“It is he, I tell you, only grown younger. I found him in the synagogue.”
“Where? what synagogue?”
Pahul made a gesture. “At Capharnahum,” he answered, and gazed in the tetrarch’s face. He was slight of form and regular of feature. As a lad he had crossed barehanded from Cumae to Rhegium, and from there drifted to Rome, where he started a commerce in Boetican girls which had so far prospered that he bought two vessels to carry the freight. Unfortunately the vessels met in a storm and sank. Then he became a hanger-on of the circus; in idle moments a tout. It was in the latter capacity that Antipas met him, and, pleased with his shrewdness and perfect corruption, had attached him to his house. This had occurred in years previous, and as yet Antipas had found no cause to regret the trust imposed. He was a useful braggart, idle, familiar, and discreet; and he had acquired the dialect of the country with surprising ease.
“There were any number of people,” Pahul continued. “Some said he was the son of Joseph, the son of—”
“But he, what did he say? How tiresome you are!”
“Ah!” And Pahul swung his arms. “Who is Mammon?”
“Mammon? Mammon? How do I know? Plutus, I suppose. What about him?”
“And who is Satan?”
“Satan? Satan is a—He’s a Jew god. Why? But what do you mean by asking me questions?”
Pahul nodded absently. “I heard him say,” he continued, “that no man could serve God and Mammon. At first I thought he meant you. It was this way. I got into conversation with a friend of his, a man named Judas. He told me any number of things about him, that he cured the sick—”
“Bah! Some Greek physician.”
“That he walks on the sea—”
“Nonsense!”
“That he turns water into wine, feeds the multitude, raises the dead—”
“Raises the dead!” And the tetrarch added in the sotto voce of thought, “So did Elijah.”
“That he had been in the desert—”
“With Aretas?”
“No; I questioned him on that point. He had never heard of Aretas, but he said that in the desert this Satan had come and offered him—what do you suppose? The empire of the earth!”
Antipas shook with fright. “It must have been Aretas.”
“But that he had refused.”
“Then it is John.”
“There, you see.” And Pahul dandled himself with the air of one who is master of logic. “That’s what I said myself. I said this: ‘If he can raise the dead, he can raise himself.’ ”
“It is John,” the tetrarch repeated.
“I am sure of it,” the butler continued. “But he did not say so. Judas didn’t either. On the contrary, he declared he was not. He said John was not good enough to carry his shoes. I saw through that, though,” and Pahul leered; “he knew whom I was, and he lied to protect his friend. I of course pretended to believe him.”
“Quite right,” said the tetrarch.
“Yes, I played the fool. H’m, where was I? Oh, I asked Judas who then his friend was, but he went over to where a woman stood; he spoke to her; she moved away. Some of the others seemed to reprove him. I would have followed, but at that moment his friend stood up; a khazzan offered him a scroll, but he waved it aside; then someone asked him a question which I did not catch; another spoke to him; a third interrupted; he seemed to be arguing with them. I was too far away to hear well, and I got nearer; then I heard him say, ‘I am the bread of life.’ Now, what did he mean by that?”
Antipas had no explanation to offer.
“Then,” Pahul continued, “he said he had come down from heaven. A man near me exclaimed, ‘He is the Messiah;’ but others—”
“The Messiah!” echoed the tetrarch. For a moment his thoughts stammered, then at once he was back in the citadel. On one side was the procurator, on the other the emir of Tadmor. In front of him was a drunken rabble, wrangling Pharisees, and one man dominating the din with an announcement of the Messiah’s approach. The murmur of lutes threaded through it all; and now, as his thoughts deviated, he wondered could that announcement have been the truth.
“But others,” Pahul continued, “objected loudly. For a little I could not catch a word. At last they became quieter, and I heard him repeat that he was the bread of life, adding, ‘Your fathers ate manna and are dead, but this bread a man may eat of and never die.’ At this there was new contention. A woman fainted—the one to whom Judas had spoken. They carried her out. As she passed I could see her face. It was Mary of Magdala. Judas held her by the waist, another her feet.”
Antipas drew a hand across his face. “It is impossible,” he muttered.
“Not impossible at all. I saw her as plainly as I see you. The man next to me said that the Rabbi had cast from her seven devils. Moreover, Johanna was there—yes, yes, the wife of Khuza, your steward; it was she, I remember now, who had her by the feet. And there were others that I recognized, and others that the man next to me pointed out: Zabdia, a well-to-do fisherman whom I have seen time and again, and with him his sons James and John, and Salomè his wife. Then, too, there were Simon Barjona and Andrew his brother. Simon had his wife with him, his children, and his mother-in-law. The man next to me said that the Rabbi called James and John the Sons of Thunder, and Simon a stone. There was Mathias the tax-gatherer, Philip of Bethsaïda, Joseph Barsaba, Mary Clopas, Susannah, Nathaniel of Cana, Thomas, Thaddeus, Aristian the customhouse officer, Ruth the tax-gatherer’s wife, mechanics from Scythopolis, and Scribes from Jerusalem.”
The fingers of Antipas’ hand glittered with jewels. He played with them nervously. The sky seemed immeasurably distant. For some little
