Part 55 (1/2)
”I cannot pull him in,” he cried. ”The line will never bear it and the bank is steep. Oh! Miriam, we shall lose him!”
Then there was a splash, and, behold! the girl at his side had sprung into the swiftly running river. Though its waters, reaching to her neck, washed her down the stream, she hugged to her young breast that great, slippery fish, yes, and gripped its back fin between her teeth, till with the aid of his reed rod he drew them both to land.
”I will buy that lamp,” said Caleb presently. ”The design pleases me.
What artist made it?”
The merchant shrugged his shoulders.
”Sir, I do not know,” he answered. ”These goods are supplied to us with many others, such as joinery and carving, by one Septimus, who is a contractor and, they say, a head priest among the Christians, employing many hands at his shops in the poor streets yonder. One or more of them must be designers of taste, since of late we have received from him some lamps of great beauty.”
Then the man was called away to attend to another customer and Caleb paid for his lamp.
That evening at dusk Caleb, bearing the lamp in his hand, found his way to the workshop of Septimus, only to discover that the part of the factory where lamps were moulded was already closed. A girl who had just shut the door, seeing him stand perplexed before it, asked civilly if she could help him.
”Maiden,” he answered, ”I am in trouble who wish to find her who moulded this lamp, so that I may order others, but am told that she has left her work for the day.”
”Yes,” said the maiden, looking at the lamp, which evidently she recognised. ”It is pretty, is it not? Well, cannot you return to-morrow?”
”Alas! no, I expect to be leaving Rome for a while, so I fear that I must go elsewhere.”
The girl reflected to herself that it would be a pity if the order were lost, and with it the commission which she might divide with the maker of the lamp. ”It is against the rules, but I will show you where she lives,” she said, ”and if she is there, which is probable, for I have never seen her or her companion go out at night, you can tell her your wishes.”
Caleb thanked the girl and followed her through sundry tortuous lanes to a court surrounded by old houses.
”If you go in there,” she said, pointing to a certain doorway, ”and climb to the top of the stairs, I forget whether there are three or four flights, you will find the makers of the lamp in the roof-rooms--oh!
sir, I thank you, but I expected nothing. Good-night.”
At length Caleb stood at the head of the stairs, which were both steep, narrow, and in the dark hard to climb. Before him, at the end of a rickety landing, a small ill-fitting door stood ajar. There was light within the room beyond, and from it came a sound of voices. Caleb crept up to the door and listened, for as the floor below was untenanted he knew that none could see him. Bending down he looked through the s.p.a.ce between the door and its framework and his heart stood still. There, standing full in the lamplight, clothed in a pure white robe, for her rough working dress lay upon a stool beside her, was Miriam herself, her elbow leaning on the curtained window-place. She was talking to Nehushta, who, her back bent almost double over a little charcoal fire, was engaged in cooking their supper.
”Think,” she was saying, ”only think, Nou, our last night in this hateful city, and then, instead of that stifling workshop and the terror of Domitian, the open sea and the fresh salt wind and n.o.body to fear but G.o.d. _Luna!_ Is it not a beautiful name for a s.h.i.+p? I can see her, all silver----”
”Peace,” said Nehushta. ”Are you mad, girl, to talk so loud? I though I heard a sound upon the stairs just now.”
”It is only the rats,” answered Miriam cheerfully, ”no one ever comes up here. I tell you that were it not for Marcus I could weep with joy.”
Caleb crept back to the head of the stairs and down several steps, which he began to re-ascend noisily, grumbling at their gloom and steepness.
Then, before the women even had time to shut the door, he thrust it wide and walked straight into the room.
”Your pardon,” he began, then added quietly, ”Why, Miriam, when we parted on the gate Nicanor, who could have foretold that we should live to meet again here in a Roman attic? And you, Nehushta. Why, we were separated in the fray outside the Temple walls, though, indeed, I think that I saw you in a strange place some months ago, namely, the slave-ring on the Forum.”
”Caleb,” asked Miriam in a hollow voice, ”what is your business here?”
”Well, Miriam, it began with a desire for a replica of this lamp, which reminds me of a spot familiar to my childhood. Do you remember it? Now that I have found who is the lamp's maker----”
”Cease fooling,” broke in Nehushta. ”Bird of ill-omen, you have come to drag your prey back to the shame and ruin which she has escaped.”
”I was not always called thus,” answered Caleb, flus.h.i.+ng, ”when I rescued you from the house at Tyre for instance, or when I risked my life, Miriam, to throw you food upon the gate Nicanor. Nay, I come to save you from Domitian----”
”And to take her for yourself,” answered Nehushta. ”Oh! we Christians also have eyes to see and ears to hear, and, black-hearted traitor that you are, we know all your shame. We know of your bargain with the chamberlain of Domitian, by which the body of the slave was to be the price of the life of her buyer. We know how you swore away the honour of your rival, Marcus, with false testimony, and how from week to week you have quartered Rome as a vulture quarters the sky till at length you have smelt out the quarry. Well, she is helpless, but One is strong, and may His vengeance fall upon your life and soul.”