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Updated: June 21, 2025
So as Costobarus' gaze wandered he did not see far above that heap of striped garments in his garden walk, fixed like an enchanted thing, moveless, dead-calm, a great desert vulture poised in air. Presently another and yet another materialized out of the blue, growing larger as they fell down to the level of their fellow. Slowly the three swooped down over the heap on the garden walk.
Far out at sea, so far that a blue mist embraced its base and set its sails mysteriously afloat in air, a great galley, with all canvas crowded on, sped like a frightened bird past the port that had once been its haven. A strange compelling odor stole up from the city. Costobarus glanced down into his garden below him.
Had it existed only in the shut house of Costobarus? Was all the world wicked except that which was confined within the four walls of her father's house? Could she survive long in this unanimously bad environment? But she remembered Joseph of Pella, the shepherd; even then his wholesomeness was not without its canker. He was a Christian! Philadelphus was at her side.
"I, Nathan of Jerusalem, met and talked with this Laodice, daughter of Costobarus, in company with Aquila, the Ephesian, three men-servants in all the panoply and state of a coming princess three leagues out of Ascalon, her native city. I buried by the roadside her father, who died of pestilence on their journey hither. I bear witness that she is the daughter of Costobarus and thy wedded wife."
"Thou entertainest Laodice, daughter of Costobarus of Ascalon?" he added. The Greek bowed. "I would see her," he said bluntly. Amaryllis signed to the woman at her side. "This is she," she said simply. The Maccabee looked quickly at the woman.
To my wife my affection and my loyalty. Nota Bene. Julian of Ephesus accompanies me. He is my cousin. He will in all probability meet your daughter at the Gate. Slowly the old man rolled the writing. "He wastes no words," Philip mused. "He writes as a siege-engine talks without quarter." Costobarus nodded. "So I am giving him two hundred talents," he said deliberately. "Two hundred talents!"
There was no trace of a servant's humility in her tone. "Hast had the plague that thou seem'st to feel secure from it?" he demanded. "O no; then there would be no risk in this game. There is no sport in an unfair advantage over conditions. No! But how comes this Costobarus with you?" "He would not trust his daughter and a dowry to me, alone." "How shall we get to Emmaus, then?" she asked.
Costobarus leaned toward his friend and with a sweep of his hand indicated the stripped room. It was a noble chamber. The stamp of the elegant simplicity of Cyrus, the Persian, was upon it. The ancient blue and white mosaics that had been laid by the Parsee builder and the fretwork and twisted pillars were there, but the silky carpets, the censers and the chairs of fine woods were gone.
Costobarus, in spite of the shock of doubt and fear in his brain, looked at her as if with the happy eyes of the astonished Maccabee. In those full tender lips, in the slope of those black, silken brows, in the sparkling behind the dusky slumbrous eyes, there was all the fire and generosity and limitless charm that should make her lover's world a place of delight and perfume and music.
The strange woman who had stood her ground was heard to say in a low voice, half lost in the muffling of her wrappings: "One!" Momus drove on leisurely and Laodice, knowing that she must not look, slipped down in her place and wrapped her vitta over her face. Pestilence was riding with them. After a long time, Costobarus' camel ambled up beside hers, and she ventured to uncover her eyes.
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