Part 20 (2/2)
”Did you want me, friend?”
”No,” answered a hoa.r.s.e voice, in a significant tone. ”You want me.”
Gerhardt smiled. ”I thank you, then, for coming to my help. I almost think I know your voice. Are you not Rubi, the brother of Countess, who made such a pet of my little child?”
An affirmative grunt was the response.
”Well, friend?”
”If an open pit lay just across this street, between you and the Walnut Tree, what would you do?” asked the hoa.r.s.e voice.
”That would depend on how necessary it was that I should pa.s.s it, would it not?”
”Life this way--death that way,” said Rubi shortly.
”And what way honour?”
”Pshaw! 'All that a man hath will he give for his life.'”
”Truth: yet even life, sometimes, will a man give for glory, patriotism, or love. There is a life beyond this, friend Rubi; and for that, no price were too high to pay.”
”Men may weigh gold, but not clouds,” answered Rubi in a rather scornful tone.
”Yet how much gold would purchase the life-giving water that comes from the clouds?” was Gerhardt's ready response.
”At how much do you value your life?” asked Rubi without answering the question.
”Truly, friend, I know not how to respond to that. Do you count my life to be in danger, that you ask me?”
”Not if the morning light come to you in Aylesbury or Cricklade--at least, perchance not. But if it dawn on you where you can hear the bell from yon tower--ay, I do.”
”I perceive your meaning. You would have me to fly.”
In the evening twilight, now fast darkening, Gerhardt could see a nod of Rubi's black head.
”'Should such a man as I flee?' Friend, I am the leader of this band of my countrymen--”
”Just so. That's the reason.”
”Were I to flee, would they stand firm?” said Gerhardt thoughtfully, rather to himself than to the young Jew.
”Firm--to what?”
”To G.o.d,” replied Gerhardt reverently, ”and to His truth.”
”What does a Gentile care for truth? They want you to wors.h.i.+p one dead man, and you prefer to wors.h.i.+p another dead man. What's the odds to you? Can't you mutter your Latin, and play with your beads, before both, and have done with it?”
”I wors.h.i.+p no saints, and have no beads.”
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