Part 16 (1/2)
The old crone through her bleared eyes peered curiously at the lady, as she replied to the maid, ”Joab has gone forth, as he always goes at c.o.c.kcrow, to lade his mule with leeks, and melons, and other vegetables and fruits. He will not be back till night-fall.”
Hada.s.sah pressed her burning brow in thought, and then herself addressed the old woman.
”Have you heard from Joab where dwells a week--an Athenian--Lycidas is his name?”
”Lycidas? no; there be none of that name in our quarters,” was the slowly mumbled reply.
”Has Joab never spoken to you of a stranger, very goodly in person and graceful in mien?” persisted Hada.s.sah, grasping at the hope that the singular beauty of Lycidas might make it less difficult to trace him.
Hephzibah shook her head, and showed her few remaining teeth in a grin.
”Were he goodly as David, I should hear and care nothing about it,”
said she.
”The stranger has a very open hand, he gives freely,” observed Anna.
The words had an instant effect in improving the memory of the old Jewess.
”Ay, ay,” she said, brightening up; ”I mind me of a stranger who gave Joab gold when another would have given him silver. He! he! he! Our mule is as strong a beast as any in the city, but it never brought us such a day's hire before.”
”When was that?” asked Hada.s.sah.
”Two days since, when Joab had taken the youth to his home.”
”Can you tell me where that home is?” inquired Hada.s.sah with eagerness.
”Wait--let me think,” mumbled Hephzibah.
Hada.s.sah thrust a coin into the hand of seller of fruit. Hephzibah turned it round and round, looking at it as if she thought that the examination of the money would help her in giving her answer. It came at last, but slowly: ”Ay, I mind me that Joab said that he took the stranger to the large house, with a court, on the left side of the west gate, which Apollonius” (she muttered a curse) ”broke down.”
This was clue sufficient; and thankful at having gained one, Hada.s.sah with her attendant left the stifling precincts of Hephzibah's dwelling to find out that of the Greek. Terrible were the glare and heat of the noonday sun, and long appeared the distance to be traversed, yet Hada.s.sah did not even slacken her steps till she approached the gymnasium erected by the renegade high-priest Jason. With difficulty she made her way through crowds of Syrians and others hastening to the place of amus.e.m.e.nt.
Hada.s.sah groaned, but it was not from weariness; she turned away her eyes from the building which had been to so many of her people as the gate of perdition, and the merry voices of the pleasure-seekers sounded sadder to her ears than a wail uttered over the dead. Precious souls had been murdered in that gymnasium; the Hebrew mother thought of her own lost son!
Almost dropping from fatigue, Hada.s.sah reached at last the place which Hephzibah had described. It was an inn of the better sort, kept by an Athenian named Cimon, who had established himself in Jerusalem.
Hada.s.sah had no difficulty in obtaining an interview with the host, who received her with the courtesy befitting a citizen of one of the most polished cities then to be found in the world. Cimon offered the lady a seat under the shadow of the ma.s.sive gateway leading into his courtyard.
”Dwells the Lord Lycidas here?” asked Hada.s.sah faintly. She could hardly speak; her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth from heat, fatigue, and excitement.
”The Lord Lycidas left this place yesterday lady,” said the Greek.
”Whither has he gone?” gasped Hada.s.sah.
”I know not--he told me not whither,” answered Cimon, surveying his questioner with compa.s.sion and curiosity. ”Months have elapsed since the Athenian lord, after honouring this roof by his sojourn under it, suddenly disappeared. Search was made for him in vain. I feared that evil had happened to my guest, and as time rolled on and brought no tidings, I sent word to his friends in Athens, asking what should be done with property left under my charge by him who, as I deemed, had met an untimely end. Ere the answer arrived, the Lord Lycidas himself appeared at my door, but in evil plight, weak in body and troubled in mind. He would give no account of the past; he said not where he had sojourned; and yester-morn, though scarcely strong enough to keep the saddle, he mounted his horse, and rode off--I know not whither; nor said he when he would return. If the lady be a friend of the Lord Lycidas,” continued the Athenian, whose curiosity was strongly excited, ”perhaps she may favour me by throwing light upon the mystery which attends his movements.”
But Hada.s.sah had come to gain information, not to impart it. ”I cannot linger here,” she said, ”but if Lycidas return tell him, I earnestly charge you, that the child of one who nursed him in sickness is now the prisoner of the Syrian king!”
Grievously disappointed and disheartened by her failure, Hada.s.sah then turned away from the dwelling of the Greek.
”Oh, lady, rest, or you will sink from fatigue!” cried Anna, whose own st.u.r.dy frame was suffering from the effect of efforts of half of which, a day before, she would have dreamed her mistress utterly incapable.
Hada.s.sah made no reply; she sank rather than seated herself under the narrow strip of shade afforded by a dead wall. The lady covered her face; Anna knew from the slight movement of her bowed head that Hada.s.sah was praying.