Volume Ii Part 22 (1/2)

Uel spoke in surprise.

”Yes, son of Jahdai, she is a Christian. Nevertheless send Lael to her.

Again I leave you where I rest myself--with G.o.d--our G.o.d.”

Thereupon he went out finally, and between gusts of wind regained his own house. He stopped on entering, and barred the door behind him; then he groped his way to the kitchen, and taking a lamp from its place, raked together the embers smothering in a brazier habitually kept for retention of fire, and lighted the lamp. He next broke up some stools and small tables, and with the pieces made a pile under the grand stairway to the second floor, muttering as he worked: ”The proud are risen against me; and now the wind cometh, and punishment.”

Once more he walked through the rooms, and ascended to the roof. There, just as he cleared the door, as if it were saluting him, and determined to give him a trial of its force, a blast leaped upon him, like an embodiment out of the cloud in full possession of both world and sky, and started his gown astream, and twisting his hair and beard into lashes whipped his eyes and ears with them, and howled, and s.n.a.t.c.hed his breath nearly out of his mouth. Wind it was, and darkness somewhat like that Egypt knew what time the deliverer, with G.o.d behind him, was trying strength with the King's sorcerers--wind and darkness, but not a drop of rain. He grasped the door-post, and listened to the cras.h.i.+ng of heavy things on the neighboring roofs, and the rattle of light things for the finding of which loose here and there the gust of a storm may be trusted where eyes are useless. And noticing that obstructions served merely to break the flying forces into eddies, he laughed and shouted by turns so the inmates of the houses near might have heard had they been out as he was instead of cowering in their beds: ”The proud are risen against me, and the a.s.sembly of violent men have sought after my soul; and now--ha, ha, ha!--the wind cometh and the punishment!”

Availing himself of a respite in the blowing, he ran across the roof and looked over into the street, and seeing nothing, neither light nor living thing, he repeated the refrain with a slight variation: ”And the wind--ha, ha!--the wind _is_ come, and the punishment!”--then he fled back, and down from the roof.

And now the purpose in reserve must have revelation.

The grand staircase sprang from the floor open beneath like a bridge.

Pa.s.sing under it, he set the lamp against the heap of kindling there, and the smell of scorching wood spread abroad, followed by smoke and the crackle and snap of wood beginning to burn.

It was not long until the flames, gathering life and strength, were beyond him to stay or extinguish them, had he been taken with sudden repentance. From step to step they leaped, the room meantime filling fast with suffocating gases. When he knew they were beyond the efforts of any and all whom they might attract, and must burst into conflagration the instant they reached the lightest of the gusts playing havoc outside, he went down on his hands and knees, for else it had been difficult for him to breathe, and crawled to the door. Drawing himself up there, he undid the bar, and edged through into the street; nor was there a soul to see the puff of smoke and murky gleam which pa.s.sed out with him.

His spirit was too drunken with glee to trouble itself with precautions now; yet he stopped long enough to repeat the refrain, with a hideous spasm of laughter: ”And now--ha, ha!--the wind _is_ come, and the fire, and the punishment.” Then he wrapped his gown closer about his form bending to meet the gale, and went leisurely down the street, intending to make St. Peter's gate.

Where the intersections left openings, the Jew, now a fugitive rather than a wanderer--a fugitive nevertheless who knew perfectly where he was going, and that welcome awaited him there--halted to scan the cloudy floor of the sky above the site of the house he had just abandoned. A redness flickering and unsteady over in that quarter was the first a.s.surance he had of the growth of the flame of small beginning under the grand staircase.

”Now the meeting of wind and fire!--Now speedily these hypocrites and tongue-servers, b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of Byzantium, shall know Israel has a G.o.d in whom they have no lot, and in what regard he holds conniving at the rape of his daughters. Blow, Wind, blow harder! Rise, Fire, and spread--be a thousand lions in roaring till these tremble like hunted curs! The few innocent are not more in the account than moths burrowed in woven wool and feeding on its fineness. Already the guilty begin to pray--but to whom? Blow, O Wind! Spread and spare not, O Fire!”

Thus he exulted; and as if it heard him and were making answer to his imprecations, a column, pinked by the liberated fire below it, a burst of sparks in its core, shot up in sudden vastness like a t.i.tan rus.h.i.+ng to seizure of the world; but presently the gale struck and toppled it over toward Blacherne in the northwest.

”That way points the punishment? I remember I offered him G.o.d and peace and good-will to men, and he rejected them. Blow, Winds! Now are ye but breezes from the south, spice-laden to me, but in his ears be as chariots descending. And thou, O Fire! Forget not the justice to be done, and whose servant thou art. Leave Heaven to say which is guiltier; they who work at the deflowerment of the innocent, or he who answers no to the Everlasting offering him love. Unto him be thou as banners above the chariots!”

Now a noise began--at first faint and uncertain, then, as the red column sprang up, it strengthened, and ere long defined itself--Fire, Fire!

It seemed the city awoke with that cry. And there was peering from windows, opening of doors, rus.h.i.+ng from houses, and hurrying to where the angry spot on the floor of the cloud which shut Heaven off was widening and deepening. In a s.p.a.ce incredibly quick, the streets--those leading to the corner occupied by the Jew as well--became rivulets flowing with people, and then blatant rivers.

”My G.o.d, what a night for a fire!”

”There will be nothing left of us by morning, not even ashes.”

”And the women and children--think of them!”

”Fire--fire--fire!”

Exchanges like these dinned the Jew until, finding himself an obstruction, he moved on. Not a phase of the awful excitement escaped him--the racing of men--half-clad women a.s.sembling--children staring wild-eyed at the smoke extending luridly across the fifth and sixth hills to the seventh--white faces, exclamations, and not seldom resort to crucifixes and prayers to the Blessed Lady of Blacherne--he heard and saw them all--yet kept on toward St. Peter's gate, now an easy thing, since the thoroughfares were so aglow he could neither stumble nor miss the right one. A company of soldiers running nearly knocked him down; but finally he reached the portal, and pa.s.sed out without challenge. A brief search then for his galley; and going aboard, after replying to a few questions about the fire, he bade the captain cast off, and run for the Bosphorus.

”It looks as if the city would all go,” he said; and the mariner, thinking him afraid, summoned his oarsmen, and to please him made haste, as he too well might, for the light of the burning projected over the wall, and, flung back from the cloud overhead far as the eye could penetrate, illuminated the harbor as it did the streets, bringing the s.h.i.+ps to view, their crews on deck, and Galata, wall, housetops and tower, crowded with people awestruck by the immensity of the calamity.

When the galley outgoing cleared Point Serail, the wind and the long swells beating in from the Marmora white with foam struck it with such force that keeping firm grip of their oars was hard for the rowers, and they began to cry out; whereupon the captain sought his pa.s.senger.

”My Lord,” he said, ”I have plied these waters from boyhood, and never saw them in a night like this. Let me return to the harbor.”