Volume Ii Part 16 (1/2)

He was the first to enter the pa.s.sage of the aqueduct.

”Paukares and Gubazes, take the Jew between you. At the first suspicion, down with him!”

And so, now creeping on all fours, now stooping and cautiously feeling their way, in complete obscurity, the Armenians slid and crept after Johannes, taking care not to make any noise with their weapons.

All at once Johannes cried in a low voice:

”Hold the Jew! down with him! Enemies! Arms! No, no; let him alone!” he added quickly. ”It was only a snake that rustled past me. Forward!”

”Now to the right,” said the Jew; ”here the pa.s.sage leads into the temple.”

”What lies here?--bones?--a skeleton! I can bear it no longer! The mouldy smell suffocates me! Help!” sighed one of the men.

”Let him lie! Forward!” ordered Johannes. ”I see a star!”

”It is the daylight in Neapolis,” said Jochem; ”only a few steps more.”

Johannes's helmet struck against the roots of a tall olive-tree, which spread over the mouth of the pa.s.sage in the atrium of the temple. We know this tree. As he avoided the roots, Johannes struck his helmet with a loud jingle against the side wall; he stopped short in alarm.

But he only heard the rapid flutter of the wings of numerous pigeons which flew startled out of the branches of the olive-tree.

”What was that?” said a hoa.r.s.e voice above him. ”How the wind howls in the old ruins!”

It was the widow Arria.

”O G.o.d!” she cried, kneeling before the cross, ”deliver us from evil!

Let not the city fall until my Jucundus returns! Alas! if he does not find his mother! Oh, let him again come the way he went that unhappy day, when he descended into the secret labyrinth to seek the hidden treasure! Show him to me as I saw him last night in my dream, rising up from below the roots of the tree!”

And she turned to look at the hole.

”O dark pa.s.sage! into which my happiness disappeared, give it up to me again! G.o.d! by this way lead him back to me.”

She stood exactly before the opening with folded hands, her eyes piously raised to heaven.

Johannes hesitated as he issued from the hole and perceived her.

”She prays,” he murmured. ”Shall I kill her whilst praying!”

He waited; he hoped that she would turn away.

”It lasts too long! G.o.d knows I cannot help it!”

And he got quickly out from among the roots.

The old woman now raised her half-blind eyes; she saw a glittering form rise from the earth. A ray of ecstasy flashed across her features. She spread out her arms.

”Jucundus!” she cried.

It was her last breath.