world."

His shining form was gone, but He...He had left us not. While He spoke a
swift elixir had distilled itself into our veins. And now in our breasts a new
Heart beat, a light and fearless heart.
And we knew that our many hearts had been made one in His.

For long we sat in silence under
the sycamore tree, in the blackness beneath its canopy. Then words burned my
lips and I knew that I must speak them.

"My brothers, my sisters, see
what our Lord has done for us! First, He chose us out of all the world, then He
trained and taught us. Now, so great is His love, He has even come back from
across the grave to us. To prove that He is always with us, to prove that there
is no death — and therefore, naught to fear — He has shown unto us His
immortal body. He reveals to us now such things as we could not have borne
before...till something in us too had died with Him. In our grief He has united
us and brought us the greatest of all His gifts — His eternal Presence and
His guidance. The greatest of all His gifts? Nay, there is one still greater — and
this He has bestowed tonight, when He poured His own heart into ours — that
we may know He lives within us, to love
within us. So, having resuscitated us, having reformed each one to be as a Shepherd's
pipe at the lips of the Shepherd, having deigned to enter into us till we are
now as one soul, He lays upon us a new command: To go forth and make disciples
of the nations. By these words our Lord has announced to us, O beloved
brothers, beloved sisters, that the time is come when we too may offer a proof — that
of our faithfulness, our loyalty; nay in very reality serve Him who has done all
this for us."

From the circle of the
shadow-forms under the tree, Matthew spoke first.

"Once I heard Him say, 'Freely
have you received. Freely must you give. Were you to give life itself in the
path of the kingdom, the Kingdom
is so great that even thus you will have received it freely'. To make disciples
of the nations clearly means that we should scatter. What shall we plan to do?
For, as Mary has said, the time is upon us when we may prove our faithfulness,
our loyalty."

Then fell the calm voice of John.

"It is plain that the first step
is to free ourselves of all attachments. Fettered, how could we be loyal?"

"That is true," said one and
another out of the night. And Peter broke forth:

"Free, verily, must we be if we
would herald the Kingdom in the wilderness, free of every tie!"

James spoke:

"More than ties should be renounce.
From the self must we be free."

"That is true." "True."

Then Philip:

"We must wholly sacrifice
ourselves. To be at ease and also teach, these two will not coincide. From now
we must forgo ease. We must accept every hardship. We must go forth, vagabond
preachers.

Once more John lifted up His
voice, that voice dulcet sweet and deep.

"This has another aspect. For the
sake of the Lord we shall be beaten, we shall be cast into prison, we shall be
exiled. Even, the oppressors may kill us. Let us read this lesson now. Let us
know that we shall be beaten, bound with chains, spat upon, banished...killed.
Let us accept all this. Verily, I will."

"We will." "Verily, we will,"
echoed one and all.

Then, each having found his cross
and shouldered it, in silence we went down the hill, to face the menace of the
future and the glory of the Kingdom.

XVIII

WE DESCENDED Olivet. We went up into
Galilee. There the men sold their nets and boats and bade farewell to their
families. Then in perfect unity of heart they departed unto Jerusalem. In the
city of Solomon's Temple where the Holy Word that had spoken in Moses, distorted
by a blind priesthood, was now as sounding brass and tinkling symbols; where
this same Word, speaking again through the lips of Jesus, had been silenced on
the cross, they would make their first stand for His deathless Truth.

In Jerusalem a great new power
lifted up the twelve. Preaching boldly in the streets, even in the cloisters of
the Temple, they proclaimed the Kingdom with tongues of fire. This power
streamed through their very hands. They touched a cripple; he leapt to his feet
and walked. The sick they healed with a touch. Multitudes followed after them.
Multitudes entered this living Faith. Then the priests rose up, even as Herod
had risen to slay the babes of Bethlehem. The wrath of the Synagogues broke
like unto a raging sea against a rock, and henceforth, the Lord's disciples
endured great tribulation.

I, in the meantime, tarried in
Galilee, where I dwelt in the house of the mother of John, the home also of the
holy mother — that house alive with the memories of a vanished Paradise,
with echoes of divine footsteps. And thus twelve years went by — weary years
to me, for I chafed at the peace of our lives in Capernaum while in perilous
Judea our brethren laboured and suffered and some died.

Moreover (to tell the truth),
though the house still throbbed with the life of Him that had blessed it, what
was this compared with the throb of
His vigorous body aflame with His soul's effulgence! What was this compared
with the wonder of those other days when we, the seventeen bereft ones, praying
together, listening for a voice, would be caught up in spirit to our risen
Lord, who, in His hidden ethereal world, consumed our hearts with divine fire!
Not even John was left to us now. He had joined the apostles in Jerusalem. And moments
there were in these heavy days when my thoughts would grope like the hands of
the blind toward yet another who had vanished, whose parting words had been, "Those
who forced my going would do well to look to my return"...yet...who returned not.

Once only had news of Novatus
reached me, Paul the unwitting bearer. This intrepid convert who, in advance of
us all, had gone forth to spread the faith
in new regions, had returned from Achaia with a strange tale of the Governor of
that province, one Junius Gallio.

Gallio was by birth, Paul told
us, of the gens Annaea, brother to
Seneca (my heart lost a beat at this) — Marcus Annaeas Novatus. He had
taken an adopted name with a fortune bequeathed him by an old friend. With him
Paul had had a curious encounter — he knew not, he said, what to make of
it. When the Jews of Corinth had seized him and brought him before the judgment
seat of Gallio, charged with the teaching of unlawful worship, this Roman had released
Paul, rebuked the Jews, and suffered their leader, Sosthenes, to be beaten in
his very presence. At the foot of the judgment seat the man was lashed at the
express command of Gallio, he looking on meantime with a weary contempt. And so
prompt had been his decision that he, Paul, had had not a chance to speak in his
own defence, the which he had opened his lips to do!

What was it had led Novatus to protect
a Christian (albeit with such disdain) if not some thought of me? Yet he came
not back...he came not back...and, lost in this new name, a stranger indeed was he
now.

Thus I crept through the years.
For even by the sea of Galilee,
in this blessed city of Capernaum, the chosen home of our Lord while He lived
in the body, unto which He returned from each journey to rest in the dwellings
of His loved ones; where multitudes pressing about Him had witnessed His
wondrous works with awe...even here His dazzling image had faded from the minds
of men. He had given up life itself in cruel agony, that men might know eternal
life...yet...He had been slain by human hands, and for this, belief in Him was dead! Some still held Him in their hearts, Reuben,
the outcast, being of the faithful. Alas, that so few flames were left — low-burning
midst dying embers and gray ashes — on these shores where His glory had
kindled great fires.

The holy mother, a spirit clothed
in flesh, her eyes like mirrors of a brighter world, her lips sealed over its
secrets, tirelessly ministered unto the sad and lonely with the soft touch of
her love. All their little perplexities, their griefs, she took to the bosom of
her tenderness. But she spoke scarce at all of the Lord's teachings, for to
none would she offer an undesired cup, nor lay the burden of a great truth on
any soul too weak for it. So by deeds she taught, her labours being in the
field of human woe; Mary, the mother of John, cheerfully aiding her. And with
such humble service her soul was content.

It was I — I alone — who
chaffed at the emptiness of the days. And oft would I think in my heart: Is
this, then, the cross I bore down Olivet — to sit with folded hands while
others sacrifice life to seed the earth with the knowledge of the Kingdom?

And then, in the spring of the
year just past, which is to say the thirteenth year since our Lord was
crucified, all things changed.

One night as we sat in that
chamber facing the sea where, on the eve of the bloodiest of Passovers, our
Lord had taught us of happiness — we three women alone, Mary and I at the
knees of the holy mother — the door swung open and we saw John, travel-stained,
pale in the candle-light, distraught.

Oft before had he come with cruel
news. We had heard of Christians flogged and put into bonds, of women dragged
to the prison-house...the stabbing of James the Less and the stoning of our
glorious Stephen. We had seen John anxious and sorrowful. But never till now
had we seen in his face...fear. What then had befallen our brethren worse than
such sufferings?

He greeted us each with a kiss,
then sank heavily into a chair.

Fear sharp in our own hearts, yet
questioning him not, his mother and I set food and wine before him and an ewer
and basin that he might refresh himself. But he pushed all these aside and began
his tale. His tones were calm, his words — at the first — too careful.

"I have made this long journey,"
he said, "to consult with you three on a grave issue which, if we find not the
way to meet it, will bring down much trouble on us all.

"But a short time since, while
Peter and I stood on a street corner preaching, a multitude of men compassed us
about, and when we had done, begged that we baptize them. I liked not the faces
of these men, but to Peter all are the sheep of the Lord and, whether or no they
be hungry, he must feed them. Later, they confessed to...the worst of crimes!
They had been, they told us," — John's voice broke — "of that pack of
beasts that howled for the blood of our Lord, and afterwards mocked Him...on the
cross. Duped by their priests, used as tools, they swore. They appeared half
mad with remorse.

"Now Peter has just uncovered a
plot they have hatched. To avenge the wrongs at the hands of the priests, and
also, they say, the death of their Messiah, they have planned to slay all who deceived
them. And not alone these, but the rulers...elders. And should such a massacre
take place (though Peter is striving with all his might to prevent it), should
men believed to be Christians start a bloody conflict with the Jews...." He
buried his face in his hands and groaned, then looked up with tortured eyes. "If
the Jews retaliate and in turn massacre us...when have we ever feared death? But...this
blot on our Faith...."

"Oh, let us go to our Lord," I
cried. "Let us seek His guidance, for naught else can deliver us from this."

"He has promised to be with us
always," murmured the mother of John, weeping.

Then spoke the holy mother.

"Be not so troubled, John. Have
we not heard the Lord say that if for a single moment the heart become
distrustful, at that moment the bounty of God would be cut off from it? Has He
not also said that all power in heaven and earth is His? Would He deliver His cause into the hands of shame? Verily,
it is clear, John. Our part is but to have faith, to seek, as Mary has said, His
guidance, and then to act boldly upon it."

And now...how dare I write of that
which befell me as we prayed, when
the voice that answered laid a command on me...such a command as no mortal could
obey unless divinely aided?

John heard the voice. We others
felt in the air that mighty throbbing. The magnitude of an unseen Presence
burned from above upon us, wrapped us about with its tingling life, pricked
through our skin and invaded our hearts, and with a new unnamable sense, long
ago opened in each of us, we touched the very Being of our Lord.

Now John began to speak, his face
a center of light straining upward to catch the soundless words. And while he
gave utterance to them I bowed my head low, amazed, weighed down by their
import. For with his eyes on me, John said:

"This is for you, Mary. You must
depart at once for Rome. The apostles must send you thither with a message from
Peter to Caesar. Having gained access to Caesar, you are to give this message
by word of mouth. You are to offer a plea in behalf of these endangered
priests, beseeching for them the Imperial protection. Thus will the mercy
taught from the cross by the King of kings be revealed before the earth's
loftiest throne.

"Meantime," said John, "(and this
is for all) there is naught to fear. Those others — verily crazed by
remorse — who seek vengeance on the priests will be held in check by a hand
stronger than Peter's, mightier than Caesar's. Why should your hearts be troubled
by so small a test? Know ye not that all are but vassals of the Lord, standing
by His command, serving His ultimate purpose? In this journey to Rome lies a
consummate wisdom and in it momentous results are hid. Others will follow Mary's
steps; for now, verily, has the hour struck when ye, the heralds of the
Kingdom, must scatter to the nations."

And then in my heart I heard
secret words.

"You first, my daughter, my
beloved daughter, shall uplift the banner of my love in Rome."

XIX

BIDDING farewell to Galilee, I
set sail within the week from Joppa, alone...yet not alone. For now, while our
galley rolled in the waves of an endless sea, my Lord was ever with me. I felt
Him within, through and around me, as an ocean surges in a drop. And night
after night I saw Him in dreams, always in His human form...even as flesh and
bone and blood, clad in rough homespun, lifting me up with His buoyancy and the
resonant swing of His voice and intoxicating my heart. Once He appeared robed
in white — effulgent, exultant, lavishing on me, with smiles and eager gestures,
the bounty of a new promise. Feasting my eyes on His glory, I thought: Am I
still then a child that He should offer me a gift? Why should He think I lack
aught while I drink this strong wine of His nearness? And I listened not to His
promise. Wherefore, when I awoke I knew not what it had been.

At last we anchored at Ostia and
by nightfall I entered Rome.

I had with me a letter from Paul
to a Jew named Malachi, a porter in the Hebrew quarter. This man gave me a
kindly welcome and, his insula being
full, lodged me in an attic room. And here at the window that night I sank to
my knees and cried out to the heavens. For now as never before was I aware of
my littleness. No longer was Rome a dream, a phantom city in the distance,
dwarfed by my faith in this mission of the Lord's. Now it lay before my very eyes,
solid and vast and dark beneath the stars, its building marching in masses up
the hills for as far as the eye could see, five hills crowned with great
columned piles. And I must somehow — I knew not how — seek out the
ruler of all this...nay, of half the world besides...and impart unto him, Caesar,
the mercy of the King of kings.

But when I fell asleep on my
pallet, again my Lord came in a dream to me, and now I remembered His words — even
as I awoke I heard their echoing — and verily, they shamed me!

"Your only hindrances are fear and
doubt." Then: "Must I speak to you...to you
of fear and doubt?"

There was one in Rome who could,
if he would, gain me an audience with Caesar — the senator, Lucius
Vitellius, once Proconsul in Syria. But I put no trust in this man. For a fanatical
Christian he would have little use. Still, other than he, I knew not a soul in
the city save the kindly porter, Malachi! Of these many thousand doors but one
was open to me. Nor could I be sure if this were open. Howbeit, I had no
choice. There was naught to do but knock at this door. If it should close in my
face, God would provide me another.

Hence, on the morning of my first
day in Rome, having enquired of Malachi and learned that Vitellius dwelt on the
Palatine Hill, made ready to see him without delay.

I had but a single tunic beside
the one I wore — a tunic of rich pomegranate stuff broidered with threads
of gold. In those days, so long ago that they seemed as days of another life,
when I fled from my poor Novatus to rejoin the Shepherd's fold, I had secretly
carried it with me. I took it away and had ever kept it, for remembrance's
sake, this being the robe in which I appeared most pleasing in my lover's
sight. No need had I of such raiment in the humble fold of the Shepherd and I
had worn it not till this day. But now, in hope to please Vitellius and win
him, if might be, to my plan, I bedecked myself in its crimson folds. Then I
covered my head with a blue veil and bound it with a golden tasseh. I scarce knew myself when I held
up my mirror! And a trace of an earlier Mary, lingering within me still,
exulted for that thus arrayed I need have no fear to meet Vitellius...nor the
Emperor himself!

And so, in the gold-banded robe
and with gold-ringed head I descended the many stairs from my attic and stepped
forth into an alley, where the gutters ran with filth, and naked and dirty children
romped in noisy play. I walked till I reached a wider street and there found a
litter with idle bearers. This I hired forthwith, that I might in fitting mode
approach Vitellius. And soon we came to the Tiber, which we crossed by one of a
row of bridges spanning that muddy stream.

I had seen naught of Rome last
night save the wretched alleys I had traversed to reach the Hebrew quarter, and
that view of its mass from my casement. Now I peered eagerly into the narrow streets
swarming with boisterous crowds. To the right and left I looked up high walls — pink,
bluish white, some a dingy brown — broken by balconies and windows, with
boxes dripping vines and flowers. In the lower story of these tall houses
booths lined the pavement, their counters jutting across it, garlands looped
along their cornices, plaques to the side, on which were painted the genii of each
shop, a god or a yellow serpent. At cross-roads I saw little niches set into
the walls for the gods of street-crossings, where passers-by laid their humble
offerings.

My bearers swung round a corner
and I caught my breath, unprepared for this sudden vision of splendour. For now
we were in the via Nova, and,
down a long vista of marble flagging, I beheld...the Forum.

On each side of me rose great
buildings of white, green, blue and orange-hued marble. Through their
colonnades moved a close-packed throng, in which nobles in the bordered toga
and women with high-coifed hair, sleek as silk in tight-fitting tunic and
draped palla, elbowed their way past beggars, shaggy blonds from the north wearing
beasts' skins, blacks naked but for the loin-cloth, red-skirted soldiers with
flashing helmets.

Jogging in my litter toward the
Forum I saw its wide square aglitter in the sun with white, gold and strong
colour — white temples, their columns surmounted by red, green and gilded pediments;
heroic statues gaudily painted; basilicas niched with statues; even on roofs
the statues perched, some winged, about to fly! Cascading fountains, like unto
crystal willow trees, showered into great basins. Here and there the needle of
a single column lifted to the sky a golden god. Two hills rose behind all this,
temples climbing their terraces. On one stood the Capitol. On the other the
Palatine itself reared its mighty bulk, in pillared porches, bronze domes and
pinnacles.

The Palatine itself. I looked up awed at its grandeur. This then
was my goal. Into this forbidding majesty I must force my way to its heart, the
throne-room. But how?

My bearers mounted the hill and,
running along in the shadow of the palace, at last reached the quarter of the
senators and the knights. And ere I was ready in my mind to meet Vitellius, I
was at the gate of his house. A slave opened to me. His master, he said, was at
the senate. Would I wait? He was expected soon. I heaved a sigh of relief for
this respite and waited.

The slave led me into a little
oval room, through the door of which I could look into the atrium, could see a frescoed
panel framed by two columns, a statue in the aisle, a glimpse of the lily-bordered
pool. And the calm of this white stateliness invaded my whole being and filled
me with peace, and I thought: An atrium. A pool. A Bacchante on the wall...soaring
with a cup....

Now I heard a step. Vitellius had
come, and as yet I had planned not what to say to him! And I sent up a prayer
for help.

Then I saw one crossing my vista...a
man in a scarlet tunic banded with purple. The light from above streamed on his
gray hair and silvered it to shining white. And my heart leapt to my throat...as
I had felt it would never do again.

He turned and came toward this
oval room. And now I could see his dear face...and the changes there. How he has
suffered, I thought. I rose, my heart pounding. He stood in the doorway.

"Mary."

That whisper was like to a cry,
such pain was in it. A great pang stabbed me...and then...my old love awoke from
its sleep of years.

And yet could this be the old love? For as I gazed once more on my
Novatus, I knew that even should he hate me, or...care too little to hate, should
I pass utterly from his mind, a forgotten play thing, valueless to him, I
should ever rejoice in this living stream of love now gushing forth so free
from an inexhaustible spring within me, asking not even to give. All I asked
was to love...like this.

Ah, his face! How its suffering
smote me now he stood so close, pale beneath the whitened hair (only the
eyebrows dark, and those starved eyes), the once firm modelling broken into a
hurt looseness; all its forms deeper, thinner, as if the fingers of some great
sculptor had pressed into every hollow, flickered over every plane, and in
places pinched away the clay.

Could it be he was blind to my
tumult, my passion of tenderness? Not that it mattered...now...but why should he stiffen,
close himself against me as in a coat of mail? I had made no answer for that I
could not.

He spoke again, as he would to a
stranger, his voice constrained.

"You...here? What can have brought
you to Rome, O Mary?"

Now I must find words. I forced a
light tone, but it trembled like to a stretched lyre-string.

"You shall hear! But first tell
me of yourself...Novatus. I believed you to be in Corinth."

"I was recalled and came but
yesterday."

Yesterday? I thought. Yesterday I
came.

"I have answered your question.
Will you not answer mine?" Still he held himself in that tight control. "Tell
me, what brings you here?"

I will tell him, I thought, and in straight words, for then he will
laugh and be simple with me.

"I am come on an errand to Caesar."

At this verily he unbent! His
brows went up. The old satire darted into his eyes. The old humour played
across his upper lip, as he mocked me in his way of long ago.

"And what may this matter of
state be?"

Now my words flowed free and
happily.

"I know not enough, Novatus, to
meddle in matters of state! I am come" — I turned grave — "from the
Christians to bear a request to Caesar, and today I ventured to seek Vitellius,
hoping he would take me to the Palatine."

"Vitellius? Nay, Vitellius will
not take you, Mary. Come, sit and tell me the nature of the Christians' appeal
to Caesar."

He led me to a bench, and frankly
I told him the whole story, touching on the great oppression we had suffered
from the Jewish priests, yet making it clear that we must protect our foes, as well
as safeguard our Faith. And he sat beside me, silent and grim, his eyes bent
upon the floor, so that I could read them not, but I saw a muscle twitch in his
cheek and knew that my words in some way stirred him. Howbeit, when at last he
turned and looked full on me, the fire in his eyes amazed me.

"Fool that I was," he burst
forth, "to have left you so long exposed to danger in that accursed place! That
my letter went unanswered...."

"You wrote? No letter reached me...."

"And the bearer assured me he had
delivered it into safe hands! I poured forth so much in that letter. Then, waiting...waiting
for some message...I remembered bitterly your last words to me...that my love for
you mattered not. Still...I should have come myself to you! Forgive me, Mary."

"Nay," I said, "it is I that
should ask your forgiveness for all I have made you to suffer."

He flashed me a glance...quick...sharp,
as if he could not believe. Then a great glow overspread his face and colour
tided into it.

"Mary...you love me still?"

"Love never dies," I whispered.

He turned and seized me. I could
not escape his arms, his kisses, nor stem the flood of his words.

"What you have been to me! And
now...this meeting...proof that we cannot part. Life without you has not been...life. That happiness I thought lost...Never
again will I let you go, my Mary! As in the old days..."

"Ah, no!" Swifter than thought
the words came.

He loosed me and put me off from
him, his eyes searching mine...and now they burned softly.

He knows, I thought, reads what I
cannot say.

At last he spoke.

"Mary, there are no barriers."

How great is the wealth of God!
We fling our lives at His feet, but can these
enrich Him? He gives them back to us with a smile! He says: "Yield me your
heart." And when the heart is verily yielded, all it has loved with the love
that knows no swerving, is restored forever. And if even He say, through the
lips of a sacrificed messenger, "Take
up your cross and follow Me." He leads us...it may be through blood...into His
deathless Kingdom, where we find our treasures immortal.

Long ago the Beloved of the World sought me where I sat on Temple
steps, weeping tears of hopeless grief for that I had driven my lover away with
a lie, and that lover had threatened the sacred life. And He, my Lord, had
dried my tears with a touch and a word. The touch of His finger tips; the word...a
prophecy: "When you have verily given up, your lover shall come after you."

Who but the Lord of the future
could have foreseen so strange a seeking...finding, or a consummation fraught
with such great portent? For now, joined outwardly in betrothal, within we two were
aware of the fusion of our inmost being, fathoms below the stress of mortal
life, in that region where run the deep waters of the eternal oneness. And ere
on that day of days we bade each other a brief farewell, Novatus made me this
promise:

"I will take you myself to
Caesar, Mary...my wife."

XX

WITHIN TWO DAYS Novatus took me
to Claudius Caesar.

We walked beneath a sweeping
arch, on the top of which four white horses pranced to the sky, behind them,
driving a marble chariot, Apollo and Diana. Thence, down the via Sacra, a long corridor of fluted
columns that led to a mountain of white steps flanked by giant cypresses.

We climbed the steps and entered
a colonnaded hall, very long and lofty. Its walls were a dusty red, like to the
bloom on a pomegranate, frescoed with figures of heroic size in cool, bluish colours,
and with trellises of fruit and vines, and partitioned at the far end by a
massive purple curtain. Knights and senators thronged the colonnade, seeking
audience with Caesar, but the guards led us quickly past them, down the long
vista of the hall and into another extension of it, also closed in the distance
by purple hangings . We passed through, and again looked down a vista of red frescoed
walls and columns to another purple curtain, dropping to the pavement in
austere folds.

Such an approach prepared me for
an august presence. But when the guards looped the third set of curtains and at
last we stood in the throne room, I saw — still in the distance — a
simple man, who, though his curule chair was raised on a gilded dais and his
head wreathed with its crown of oak leaves, seemed scarce to know that he was
Caesar, or that his chair was a throne. Less haughty was he than any of his
courtiers waiting without.

As we drew nigh to the dais I saw
that his face wore a baffled look and twitched now and then in little spasms,
that his kind eyes blinked, his mouth quirked at the corners, and above his
long nose his eyebrows peaked, as if ever asking a question. When his eyes rested
on me, they grew very kind.

I had warned my beloved to speak
not of our betrothal, for I wished to approach the Emperor in all simplicity,
as a humble follower of the Lord Christ. Wherefore, when I was presented, it was
but as Mary of Magdala, who had come to bear a petition to the Imperial
Presence from the Christians of Jerusalem. And then, to gain me a little time,
Novatus talked on other matters with Claudius, while I stood intent on this man
raised on his throne, thinking: Here then is the great ruler of Rome...and here
am I! God help me to do His will...God help me!

But as I watched his twitching
face pity filled my heart for this Caesar. For by now I had heard his whole
story. I knew that all Rome had taken him for a fool, mocked or neglected him,
and even his own mother, shamed by her son's deformities, despised him. I knew
that the few he dared to love had been torn from him and foully murdered, and
he owed his own hapless life to naught save its inconsequence. His very Empire
he owed but to the whim of the soldiers who, on that horrible day of the murder
of Caligula, when all in the palace were fleeing, had dragged poor Claudius out
by the feet from under a bed and, first having made a butt of him, for a jest
set him on the throne. And when the time was come for me to speak, I was aware
that Love itself spoke through me, albeit my words were simple.

I began:

"O Augustus! Surely you know of
Him we Christians follow, the Lord Jesus Christ?"

He bent upon me his mild look.

"I have heard but a rumour of
Him. Of the Christian sect I know a little more. Was not this Jesus a young
thaumaturgist who, in the reign of my uncle Tiberias, gathered about Himself a following
and stirred up some trouble in Judea? I have forgot how the matter ended."

"The Christians believe, O
Augustus, He was more than a thaumaturgist."

"More? How more?"

In few words I spoke of Israel's
hope — that a holy One would come by the will of God to earth to set up an
empire not of this world, wherein all peoples would be united in an age-long
reign of peace and justice. "Even as Seneca has foreseen" I said.

"Seneca, yes," smiled Claudius. "Also
this minds me of Plato and his ideal republic. I have ever thought it would
take a god — or a succession of gods — to bring to pass such a dream in
this our world. Know you that here in Rome there is talk of the coming of a god-man?
"

"In Rome? You in Rome have this
prophecy too? We Christians believe it to be fulfilled in one whose life was no
dream, but a reality beyond all dreams."

"Where then is this one now? I
take it He is that same you say is more than a thaumaturgist."

"Alas, He has been crucified."

"Crucified?" Plain it was that in
Caesar's mind were two questions. He asked first:

"Can a god-man die?

"Nay, O Caesar...a god-man cannot
die!"

"How was it that He was
crucified? And by whom, O noble lady? What had Rome to do with this?"

I replied that Pontius Pilate had
been the means, but our Jewish priests the cause; they fearing the power of
Jesus, whose precepts must of necessity strip them of their privileges.

"Once in the Temple," I said, "I
saw Him seize a whip and drive the money-changers from it's cloisters."

"Ah, He was a man of action."

"But this was His only act of
violence. It was His sweet persuasion our priests and elders feared, and that
He taught the people...love. For love, O Caesar, is an overturning power in an age
of greed. Yet He was no rebel. Myself I have heard Him say, "Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

"He sounds like a sensible man,"
said Caesar, nodding his head. "Go on with your story, O Mary Magdalena. I
would hear why Pilate yielded to such vermin."

And then he did a gracious thing.
He bade me sit.

"I know not why I have kept you
standing so long, except that you had me in a spell. And you too Gallio, sit. I
will come down to you." And he raised himself from his throne, hobbled down the
steps of the dais and seated himself in a great chair by the wall, and we sat
beside him. "Now your story. What of Pilate?"

"He understood not the Jews, O
Caesar, and our whole land was seething against him. I know not what threat the
priests held over him, only that he feared to thwart them. But it was against
his will he yielded. And no blame can be laid upon Rome."

"You are just, O Mary."

"I am but the pupil of a
god-man."

"How is it," now Claudius turned
to Novatus, "you did not yourself avert this? Were you not in Judea at the
time, known to this lady?"

And my dear one answered:

"Pilate, who knew I was bent on
averting it, by a subtle trick which I could not circumvent, rid himself of me,
despatched me to Rome on some fictitious errand the very day of the execution. There
was no time. The whole dastardly thing, the arrest of Jesus and His death, was
precipitated within ten hours. I have thought it part of some bargain with the
Tetrarch whereby Pilate saved his skin in Judea. For, as the lady Mary has
hinted, the Jews detested him. He had outraged them and their religion by
forcing upon them certain policies deifying Tiberias, and they wanted but
little excuse to bring him low in the eyes of that very sovereign he would flatter."

"Ah, well," said Caesar, "Pilate
is already running down hill. Too weak, too thick-headed is he to last long
politically. Tell me, O Mary," he blinked at me, "is it your belief that the punishment
of a man is but the offspring of his own acts?"

"Indeed I believe this, Caesar.
An act, is it not like a seed with a whole tree in it?"

"And vengeance," mused Caesar, "is
this not an interference which but confuses the issue?"

"strange you should speak of vengeance, O Augustus."

"Why strange? Revenge is in most
men's thoughts."

"But it has to do with my
petition."

"You seek vengeance? On the
priests...?"

"Oh, no...no. I am come to ask your
protection for them."

Claudius fixed his gaze upon me
and his face was all but beauteous in its benignity.

"Present your petition, Mary
Magdelena."

"It is not in written form. With
your permission, I will tell it"

And I spoke fully of the plot
hatched in Jerusalem to avenge the wrongs of the priests' dupes and the death
of their Messiah.

"Unphilosophical, O Mary, but an
impulse scarce surprising."

"Ah, yes, but we are Christians,
Caesar, and these men have taken our name. And now we must safeguard our Faith,
which teaches not such things. We would also save these Jews from crime and shield
the lives of the priests."

"Shield the lives of the priests?"

"Surely, Augustus. Our Lord
taught mercy. Even on the cross He taught it, praying with His last breath for
those that had hung Him there and for all who mocked Him as He died. This was
His prayer on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

Steadfastly gazing on the Emperor
while I spoke, I saw tears start to his eyes.

"Wherefore," I went on, "we
Christians implore you to issue an imperial edict to the Proconsul at Jerusalem
(who has come to favour the Christians and has no liking for the Jews) that the
priests have guards set over them by the Government. So will this plot to slay
them, checked for the moment by our chief apostle, be brought to naught.
Furthermore we hope, and our hope is in Caesar's clemency, not even the
plotters need suffer death."

"Such is the message, O Augustus,
which has been entrusted to me."

In-so-far as I can recall them,
these are the words that passed that day between the Emperor and me. His last
words are graven on my heart.

Leaning out from his chair, his
bewildered face working, those tears that had sprung at the mention of the
mocked Lord Jesus now coursing down the ridges in his cheeks, he stammered:

"In all my life I have never
heard the like of this. Those priests who forced Pilate to execute Him ye
worship, who are even now harassing you, who...should I save them...will cease not to
hound you.... Well, if you wish it, have it! Noble lady, your request is granted.
I will at once send despatches to Jerusalem. But I am tempted", now he smiled, "to
command that you remain in Rome under the Imperial protection. Moreover" — again
those peaked brows, those peering eyes put me in mind of an endless quest — "I
would hear more of your God of mercy, O Mary of Magdala."

Novatus and I left the Palatine
in silence. At last he spoke:

"Mary, you have touched the heart
of Claudius."

"Claudius," I said, "may be
Emperor, but he is a sad and lonely man."

"In Rome's high places, Mary, are
many sad and lonely hearts. Our murderous Emperors have seen to this. There is
scarce a patrician family that has not been decimated by the whims of the divine
Caesars. I know these people. We will bring them a new hope."

"We...oh, Novatus!"

"Your Master once wounded my
pride and it bled to death. I am grateful, Mary, my beloved, to have any memory of Him — even one for
which I blush."

XXI

NOW WEDDED for the space of half
a year, Novatus and I on an autumn evening strolled the white paths of our
garden. Across a wide lawn of formal planting, of marble benches and herms, our
villa stood, its old yellow brick gold in the afterglow.

The senator, Lucius Vitellius,
had but just left us in the garden, where for long he had sat in a great stone
chair, his paunch uplifting his toga, chatting on the news of Rome, and there had
been that in his talk which had made me to shrink in horror from him, the
thought of which still tormented me. For he had told us with relish of an
abominable crime committed against ten slaves by Cassius Longinus, who,
suspecting these of mutiny, had huddled them off in chains to the arena, and
there, on that very day, forced some of them to combat with the gladiators and
some with the wild beasts.

I screamed. Vitellius cast me a
glance and laughed, and his belly shook.

"What would you have us to do?"
he said. "These dogs outnumber us by the thousand. Should they come to realize
their power and rise in rebellion against us — and among them are
intelligent ones, men of rank in their own little nations — what would be
left of our Rome? Anicetus ended the mutiny in his household by throwing a few,
alive, to the fishes. There are, to be sure, the slave prisons...."

"Dens of torture and infamy!"
flashed Novatus.

"But, I was about to say, a
punishment too habitual to cow them. This, praise the gods, has been done
today."

I turned in loathing from his
sleek face, glossed over with the bland content of the well-fed, with its
frosty eyes, its gross nostrils, its full, curling lips, the ball of a chin
half-buried in shaven jowls and a roll of fat below it; and it seemed to me my heart
collapsed as I felt within it the dying agonies of those helpless slaves,
dragged to the beasts in the arena, trembling before great yawning, shaggy jaws.
And Novatus — solicitous eyes on me — turned the talk to other things.

Now walking beside him, still
shaken, I said:

"Novatus, fear rules this city."

"With good cause," he sighed.

"The nobles fear not alone their
slaves, but men...yes, and women, too, of their own rank, for the moment above
them in power. They are caught betwixt two mill-stones," I said. "As for the powerful,
they fear one another. Even at the royal banquet...that sea of faces, Novatus,
beneath the circlets, the garlands...how they struck a chill into my heart! Fear
was behind their very grimaces. Some put me in mind of spoiled fruit and
sickened me. Others were like unto masks. And the Empress...Messalina! When I looked
on her in all her beauty, perfect and cold as a statue, but one thing alive in
her face, her darting eyes, and poor Claudius tipsy beside her, his wreath
awry, I myself felt fear."

"Messalina is a murderess," said
Novatus, his jaw set grimly. "She has murdered many."

"It is true that through her
intriguing Julia died?"

"She has destroyed two Julias,
the niece of Tiberias and his grandchild."

"It is of her — the younger — I
hear Pomponia speak. Novatus, I love Pomponia. She is valiant like unto a youth
and in her is a stern strength. How she mourns her cousin, Julia. Ever she is haunted
by her image, so white in death. White she was in life, Pomponia says, rare and
pure."

"Julia was indeed pure compared
with Rome's wicked women" — the face of my beloved darkened — "who
concern themselves with naught but new forms of sensory pleasures...strange and terrible
pleasures."

"Pomponia had turned unto me for
comfort." I said. "This morning I sat long with her, speaking of eternal life
and the deathless bonds of love. Even she let me take her into my arms while I
tried to soothe her grief. I told her not of the Lord, but this I shall do in
time, I know."

"Little by little," Novatus
answered me, "by means of such tender friendship, we shall win many to the
Dispeller of Sorrows."

I pressed his hand, my heart
full, and we paced a few steps in silence. Then I spoke a thought which had
been much in my mind of late.

"Seneca," I said, "is wise and
noble. Oft when he visits us here he says wondrous things, worthy of an
apostle. He too believes in one God and in justice and mercy toward our
fellow-men and a reign of peace in the future. It is as though he had caught a
ray from the risen sun of Jesus. His words have more beauty than Paul's and
more lucidity. Yet, despite all these gifts — knowledge and wisdom and art,
and rank with them — he has influenced not the life of Rome."

"His words are but words...empty
shells, Mary. Seneca has not the courage to live his philosophy. Hence, it has
little effect, save to charm the mind."

"Ah, yes, I once heard the Master
say: 'Great is the power of the intellect, but it is of no avail till it has
become the servant of love.' "

"And love," Novatus mused, "is
the one force strong enough to generate the true courage. Mary, I have seen in
battle what men call courage. Greed, fear and bloodlust lie at the bottom of this...in
the motives of such as make war and the passions of many that serve it. I have
seen the courage of helpless patricians at a word from a mad Emperor opening
veins and dying in cynical calm. But sublime courage I never witnessed till I
saw you, my beloved, standing so confident before Caesar...straight as a lance,
with your kindled eyes and your incredible plea!

"Dear child," he looked down on
me with a brave and tender compassion, "you have escaped those hounds in Judea
loosed again on the Christians, alas, through your intervention, but in this degenerate
city, governed by brutes that claim divinity, you will run a greater risk...even
with me at your side. Treachery stalks Claudius. No Roman Emperor dies in his
bed and this just Emperor's days are numbered. Who will reign in his stead,
what lies before us...none can foresee. You, Mary, know not fear, and I shall uphold
you in all you may do, and shall labour with you, and with John and Peter when
they come. But to uplift the banner of the love of Christ in Rome will require
the sublime courage."

"To my mind but belief, Novatus.
And when John and Peter come...when they come," I cried, "we four shall be as a
strong foundation, and then will the truth
resound in Rome as those two herald it in the streets!"

"They will run into death," said Novatus,
his face strangely lit.

"But out of the nothingness of
death" — and a great joy swelled within me — "God shall breed life."

"Again we strolled for a little
in silence. I, for one, deep in thought. At last I said:

"Beloved, you have raised me to a
high estate, and together we mingle with the great in Rome and choose for our
friends the afflicted among them...for our own sweet reasons. We have so won Caesar
himself that he wishes to meet our chief apostle. And for all this I praise God...and
you! Yet my thoughts turn back to the plight of the slaves and because of my
pity upon them I would also reach out to these with mine own hands. I long to
tell them with my own lips that they are free in God's Kingdom."

"God's Kingdom," said Novatus
softly, and I saw, as I lifted my eyes to him, humility resting on him like a
dove. "Is it not the true Republic, the fusion of the great and lowly in an
Order which will protect its every member? Even I see" — his eyes grew wide — "the
fusion of great and little peoples in a world-embracing State. And they who
serve the one King...Him who was son of a carpenter...will know not if they be great
or lowly. Assuredly we will gather in the slaves."

And my heart gave thanks for the
mighty vision my Lord had vouchsafed to Novatus — such as none had seen
till now — and I cried:

"Oh my dear one, my beloved, I
burn to begin the work of this Kingdom. Must we wait for the coming of John and
Peter? May not we two begin? For we have but a single heart between us and that
heart open to the Lord."

"Not two are we then, but a host,
Mary."

"How and where shall we begin?"

"Come," said my beloved, "come to
the house and I will show you."

"Will you not tell me now?"

"Nay," he smiled, "for the answer
is in the house."

And he turned with me into a path
that led to the portico.

Felix opened the door to us, a
little bent now and white-haired.

"We need light, Felix," Novatus
spoke gently, "in the lararium."

We passed through to the atrium,
fragrant with odours of sandalwood and of aromatic oils, dripping from lamps. A
stately hall. The lamps glowed dimly in its great spaciousness reflecting on
the sheen of old wood paneling and the polished mosaic floor, lighting up here
and there some treasure from the past...a yellowed statue of Eros, a cylice, a
black-figured amphora, limned by the hand of Clitias with horses and warriors.

Novatus lifted a lamp from its
stand and led the way down a corridor.

"Now," he said, "I will answer
your question as to how and where we may begin. One chamber there is which you
have seen not yet, my Mary. Since the day I brought you here I have kept it locked
against you. You will soon know why."

We reached the door and Novatus
flung it wide.

"Our temple, wherein we shall
worship, at the first, with our own free household."

I looked within and my heart
leapt. Then I sobbed.

"Why, Mary!" smiled Novatus,
slipping his arm through mine, "your eyes are two rivers of tears."

"I am thinking, my dear beloved,
of the foolish tears of other days, and...that He once said to me, 'If the cloud weep not, how shall the meadow
laugh?' "

There, in that old lararium,
above a now empty altar, the lares all being gone, on a frescoed panel...lived my
Lord. Yet not as in His earthly life. For this was the Ancient of Days, the Word,
which through Jesus' lips had said:

"Before Abraham was, I AM."

A veiled head in profile, as it
were descending through the ether, on the lips a wise and tender smile, and
below this head a cross formed of two rays of light, descending from the divine
One.

"Gaius, the Greek, did the
painting, but I directed!" Novatus spoke lightly, to calm me. "What think you
of that, my Mary?"

"How...you remember...."

"Ah, yes!" Then, as he pressed me
closer: "The Messenger on His way to earth to free all its slaves from the 'fetters of darkness.' "

THE END

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previous at archive.org.../thompson_mary_magdalen;
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Scanned 1990 by Duane Troxel; Formatted 2010-08 by Bobbi Lyons; Proofread 2010-08 by Bobbi Lyons.
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