Real Vampires Don'T Diet

Real readers love this series and its "vampire to die for"(Kimberly
Raye, USA Today bestselling author of Dead End Dating)-from the author
of Real Vampires Get Lucky.Gloriana St. Claire-curvy, st

Author: Gerry Bartlett

ISBN: 9781440663192
Category: Paranormal
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Language: English
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.
malady which not even the physician Samuel could cure, for all that
this learned man was skilled in the potencies of herbs, the baleful
and blessed beams of the stars, and even the deeper mysteries of
the words of the Rabbis.
Little Caleb was marvellously beautiful in spite of the stare of his
blind eyes and the marble pallor of his face. It was a child's face, yet
there was in it the placid sweetness of a woman's look, and at times
it seemed to glow with the intelligence of riper years—for the boy
had thought and felt more than most men had done.
Caleb knelt down by his father's side, and kissed his forehead. The
old man's harsher features relaxed at the touch of the young lips,
and tears sprang to his eyes as he drew the lad to his breast.
"Blessed be God, who has left me this fair image of my Miriam!
Come, Caleb, and look for me. Your blind eyes are better than mine,
which my sins have smitten. Can you see the chariots of the Lord?"
"Nay, father, but you have taught me to trust in Him who is Himself
like 'the mountains round about Jerusalem.' What need have we for
chariots? Can He not save by His word as well as by war?"
"True, child! Yet I myself once saw, when the impious Apollodorus
raged through our street, slaughtering all he met, and no one could
stand against him, I saw—or do I dream it?—I saw a heavenly
warrior, clad from head to foot in solid silver, waving a sword of fire,
who stood before the wicked man, and smote him to the ground.
But when they lifted the heathen there was not the sign of the
stroke upon him, though he breathed no more. Would that the
Avenger might come again, and speedily! But until He come—until
He come—we must trust the word, only the word. Bring the Roll of
the Prophet. It surely tells of the times that are now passing."
The boy felt for his sister's hand. Taking it, he pressed it against his
blind eyes—a way he had of checking his own too violent feeling. He
whispered, as he felt her comforting touch:
"Sister, the troubles have surely broken our father's mind. He does
not remember even yesterday."
Then, raising his voice, "You have forgotten, father, that the soldiers
came and searched the house and took the Books away."
Elkiah passed his hands over his forehead as if to smooth the mirror
of his memory. Recollection came, but with it a rage that shook his
decrepit form until Deborah's kiss allayed his emotion.
"No matter for the Roll, father," said Caleb. "You know that I can
repeat what the Books say. Now that I am blind, I keep in memory
all that I hear. In that way God lets me have more, perhaps, than if I
could see even to white Hermon there in the north."
"Bless the eyes which the Spirit of the Lord has opened!" cried the
old man. "Tell me, child, what says the Prophet of this monster who
calls himself our King—Epiphanes, the Glorious—for shame!"
"The Prophet says," replied Caleb, quoting the words of Daniel, "that
his heart shall be against the Holy Covenant, and they shall pollute
the Sanctuary of Strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice,
and shall place the Abomination that maketh desolate."
"Woe! Woe upon Jerusalem!" cried Elkiah. "Why did I not slay the
impious Apollonius, that child of Satan, when he rode into our Holy
of Holies? Alas! the breath of the Lord has withered the arm of
Elkiah that it cannot smite. But the Avenger will come. He will come
yet. What says the Prophet further, my son?"
Caleb continued, "And such as do wickedly against the covenant
shall be corrupt with flatteries."
"Ah!" groaned the old patriot, his voice gurgling in his throat like the
growl of a wild beast. "And my own son, the son of Miriam,
corrupted by the flatteries of the Greek! My Benjamin turned into a
Glaucon! God forgive me for having begotten a traitor!"
Elkiah sat upright on the rug. With averted palm he swept the air, as
if he would banish from his heart its paternal instinct. He then
covered his face with his hands and cried: "O my Miriam! I thank
Thee, O God, that Thou didst take her ere she knew this. But, Lord,
why didst Thou take my Miriam, and leave me that—that—traitor?
But read on, child."
Waiting a moment until his father's paroxysm had passed, Caleb
completed the prediction: "But the people that do know their God
shall be strong, and shall do exploits."
"Do exploits? Be strong? That we shall," shrieked the old man. "Your
hand, Deborah! My sword! I will go and smite the Syrian."
"Nay, father, that cannot be," said Deborah, as she laid the
exhausted form back upon the pillows. "Let the children fulfil the
Prophet's word."
"The children! My children!" muttered the old man. "One of them a
heathen, another blind, and the other only a girl. Deborah, oh, that
thou wert a man, or could wear a sword like the Deborah of old!"
Deborah summoned Ephraim, an old servant of the house, who with
Huldah his wife assisted in bringing Elkiah into the roof chamber; for
the air grew cold as the sun dropped behind the citadel by the Joppa
gate, and left only his golden glow on the top of Olivet eastward.
Little Caleb stood a while leaning over the parapet, his face showing
the tremendous movement of his soul, now expressing some
ineffable longing, and now hardening under some heroic purpose.
He turned toward the Temple as if he could see the sacred precincts:
but suddenly his great blind orbs were directed southward. As his
sister returned to the roof he called to her.
"Deborah, there is a strange noise beyond the city gate, over
Ophel!"
"Dear child, you are not yet familiar with the cries at the heathen
games. The shouts come from the gymnasium."
"Why, sister, I know all sounds. I know by the dog's barking whether
he has the fox on the run or at bay, or has lost him in the hole. And
men cry just as the brutes do. I don't need to hear words. I
sometimes follow the games in the gymnasium off there. Now it is
the hum of the crowd before the contests begin; now the cheer for
the runners; the laugh when the wrestlers tumble; the rage of the
losers; the joy of the crowd when a favorite wins—I hear it all. But,
Deborah, somebody has been hurt over there. Can't you hear
something sad in the murmur on Ophel? It is as the fir-trees moan
when a storm is coming."
The sound which Caleb heard will be interpreted if we tell of Captain
Dion's doings that day.
 IV
THE DISCUS THROW.

HE high plateau of Ophel swells out from the southern

wall of the Temple, and looks down upon the vales of
Hinnom and Kedron, which come together at its base,
five hundred feet below. From this promontory one can
see for miles through the deep valley, which is lined
near the city with rock-hewn tombs, and in the distance with
whitish-gray cliffs, as if the Kedron had become a leper outcast from
the company of the beautiful hills and vales which elsewhere
surround Jerusalem. Down, down the valley it goes until lost to sight
amid the mountains of stone and sand that make the wilderness of
Judea. There the leper dies and is buried in the Dead Sea.
Whichever way lies the wind, except from the north, it sweeps this
promontory of Ophel with refreshing coolness. Here in the olden
time the sages and saints of Israel had been accustomed to walk,
their meditations on the judgments of God perhaps more sombre
because of the gloomy grandeur of the scene; and here the
multitudes had thronged, with hearts gladdened by the contrast of
joy of their city with the distant desolation.
But now, by the orders of Apollonius, the Governor under Antiochus,
the top of Ophel had been levelled for the stately building of the
gymnasium.
To one looking up from the valley of the Kedron, the graceful Greek
porticos must have showed against the old gray walls of the Temple
like vines on the scarp of a mountain boulder. In front of the
structure lay the athletic field, dotted with many colored pennants
which denoted the places reserved for the various games. At one
end of the field was the stadium, the running track, some six
hundred feet in length. Adjoining this was an open court in which
were practised wrestling, throwing the discus, swinging the great
hanging stone, hurling the javelin, archery, sword play, boxing, and
the like. By the side of this court were baths, and near them great
caldrons supplying the luxury of heated water.
In shaded porches were raised platforms upon which at stated hours
rhetoricians who plumed themselves upon their eloquence
discoursed of philosophy and poetry and love. Here, too, professors
of the calisthenic art exhibited in their own persons and those of
their pupils the graces of the human form.
Captain Dion emerged from the Street of the Cheesemakers upon
the athletic field. He saluted the banner of Apollonius, which
flaunted from its tall staff, then cast a spray of ivy at the foot of the
statue of Hermes, the god of the race. He was at once hailed by a
group of young men with whom he was evidently a favorite.
Among these was Glaucon. A broad-brimmed hat topped his head.
Artificially curled black locks stuccoed his brow. A white chlamys, or
outer robe, of linen broadly bordered with purple was draped from
his shoulder in the latest style of the capital.
"Ah, Glaucon, well met! How has it fared with you since we parted at
Joppa?" was Dion's greeting. "Has the sea jog gotten out of your
legs yet? If the mountains of Carmel and Cassius on the coast had
been turned to water the waves could not have tossed us more than
when we came from Antioch."
"Jerusalem is a poor exchange for Antioch," replied Glaucon. "One
day at Daphne for a lifetime here, but for a few good fellows like
you, Captain."
"Did you succeed in getting the order for confiscation reversed?"
asked the Greek.
"Oh, yes, I shall hold the property; that is, if I can keep the old man,
my father, within doors, so that he doesn't bring a mob about our
ears as he did yesterday. Apollonius—Pluto take him!—mulcted me
heavily of shekels last night as a guarantee that the old bigot would
keep the peace. I wish that you would give the Governor a fair word
for me, Dion. You see, I have not come into the estate yet, and
haven't many gold feathers to drop. Apollonius seems to think that I
am moulting all my ancestral wealth."
"I think I can get the Governor to at least pare your nails without
cutting the quick hereafter," replied his friend.
"My thanks. I shall need your help, Captain, in all ways, for though I
have donned the King's livery, you Greeks look on me as a Jew. I am
like to fall between the upper and nether millstones. My people have
cast me off, and, by Hercules! yours do not take to me as they
should."
"Never fear, Glaucon," replied Dion. "A man who can swear 'By
Hercules!' instead of 'As the Lord liveth!' will soon have the favor of
our gods."
"And goddesses, too, I hope," laughed Glaucon. "But I have not
thanked you, Dion, for saving my father from his crazy venture on
the streets yesterday. The shade of Anchises bless you for that!"
"Well up in the poets, too, I see," said the Captain, slapping his
comrade on the back. "Your brain is Greek if your blood be Hebrew.
But let us hear what this blabber is saying."
The men stood a moment listening to an orator who, with well-oiled
locks and classically arranged toga, was addressing a small group
within a portico. He was just saying: "Hear then the words of the
divine Plato, 'When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful
body, and the two are cast into the same mould, that will be the
fairest of sights to him that has an eye to contemplate the vision.'
Truly the soul is made fair by the fairness of the body. Thought
glows when the eye sparkles. Heroism is bred of conscious strength
of muscle. Love burns within the arms of beauty, and with the kisses
scented with the sweet breath of health. Think you that the gods
would dwell within the statues if the sculptors did not shape the
marble and ivory to exquisite proportions?
"Behold, then, the stupidity of these Jews whose foul nests we are
destroying. They read their Rolls, but they gain no wisdom. They
pray, yet remain impious. It is because they know not the first of
maxims, namely, that the body is the matrix of the mind."
"The fool!" was Dion's comment. "There are better declaimers in any
Greek village. And"—more to himself than to his comrade, as a band
of Jews, among them even some renegade priests, stripped naked,
ran by them on their way to the racing stadium—"yet see, there are
bigger fools!"
When the two men passed into the gymnasium proper, the crowd on
the benches raised the cry of "Dion! Dion!" until the crossbeam
shook down its dust of applause.
The Captain gracefully acknowledged the compliment by taking from
his brow the chaplet, now well withered, and flinging it from him
into the crowd with the exclamation: "I will win it again before I
wear it."
The magnanimous challenge brought the champion another ovation.
The chief gymnasiarch approached, and read from his tablets the
names of the day's victors in the various contests that had already
taken place. He bade Dion select an antagonist from the list.
"I will throw the discus," said the Captain.
"Then your competitor will be Yusef, the Lebanon giant," read the
gymnasiarch. He shouted:
"Hear ye! Yusef of Damascus is challenged by Dion of Philippi."
Divesting himself of his garment the Greek now stood naked among
his compeers.
"Adonis has descended," shouted one, in a tone that might have
been taken for either admiration or contempt.
An alipta came and rubbed Dion's arms and back with oil mingled
with dust.
"Better rub him against the Jew. He'll get both grease and dirt at a
touch," sneered some one.
Dion turned, and, fronting the group whence the insult came,
scanned the faces one by one; but there was no response to his
mute challenge.
As he moved away one ventured to say, loud enough to be heard by
a few about him:
"The Jewish renegade is protected by special order of the King, or,
by the club of Herakles! I would grind his face with my fists."
"The Captain seems to be the pimp's special body-guard just now,"
was a reply; after which the knot of men talked in low tones among
themselves, casting furtive glances in the direction of Dion.
"Yusef stands on his record of this morning," shouted the
gymnasiarch. "He need not throw again unless Dion shall pass him."
The Greek balanced in his hand two circular pieces of bronze, in
order to select one of them. The crowd densely lined the way the
missile was to fly. There was eager rivalry for places at the goal end,
where the friends of the contestants craned their necks to see the
exact spot the discus would strike, ready to applaud or dispute it. In
this group Glaucon had secured a foremost stand, and waited,
leaning with the crowd.
"Here's your chance to stick the pig of a Jew," whispered one to his
neighbor, who stood just behind Glaucon.
Dion held the bright bronze in his right hand, his fingers grasping
tightly the outer rim, while the weight fell upon his open palm and
wrist. Raising his left arm the more perfectly to balance his weight,
he pivoted himself upon his left foot, then, swinging the discus
backward in almost a complete circle, and combining the muscles of
arm and trunk and leg in one tremendous return motion, he flung
the metal gleaming through the air.
At the same instant Glaucon was thrust by those behind him
headlong into the path of the flying missile. The swift swirl of the
disc together with its weight made its impact as dangerous as that
of a sword blade. It struck the falling form of Glaucon, terribly
bruising the base of his head, and laying open a ghastly wound in
his neck and shoulder.
Dion strode down the line. He glanced an instant at the prostrate
form of his friend, turned as quickly as a bear, seized two of the
throng of bystanders, dashed their heads together until they were
half-stunned, then flung them sprawling apart. They lay moaning
and cursing on the ground amid the derisions of the crowd until the
gymnasiarch ordered them under arrest.
The gymnastæ, or surgeons of the field of sports, were summoned;
but the case of Glaucon was beyond the present need of their splints
and unguents.
Dion bade them carry the apparently lifeless form to Elkiah's house,
and himself led the way. It was this sad company which the
clairvoyant mind of the blind boy detected before the searching gaze
of Deborah saw the approaching litter.
 V
A FLOWER IN A TORRENT

T is Benjamin! Benjamin is hurt!" cried Caleb, leaning an

instant over the parapet. While Deborah was looking
into the street he felt his way to the steps leading down
from the roof into the open court around which the
house was built. He darted across this as quickly and
silently as a flash from the brass mirror, not even waking Ephraim,
the servant, who had fallen asleep watching the ripples in the great
basin of the fountain that stood in the centre of the court. In
another instant the boy had raised the crossbar from the lintels and
was hasting down the narrow street. Extending his hands he guided
himself through the crowds, keeping always in the centre of the way
as infallibly as a stick floats in the middle of a wild rushing torrent.
In vain did Deborah, as she saw him, call him from the parapet. She
flew down the stone stairway and out into the street.
"What haste, my black-eyed beauty?" said an impudent soldier,
blocking her way.
By a quick movement Deborah eluded him, but only to be stopped
scarcely twenty paces beyond by another, who stretched out his
arms and seized her by the wrists. She stood as if paralyzed by her
wrath at this indignity, for never before had a rude hand touched
her; then, with sudden agility and strength which seemed beyond a
woman's, she wrenched herself from her captor. Taking time and
breath for one indignant cry, "You coward!" she ran on, while the
crowd was temporarily diverted by their jeers at the discomfited
soldier.
"The eunuchs are stronger than you, man, for they can keep the
women from running away from the harems."
"Her fire-eyes burnt out your heart, did they? Open your corselet,
and let's see if it be charred."
Deborah turned into the Cheesemakers Street. Here she met a
company of officers.
"Catch the gazelle! She is my spoil!" shouted the leader.
Her arms were instantly seized from behind.
"Apollonius has captured the very Daughter of Jerusalem that the
Jews talk about," remarked one.
"Apollonius?" cried Deborah, looking at one whose gorgeous
plumage indicated that he was the chief officer.
He was a man of prepossessing appearance. His brow was broad,
features finely proportioned; a man evidently trained to think and
govern. In younger days he must have been exceedingly handsome,
but middle life showed the effects of dissipation. A furtive flicker in
his eyes belied his assumption of self-command. His lips were
swollen from too frequent communion with the spirit of the vine.
"Apollonius!" cried Deborah. "Does Apollonius dare to break his own
orders? Is it true, then, as men say, that there is neither honor nor
mercy in a Syrian?" fixing her gaze unflinchingly upon the Governor's
face.
"Ah! and who is my charmer? Beautiful as a leopard at bay, or
Aphrodite herself is a hag. Come, can you leap as high as my arms?"
said the Governor, amid the laughter of his attendants.
"I am the daughter of Elkiah," said Deborah, "whose house you have
given your sworn word to spare, if you be indeed General
Apollonius."
"By all the nymphs this side of Olympus! I am sorry to hear it,"
replied he. "If I had known that the old bigot had so fair a daughter,
I would have qualified my order. But let her pass, my men. We must
keep our word, of course."
A counter commotion was heard down the street.
"Way for the litter! Way for the litter!" shouted those coming.
With a sharp outcry, Deborah darted from the soldiers about her and
ran to the side of the wounded man.
"It is Benjamin!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about the
insensible form which the bearers had for the moment put down.
"Speak to me, my brother!"
The girl's grief at first seemed inconsolable. But suddenly she was
transformed into a Fury. She stood straight but trembling, with
hands clenched, and glared upon the bystanders. For a little her
passion prevented speech. Then she broke forth, with tone and
gesture and look which fitted her words:
"A curse upon his murderer! Who struck this cowardly blow?"
She raised her hand as if to smite any one who dared confess the
deed.
"It was but an accident, fair daughter of Elkiah," responded Dion,
with a manner that disarmed her rage. "Your brother is not dead.
See, he lives."
He bent over his friend with evident joy as the Jew opened his eyes
and gazed, at first with stupidity and then curiously, at the Greek
and his sister. The glance at Dion was with the flicker of a smile; that
upon his sister brought an expression of pain. The next moment he
put his hand to his head, and, uttering a sharp cry, lapsed into
unconsciousness.
Deborah and Dion stood one on either side of the litter. Their hands
touched as they stroked the forehead of the sufferer. They looked
into each other's faces. With her it was only the recognition of a
common sympathy.
But Dion had other thoughts. The vision of the face he had seen at
Elkiah's doorway had not faded for an instant from his imagination.
Now his impression of her beauty was reinforced by the revelation of
her soul. What courage! what audacity! yet not beyond a woman's
right! Had he struck a wilful blow at Glaucon, he thought that her
wrath would have killed him, so just would it have been, and so
imperious was her voice and action. Yet what love this woman was
capable of! She seemed to him like some goddess weeping at her
own altar which had been despoiled; for surely Glaucon was not
worthy of this outpouring of her affection. Dion thought that he
knew women. To him the most were but as stagnant pools, with
surface glistening in the sunlight, while the depths—if there were
any—were soiled. But he imagined that this woman's soul was
transparent, limpid, and infinitely deep; pouring itself out
spontaneously, with as little self-consciousness as that of a fountain
when it throws aloft its white spray.
Yet he had injured this woman—unintentionally, it was true; but his
hand had thrown the fatal disc which cut its way into her soul, as
really as into the flesh of her brother. How could he atone for this?
There came also to Dion a deeper anxiety. Glaucon would recover;
but what of this girl's coming life? A Jewish maiden left alone amid
the license of Antiochus' soldiers! A dove in the serpent's nest would
be as safe. Glaucon could not protect her. With Elkiah's death the
renegade son would—as he had heard frequently in the camp—
quickly "be cashed," and another estate rattle as coin in Apollonius'
belt. Then what of this girl? Dion felt as if a hand from the sky was
ordaining him her protector. Yet what power had he?
Upon hearing the commotion about the litter Apollonius turned back.
As if to redeem his repute for the dastardly insult of a few moments
before, he now made most respectful salaam to the young woman,
and, with the semblance of kindly solicitude for Glaucon, gave orders
detailing Captain Dion to act as guard for the wounded man. Thus,
having assumed by his manner the credit for what Dion had already
done, he rejoined his suite.
The men were about to lift the litter when Deborah startled them
with the cry:
"But Caleb! Where is the blind boy? Surely he came this way."
"We have seen none such. He must have passed by another street.
Doubtless he has gone home," was the Greek's response.
"Oh, I must find him!"
There was a maternal depth in the girl's tones.
"Where could he have gone? Help me, good sir, and the blessing of
the Lord will be upon you."
"We could not find him in these streets," said Dion. "Let us go first
to your home. If he is not there we will search elsewhere. And I
think that my name will open any place where he may be detained."
"Quick, then; let us haste!"
The girl in her eagerness led the way. Reaching the house, she
opened the outer door, which had not been fastened after her exit a
little while before, and sped across the open court. Elkiah was
calling.
"Here am I, father!" and in an instant more she was beside him on
the roof.
"My daughter, where have you been? Have the Gentiles bewitched
even my Deborah, that she should go out of doors to gaze at them?
Nay, veil your face with shame, child. Henceforth you must abide
strictly in the house. It may be our sepulchre, but I would rather my
daughter died here, than that the same sun should greet her eyes
and theirs, except that she hated them. But for a daughter of
Jerusalem to so much as look upon their garments is to play the
wanton."
"Speak not such words, my father," cried Deborah, kneeling by his
side, and placing his hands upon her forehead in claiming his
blessing.
"It is Benjamin, father. They have brought him back to us, and——"
"Benjamin!" cried the old man, his voice failing in utterance until it
became almost a hiss. "Benjamin! I have no son Benjamin. He has
disowned his name; I disown his blood. What does the traitor
Glaucon do in the house of Elkiah? Let him be gone! I charge thee,
Deborah, if thou be a true daughter, banish him from our house."
"But, father——"
"Nay, let him be gone!"
"But, father, Benjamin is harmed; wounded; it may be he is killed."
The venerable man raised himself on his arm, and stared about him.
Deborah laid him gently back upon the pillows.
"Oh, father, do not curse him. It may be he will not live. Do not
curse him."
He gazed at her, taking her face between his hands and drawing it
close to his.
"Aye, my Miriam again! Would God, Deborah, you had been my
son!"
"But, father, pity our Benjamin. He is grievously hurt."
A change passed over the features of Elkiah. Suddenly the tears
dimmed his sight, and he said:
"Benjamin hurt? My boy? The child of Miriam harmed? Where is he?
Help me, that I may go to him."
He vainly tried to rise. His hands clenched as he muttered:
"The Lord avenge the house of Elkiah upon the heads of the
heathen! The Lord spare my child! Benjamin! Benjamin! Would God I
had died for thee!"
When she had seen the wounded man brought safely into the lower
chamber, Deborah quickly searched every part of the house, and her
cry for Caleb rang from the roof to the court.
"He is not here. I will go again to the street."
The strong, but kind, hand of Dion blocked the way: "Nay, good
maiden, you cannot return to the city. I will go where you could not.
I swear to search the streets and camps if you will but pledge me to
abide here."
"A pledge to a Greek!"
But the look of scorn passed quickly from her face, as she saw the
solicitude in his. After a little thought, in which her agitated manner
told that she could keep such a promise only with her body, and that
her whole soul would go with Dion in his search, she replied:
"It is well. I see it is my duty to stay here, sir. But hasten! Hasten,
and I will pray for you every step. The Lord bless you, good sir!"
"Your own blessing were enough," said Dion, as he ran down the
steps.
 VI
A JEWISH CUPID

ION knew that a personal search for the lad among the
crowds of soldiers, who were lodged in half the houses
of the city, and in hundreds of tents beyond the walls,
would be a long, if not a useless one, since, if any
persons had captured the child, they would have reason
for concealing his whereabouts. Dion went, therefore, at once to the
headquarters of Apollonius, that he might obtain an order that none
would dare disregard.
The house appropriated to the Governor's use was the palace on
Mount Sion. Though the finest residential structure in Jerusalem, like
Elkiah's house, it was but a sorry scion of its architectural pedigree.
For instead of the colonnades where Solomon once walked, and the
golden roof which had sheltered the harem of that pious libertine,
where now the lime whitened walls and domes of what, but for its
site, might have been taken for a caravansery.
Captain Dion passed through the court, with its broken ancient
fountains and cheap reproductions of recent Greek statuary. He was
greeted by Apollonius at the entrance to the hall of audience.
"Welcome, Dion! In time to sup with me to-night. After the feast we
will have a symposium that will make the dead Alexander come to
life with envy. He would risk another death by fever for the sake of a
draught of such wines as the King has sent me from Antioch."
Dion excused himself, and stated the purpose of his visit.
"Nay; so jovial and witty a comrade as yourself cannot be let off,"
cried the roystering commandant. "Nor need you trouble yourself
about the boy. I will issue the order that he be brought here. It will
be a quicker way and more certain—that is, if the circumcised dog
be living, which we may doubt; for, since the permission given
yesterday, the men are making short work of all this Jewish spawn."
Dion changed his tack, and urged that he must return to take care of
his friend Glaucon.
"What care you for the traitor Glaucon?" replied the General. "If that
man betrays his own race he will not be true to you. It is enough
that such creatures as Glaucon are allowed to live, and keep their
property, which should be our common spoil. Let him die of his hurt;
we shall all be the better off, with one Jew less and houses more.
But stay you shall, Dion, or, by Herakles! I will issue orders to cut the
boy's throat when found. No carouse is complete if Dion be absent,"
he said, throwing his arm about him. "Come now, it's a treaty with
you. I know that your friendship is not for Glaucon, but for the black-
eyed Diana, his sister, whom I saw to-day. Drink with us you shall, or
I shall be jealous as Zeus is of his Hera, and send your Jewish
goddess straight to Antiochus as a gift. Go, then, get your ivy and
head-grease, and come back quickly; for see, the gnomon already
casts shadow of six paces—the hour the gods themselves have set
for supper."
"Then I must eat your dainty meats," said Dion, seeing the futility of
opposing the distempered will of his superior. Veiling his resentment
under a forced hilarity, he retired, and a half-hour later returned in
company with the other guests.
These were high officers in gorgeous togas, and caps whose
tasselled tops lapped down to their shoulders. Each of these
revellers was accompanied to the palace by one or more slaves, who
would wait upon their masters at the feast, and take them home
when drunk. A few subalterns were invited who, like Dion,
compensated for lack of rank by their ready wit and their repertoire
of stories and songs.
As the guests reclined upon the cushions their shoes were unlaced
and removed by Apollonius' menials, their feet washed in scented
water, and gently rubbed with towels, while their caps were
displaced by crowns of bay leaves gemmed with the pearly berries.
Then the low tables were drawn within reach, laden with all that the
distant markets of Antioch could furnish; for the conquered land of
Judea gave them not so much as a fig or date. The Jews had left for
the invaders only fish and game; but woe to the Syrian soldier who
should venture beyond his camps to drop a line in lake or send an
arrow after beast or bird!
The viands were quickly disposed of, for, following the Greek custom,
no wine was poured until the meats and spicy condiments had
created abundant thirst.
"A soldier's hunger is soon satisfied, but his thirst is like the river
Oceanus that runs round the earth and has no end," cried
Apollonius. "Let's to the potation. Who shall be master of the feast?"
"Dion! Dion!" was shouted, with clapping and cheers.
Apollonius whispered to his next neighbor:
"The master of the feast, according to custom, must remain sober.
We must have Dion's tongue loosened with wine, or we shall not
skim the cream of his wit. Call for Kallisthenes. He is duller drunk
than sober."
"Kallisthenes! Kallisthenes!" went round the table, as the suggestion
of the host was whispered from one to another.
"This is a deserved honor," shouted Apollonius, "for the man who
fired the gates of the Jews' Temple."
"Aye, it was a valiant deed, for there wasn't so much as a lame Jew
to stop him," said Sotades to Dion, who reclined next to him.
"If Apollonius is scattering heroic honors to-night, he should send for
the High Priest, Menelaos, for he stole the golden candlesticks from
the Holy Place before we could get hold of them," said another.
"Menelaos! The Jew turned Greek! Dion says he once frightened an
Ethiopian into a white man. So Menelaos became a Greek. That
Jew's lips would poison the wine. Let him get ready for his feast with
the worms of Gehenna," grunted the Governor.
Kallisthenes at once assumed the prerogative of Ruler of the Feast.
He put on a chaplet of ivy, and proclaimed the laws for the hour.
"Hear ye, my subjects, the rules of the feast, which all shall obey
under penalty of the wrath of the gods. May Bacchus and Aphrodite
both desert the wretch who fails in his duty."
"Law the first—The wine shall not be mixed with more than half
water."
"What goblets shall we use?" asked one. "If the larger ones, I vote
for one part wine to three parts water, as Hesiod recommends."
"A frog's drink, as Pharecrates called it," replied the Ruler. "Half and
half it shall be, and he who shirks the large goblet shall drink from
the crater itself. Are we not all philosophers? And did not Socrates
drink from the wine cooler?"
"Agreed! Agreed!" echoed round the circle.
One ruddy-faced veteran knelt in mock adoration at the feet of the
Feast Master:
"I humbly crave that, since I was born in distant Phrygia, we to-
night follow the custom of the barbarians, and drink no water at all.
Let us be inspired with the unadulterated soul of the god."
"Bacchus pardon thy gluttony for the sake of thy piety," said the
Master.
"Law the second—Whereas wine should be drunk either hot or cold,
and whereas, these Jews who are still above Hades have stopped
the way to the mountains where lies the snow to chill it, therefore it
is ordained that all drinks shall be heated with both fire and spice."
"Agreed! Agreed!"
"Law the third—Every goblet shall be quaffed from brim to bottom
between two breaths."
"It is agreed!"
"Oh! my paunch!" cried one. "Do you think me a Deucalion to stand
the deluge?"
Servants poured the water and wine in equal quantities into the
crater, or great bowl, from which it was ladled into the large goblets,
holding half a quart each.
"A bumper first to Bacchus."
It was drunk with avidity. One started a song from the old poet
Anacreon:
"Thirsty earth drinks up the rain,
Trees from earth drink that again,
Ocean drinks the air, the sun
Drinks the sea, and him the moon.
Any reason canst thou think
I should thirst while all these drink?"
"Eros follows Bacchus," cried the Feast Master. "Now a cup to the
Syrian goddess Astarte, since we are in her land, or to Aphrodite,
Venus, or whatever name each one calls his lady-love."
"Aye, a cup to Bathsheba! if any one has found a Jewess to his
taste," shouted Apollonius, lifting his goblet toward Dion.
Songs and comic speeches, extemporized pantomimes, riddles and
stories, as the wine happened to stir the peculiar talent or caprice of
the guest, interspersed the drinking.
As the hours advanced the curtains at the doorway were swung
aside, and a troop of dancing girls entered. They were of various
races; the fair Caucasian from the Euxine, the Egyptian whose hue
was the reflection of her desert sands, swarthy half-black Arabs from
beyond Jordan, and Nubians whose faces seemed cut from solid jet
—slaves whom Apollonius had captured or exchanged for other spoil
of battle. These rendered the various songs and dances of their
native lands. One performed the hazardous exploit of stepping to the
throbbing of the zither between a score of sword blades, set with
points upward. Another honored Apollonius by advancing on her
hands, seizing the ladle of the wine jar between her toes, and
dexterously filling with its contents the empty cup of the
commandant.
"Let Apollonius, the valiant conqueror of Jerusalem, show us a
daughter of Israel. He is making a harem of them, if report be true,"
cried one.
"Jewish maidens will not dance on anything except the thin air. So
we had to hang a score of them yesterday," replied Apollonius. "But
I will show you a genuine Jewish Cupid."
"A circumcised Cupid! Apollonius' wit is as sharp as his knife," cried
Kallisthenes.
The Governor whispered to an attendant. In a few moments there
was thrust into the room a naked boy. His limbs were exquisitely
moulded. His large distended pupils shone with strange lustre in the
flashing lights of the jewelled lanterns. His outstretched hands and
cautious step showed that there was no sight in his eyes.
"Bravo! Bravo! Cupid is blind! Well thought, Apollonius! Let us see to
whom he has brought a message from the goddess," said Sotades.
At this moment Kallisthenes uttered a cry of surprise and horror. He
leaped to his feet and pointed to the great bowl from which the wine
was taken.
The servant, whose attention had been unduly drawn to the
revellers, had inadvertently laid the ladle across the brim of the
crater,—a thing regarded as ominous of dire calamity to some one of
the guests, the evil to be averted only by the instant cessation of the
revelry.
The feasters looked, and echoed the consternation of the Feast
Master.
The guests unceremoniously rose, and were hastening as fast as
their uncertain legs and frightened attendants could carry them,
when Apollonius recalled them. "A curse on the slave! Let us