Part 5

Amaziah seized what he took to be his advantage. “You are confident,” he remarked in quiet tones, “but I have noticed that God does not speak to my priests with the same enthusiasm with which He addresses Himself to the wild and savage hermits who live in the desert of Tob and Golan. And it is my experience that His angels do not enter the cottages of married men with the same boldness with which they visit the huts of bachelors. If it is true that prophets have sometimes been married, it is also true that they have often left their wives and gone out alone to live in the wilderness.”

“That,” said Jonah stubbornly, “is a personal matter, which need not concern us.”

And he added, “You cannot shake me in my resolve.”

Amaziah looked at him sadly. But suddenly his brow cleared, and he struck his palms together. “Wait,” he cried; “if the father of this young woman did not object to your poverty, then there would be no reason for you to become a priest.”

“Well,” said Jonah sourly, “he does object.”

“Then,” exclaimed Amaziah, “for the glory of his country he shall be prevailed upon to change his mind.”

And he waited with a smile for the name of the unreasonable man whose opinions were making a successful war with Nineveh highly improbable.

“It is Prince Ahab,” said Jonah.

At once the smile left Amaziah’s face, to be replaced by a look of consternation. The High Priest sank back in his seat, and stared at Jonah with brows which slowly drew together into a frown. His fingers caressed his chin; he sat for a long time without speaking. At last he said:

“My son, the more I think of things, the more convinced I am that you would not make a good priest. It is the duty of a priest to serve men, and the Temple. You cannot be a good priest, and at the same time be given to divine illumination, because God deals only in generalities, and does not bother Himself about the details of administration.

“A priest must conform; he must not have ideas of his own. He is a soldier with certain duties to perform: he must obey his superiors, and must serve the interests of the men and women who worship the god.

“That would never do for you; your spirit is too lively. You would try to change everything.

“Moreover, since you are not a Levite, I cannot make you a priest of Adonai. I cannot believe that you would be willing to become a priest of a baal such as Melcarth or Kemosh.

“Besides, can you read or write? No? Well....

“I can do nothing for you.”

So saying, he clapped his hands, to show that the interview was at an end.

“Will you speak to Prince Ahab?” cried Jonah wildly.

Amaziah did not reply. Instead, two Nubian slaves came forward, and hustled Jonah out of the house.

A number of people, hearing that the prophet Jonah was in town, had gathered in the street, to gaze at the man who had won a victory over the Aramæans. When they saw Jonah they waved their sticks and shawls, and cried,

“Hurrah for the prophet.”

“God bless Jonah.”

“There is a great man; just look at him.”

One old woman came hobbling forward, to touch the hem of his cloak. Jonah did not even see her. His eyes, hot with anger, were on the ground; he saw the dust, and the tip of his own beard. Finding an old woman in his path, he gave her a shove; whereat she fell with a bump to the ground.

“Oh my,” she said, when she had got her breath. “Oh my. Well, there’s a great man for you. Tst; I feel better already.”

XI

Hiram, the Phœnician, was short, dark, and compactly built. His hair was curled and oily; his body, dressed in richest silks, and in linens forbidden to the Jews, exhaled an arresting fragrance. He walked in the garden with Judith and her nurse, Sarah, as evening was falling.

“Redder roses than these,” he said, “bloom in the gardens of Tyre. The serpent priestesses of Astarte, the Kedeshoth, wear them in their hair at the festival of their goddess, who reigns in Sidon as the deity of cows, but in Tyre as the goddess of doves.”

He had about him an air of the world, of cities by the shores of seas, of mountains far away. As he stood on the terrace at Gath-Hepher, his dark, shrewd eyes seemed to behold in the distance the white domes of Tyre, shining above the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean.

“He reminds me of a man I knew long ago,” said Sarah to Judith in a low voice; “he was a camel driver, and he had been everywhere.”

The Phœnician went on to describe the wonders of his country; the mighty trees of Lebanon, from which Solomon’s Temple had been built, the markets of Acre, with their silks, fruits, and ivory, the Temple of Melcarth, Baal of Tyre, with its two great pillars of marble and gold. He told them of the spacious Temple of Atareatis at Ascalon, with its pool in which floated sacred fish adorned with ornaments of gold.

“At Aphaca,” he said, “there is a temple dedicated to Astarte, with a pool into which gifts are thrown by her worshippers. Once a year this pool is visited by the goddess in the form of a falling star. It is a marvelous sight and makes one very thoughtful.”

“How strange,” said Judith. “And how I should love to see such a thing.”

Hiram looked at her proudly. “You can understand,” he said, “that your temples do not compare with ours. In the first place, ours is a very old country. And then, our religion is not like yours. Our gods have faces you can look at, and love.”

“Yes,” said Judith, thinking of her little silver dove.

“What is more,” continued Hiram, “you who live inland cannot imagine the wonders of the great sea-coast cities. This is all very well; you have a pleasant garden here. But it is nothing compared to the terraces above the harbor at Tyre, looking out over the sea. There is magnificence for you. Well, you see, ships have come from all over the world to decorate them.”

Sarah sighed. “I’d have seen them,” she said, “if I had gone as I was bid.”

The Phœnician gave Sarah a wise look. “Perhaps you will see them after all,” he said. And he glanced for a moment at Judith as he turned away.

“Oh,” said Sarah.

Overhead the sky had grown dull with evening, green in the west, where the evening star, planet of love, hung silver over the hills. Shadows drew down about the garden, the wind rose and moved among the trees, the scent of flowers in the slow-falling dew ascended from the earth and mingled with the fragrance of pines.

“How you would love the markets,” said Hiram, “with their bales of silk and rich stuffs, the strange fruits from the West and South, the gold and ivory. And such an enchanting odor of spices in the air.”

“Just imagine,” said Judith.

Hiram continued: “All the nations of the earth trade with my city. The masts of our ships rise like a forest along the sea wall, and their sails in the harbor are like orange and yellow moons. Ophir and Egypt, the colonies of Carthage, the isles of the barbaric Greeks with golden hair, all send their produce to us, in exchange for our linens, cedarwood, and dyes. It is a wonderful sight to see the ships come in, loaded with so much wealth.”

Judith sighed. “How I should love that,” she said. And she looked around her at her uncle’s simple garden.

“That is life, isn’t it?” she said; “to live in the world, in a great city with ships, and strange things to wear, and interesting sights to see.”

“It is the life of a Phœnician,” said Hiram simply.

And he added, “This sort of thing is all very well, but where does it lead to? You spend your life in a rose garden, between some low hills, among ignorant people.”

“You would never believe how ignorant some of these people are,” said Sarah, nodding her head.

“The life of a merchant,” said Hiram, “is another thing entirely. Take myself, for example; I travel a great deal. And it is really amazing how much information one is able to pick up here and there. I have been to Crete, where I went to look at the sewers. They are made out of stone, and very interesting. But perhaps sewers do not appeal to you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Judith, “they appeal to me very much. But tell me something about your own city. What do the women wear? I suppose they are very beautiful.”

“Yes,” said Hiram slowly, with his eyes on Judith, “they are beautiful. But to tell you the truth, I have never bothered much with women. How do they dress? With jewels, of course, and silks.... I hardly know. I am too busy most of the time to notice such things.”

“Well,” said Sarah firmly, “I am sure you’ve seen no one in your city, or in any other city, for that matter, to compare with our young lady.”

“No,” said Hiram, with a smile, “that is true.”

Judith blushed a fiery red. “Why,” she cried, “I am not even pretty.”

“You see,” said Sarah in Hiram’s ear, “she is not at all spoiled. What a jewel.”

“The life of a merchant,” said Hiram thoughtfully, “is the most interesting life in the world. There is nothing like commerce to give one a liberal education. For one thing, the merchant has to travel a great deal, because naturally he has to see what he is buying; he has to visit other countries, in order to know what to sell. As you can imagine, it is a delightful way to occupy oneself.”

“It’s quite another thing from living in a stable,” said Sarah.

“Why, Sarah,” exclaimed Judith indignantly, “we don’t live in a stable.”

“Maybe not,” the nurse admitted. “But we might just as well.”

“In the morning,” said Hiram, “I go down to the docks, to see what ships are in. Several of the captains are known to me, and we discuss some matters of importance. Then I visit the markets, to see for myself what people are buying, because that is the only way to make a success of business. It is very interesting, all of it. One has to be perspicacious, to be a merchant. For instance, if people wish to buy silk in Damascus, it is useless to send them sandalwood, or betel-nut, even though I, personally, might prefer such things.

“In the evening one goes for a stroll on the terraces above the water, to drink syrups, and watch the sun go down in the sea.

“On festival occasions the streets are gayly decorated with flowers and rugs, and processions carrying the god pass among the houses, and meet at the Temple. Then there is music in the evening on the terraces, and bands of priests and worshippers perform the dances in honor of the deity.”

Judith heaved a deep sigh. “How exciting that must be,” she said. And she gazed before her with parted lips and dreamy eyes. But the breeze, cold with dew, soon made her shiver.

“Let me bring you a shawl,” said Hiram. And he returned to the house for a shawl of heavy silk, dyed in Tyrian purple, with a holy fringe, which he had brought along with him as a gift to Judith. When he was gone, Sarah remarked,

“That is the sort of man I like; one who has made a success in the world and who says right out what he means.

“What a wonderful life he leads. You can see that he knows how to live. A merchant--yes; that’s the life for a person.”

Judith did not answer. When the Phœnician returned with the shawl, and drew it around her shoulders, she thanked him faintly; she would not even have noticed how beautiful it was, if it had not been for Sarah. The last birds were singing before night; the sky shone with the blue of evening. Far off beyond the hills lay the great ocean, wide as the world, with its sails, like orange moons, blowing home from barbarous lands. And over it, terrace on terrace, the queenly city with its laughing festivals, its temples, its sacred pools.... She closed her eyes ... such beauty, such dignity to life, so much to see and hear of; her young heart, dry with curiosity, filled like a pool with longing and despair; her pure and ignorant mind gave itself up in abandon to excitement, to happiness, to festivals with music, to syrup on the terraces as the sun went down ... to ships and wonder....

“Oh, how I should like to be a merchant,” she cried.

Hiram of Tyre bent his dark head humbly upon her hand.

XII

With a heavy heart Jonah climbed the hill to the garden. He wore his old coat, and his face was weary and gloomy. He had come to say to Judith, “We cannot be married because I am poor, and cannot get anything to do.” But as he drew near the garden, he forgot what he had come to say, and thought only of seeing her again.

When he came to the tree under which he had sat with her, Hiram, who was walking with a satisfied air among the flowers, said to him,

“You, there, are you one of the servants?

“Well, just be so good as to bring me a bowl for these roses.”

“I am not a servant,” said Jonah proudly.

“No?” said Hiram. “Then what are you? Are you interested in horses?”

“I am a prophet,” said Jonah.

Hiram made a small bow. “Forgive me,” he said. “In my country the prophets are dressed a little differently, because they have priestly connections. However, it is interesting to meet other kinds of prophets. It is an interesting profession. Well ... what a pleasant day it is. Perhaps you would do me the favor to prophesy me something.”

Jonah stared at him angrily. “I have some business with the Lady Judith,” he declared.

“She is in the house,” said Hiram. And the two men stood looking at each other with surprise and alarm.

Hiram went to fetch her. She came slowly, with downcast eyes, and cheeks as white as her own lilies. “How do you do, Jonah,” she said.

At the sight of her, Jonah felt his heart beating through his body, and a strange sweet sorrow rose up in his eyes. He wanted to say to her, “This is like coming home. I have been so unhappy, but you will comfort me. Because you love me, you will feel my sorrow. How sweet it is to have such a secret together.”

“How do you do, Judith,” he said; “I have been away.”

“Yes,” she said. And they stood without speaking, and without looking at each other.

“Well, did you have a good time?” she asked finally.

It troubled Jonah that she would not look at him. “I did not go away to amuse myself,” he said simply. And he added in a lower voice,

“Did you miss me?”

“Yes, I suppose so. At least ... I have been so busy. What hot days these have been.”

“I went to Bethel,” said Jonah. He wondered how to go on; he was puzzled and depressed. This was not as he had thought it would be.

“Didn’t you know?”

“No.... Did you prophesy again? What is going to happen now? My goodness, you prophets, you are always going about.

“I suppose you will be going back to the desert soon.”

Jonah stared at her. She kept her head down, and her hands twisted together. He began to feel as he did sometimes before God spoke to him, still and empty inside, with a terrible stillness, waiting for something.

“Judith,” he half whispered.

“Yes, Jonah,” she said, looking up at him, for only a moment, and then looking away again.

“All the time I was gone, I thought of only one thing. I remembered only one thing.”

“Yes, Jonah?”--ever so faintly.

“That night in the garden, and the white moon in the trees like a bird in the branches....

“Do you remember?”

Judith looked away. “That seems like so long ago, doesn’t it?” she answered.

“‘Long ago’?” cried Jonah, and his heart sank. “Why, it is no more than seven days ... Judith, have you forgotten?”

“No,” murmured Judith unhappily; “but I do not exactly remember....”

“You said you loved me,” he cried, in a voice which sounded like a croak.

She put the backs of her hands to her two cheeks, and whispered with bent head, “What must you think of me?”

“But,” stammered Jonah. Words would not come; he stood staring at her, eyes wide with unbelief.

“Forgive me,” she said calmly. “You can understand ... I hardly knew what I was doing. Do not think too badly of me.”

Jonah did not move or speak. But within him there were voices enough, too many. “What? I do not believe it. It is impossible. No, it is not impossible. Well, it has happened. But such things cannot happen ... to you, Jonah, to you....”

He was still, waiting for the clamor to subside, for the voices to reduce themselves to one voice. He was afraid to move even; bewildered, horrified, he was like a man clinging with his finger-tips to the edge of a precipice. If he moved ... if even a little earth slid from under his fingers....

No, he must keep very still; not a word, not a motion ... then it would all turn out right again....

It was Judith who moved, and spoke. Coming forward a step, she laid her hand timidly on his arm. “You will forgive me,” she said. “You have work to do in the world. You must go on, you must be a great prophet for my sake. I am going to be married. I shall be so proud of you.”

And turning, she ran back to meet Sarah, who was hurrying out of the house after her.

Jonah went home. His feet led him back down the hill to his mother’s house, but he did not notice where he was going. He felt strangely light-headed, almost as if he had been drinking. His set face, with wide amazed eyes, was lifted to the sky. And he kept thinking:

“Something has happened, something has happened....”

But what was it? Could he tell? Something had happened out of all reason, as though a tree had moved, and stood upright on its head. How could one believe such a thing? But there it was--on its head.

What was God about? And what had he, Jonah, done to deserve such a thing?

He passed the field where Aaron kept his cows. And suddenly, as he saw his brother in the distance, his shoulders sagged, his face broke into creases, his body seemed to fall together; and he stood weakly wringing his hands, while a wave of physical sickness stormed through his body ... remembering, remembering....

Then he went on again, with clumsy steps, and bent head.

If only it were something he could understand. But how could he understand it; how could he ever understand? How could one love, he wondered, and then not love? Love did something to one’s whole being; it made one gentle, and tender....

How could she have hurt him so, if she loved him?

And where was God all this time? What did He think about such a thing? “You, up there--God--what have You to say?”

Nothing.

He came slowly into the house, and sat down with his hands clasped between his knees. One look at him was enough for Deborah; she knew. But then, she had expected it. And keeping her glance busily upon her sewing, she began to sing softly to herself.

But her eyes were full of pain.

“_Men dead long ago. Have set me like a tree...._

“You are tired, my son.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“It has been hot. The poor always feel the extremes of weather most. If I had a daughter, I would never let her marry a poor man.”

And she glanced swiftly at her son, sunk in despair upon his stool.

“_Let the wind blow, What is that to me?_

“Everywhere I go,” she continued calmly, “they speak of you with such admiration. He is a real prophet, they say. Everybody expects great things of you. It makes me so happy.”

Still Jonah did not answer. And Deborah said, sighing,

“Is it time you were going back to the desert, Jonah?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Well, I suppose you are right. It will be a rest for you, after all this. We shall miss you. It will be peaceful in the desert.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I will send Aaron to you soon, with news, and some little comforts for you. Even if you have to live with the foxes, you can at least be comfortable.”

Slowly, putting her sewing away, she rose, and came over to him. “Jonah,” she said gently, and laid her hand ever so lightly upon his hair, “my boy....

“People are not very kind to one another.”

“No ... Mother....”

She began to sing again, softly, taking his head in her hands, drawing him gently to her:

“_My roots are in their dust, My roots are deep, I trust...._”

And Jonah wept, with his head against his mother’s breast.

“_My son is at my knee._”

XIII

Naaman sat beneath his acacia tree. Gentle and austere, his thoughts usually concerned themselves with the universe and with God, who he did not believe belonged exclusively to the Jews. However, he no longer felt called upon to say so, unless he was asked; then he stated his opinions with dignity but without the least hope of convincing any one. When any one wished to know why he, who loved peace, clung to such disturbing ideas, he replied, “I am an old man, and I like to have in my mind only what is comfortable there.”

Now, however, his brows were drawn in a frown, and he looked gloomily at Jonah, who sat with bent head at his feet. And his hands, as he caressed his long white beard, trembled with age, with pity, and with indignation.

“So, my son,” he said, “you have hurt yourself. When you were a child you used to come running to me with eyes full of tears, to show me some bruise you had received. I can still remember what I used to tell you: if you did not fall you would not get a bump. The one followed the other, almost as to make one believe that they were the same thing. And so I used to ask you: Jonah, are you crying because of the fall or the bump? Well, my son?”

Jonah smiled sadly. “Yes,” he replied. “And then you went on to say that I was not a philosopher. How that used to wound me, for I wished above all things to be a philosopher.

“Well, now it is the bump that has made me cry, Naaman.”

Naaman nodded his head. “Exactly,” he said. “But do you think perhaps you are any more of a philosopher than you were then? I doubt it, my son. For you bring me your bruise with the same astonishment as of old, not seeing that, having fallen, you can expect nothing else.”

Jonah spread out his hands in a gesture of discouragement. “How is one to stand upright in this world then, Naaman,” he said, “being but a man, and less than a god.”

The old hermit regarded him gravely. “You are not a man, Jonah,” he said finally; “although,” he added quickly, “you are not a god, either. But you are not a man in the sense that your brother Aaron is a man. Nor do you live in the world he lives in. You belong to another world altogether, as different from that one as Thebes from Nineveh.

“And that world, my son, where you belong, is not here, among the tribes, among the towns and villages. It is in the desert; it is in the wilderness, where there is quiet for God to speak, where there is room for His angels to move about. When you left Golan, your heart was like the desert, spacious and calm. But now it is like a crowded village, full of tumult and pain.”

“Yes,” said Jonah in a low voice, “it is full of pain.”

“I hoped you would not stay here,” continued Naaman; “I implored you to return to Golan, to your home. Yet you stayed; with the result it was impossible not to foresee.”

“I did not foresee it,” said Jonah.

“That is because you are ignorant,” said Naaman severely. “You do not know the world, yet you wish to live in it.”

“No,” said Jonah, “that is not true. For such things do not happen to everybody, or to other people. Why, love is holy, Naaman. It is as though God had told a lie.”

“Be silent,” exclaimed Naaman harshly, “and do not blaspheme. Love is not holy; and God does not lie. That alone is holy which concerns itself with holy things. But love ... no, my son; it is pain and impurity, it is violence and sorrow. The world of desire is the world of demons, of concealment, of Sathariel which hides the face of mercy.”

Jonah regarded the old man with astonishment. “You are so bitter,” he exclaimed; “I have never heard you speak in that tone before.”

Naaman peered off beneath his shaggy white eyebrows to the distant hillside, swimming in the haze of summer heat. For a moment he did not speak, but presently he said, sighing,

“You know but little of my life, my son. I, too, loved in my youth. Does that surprise you? Yes, it is hard to imagine that old men have ever been in love, swept by the flames of passion and of sorrow. And sometimes it is hard for the old to remember how it goes with the young men, with their joy, and their pain.