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CHAPTER XXVII
NATHAN KEEPS HIS WORD

Clearchus and Chares shivered in the chill of the dungeon. By the glimmer of light that entered through a narrow opening above their heads, they saw that the place was quite bare. There was nothing but the stone floor under their feet and the four stone walls that shut them in.

"What think you, Chares?" Clearchus said, with the shadow of a smile. "Nathan will never be able to rescue us from here."

"It does not look hopeful," the Theban replied, "but let us see."

He made a careful examination of the walls, finding everywhere the solid stone unbroken. The only openings in the cell were the tiny window and the door. The window was out of reach and so narrow that not even a cat could have squeezed through. Chares halted at the door and examined the bars. They were of hammered iron, as thick as the shaft of a lance, and rendered stronger by two cross-bars, welded from side to side. The Theban tested them gently with his hands and shook his head.

"The blacksmith who forged them was a good workman," he said.

At that moment they heard the step of the sentry outside in the passageway. The man carried at his girdle a bunch of great keys that rattled as he walked. He was armed with a short spear with a long, keen blade. He halted at the door of the cell.

"What are you doing there?" he said gruffly to Chares. "Get back!"

"No need to be angry, my friend," Chares returned good-naturedly, falling back from the door. "What are you going to do to us?"

The jailer's brutish face assumed an expression of pleasure that was evidently unfeigned.

"You know you are to be tortured to-morrow," he said, "and we do those things thoroughly here. I shall help. They could not get along without me."

"I suppose you are used to it," Chares ventured.

"My father taught me," the man replied proudly. "There is none in the empire better with the rack than I. And he showed me how to draw the band about a man's forehead until his eyes stick out of his head and his skull cracks like an egg, and all without killing him. Very few know the secret."

"And when you are through with the torture, what then?" asked Chares.

"Why, then you will die by the boat," the jailer replied.

"Do you mean we shall be drowned?" Chares inquired.

The jailer laughed harshly. "That would be too easy," he said. "Death by the boat has nothing to do with the water, as you will find. They will place you in the shallop with your head, arms, and feet outside. Then they will cover you with honey and place another boat upside down over you. This will leave your head and hands free through the holes. The ants and the flies are fond of honey. I have known men to live a week in their snug wooden jackets; but they usually go crazy after a few days, when the ants begin to eat them."

"That is very interesting," Chares remarked. "When will they begin the torture?"

"To-morrow morning," the man replied, "and I advise you to get a sound sleep; you will be able to stand the pain better."

He passed on down the corridor, humming to himself as though his mind were filled with pleasant thoughts.

"That is a nice prospect," Chares said, turning away from the grating. "I wonder what Nathan intends to do?"

"We can only wait," Clearchus replied. "I think we had better pretend that we are asleep, so that your friend the sentinel will at least let us alone."

They stretched themselves upon the stone floor and waited, talking in whispers. With nightfall, the prison grew utterly dark, excepting in the corridor, where the surly guard lighted oil lamps, set at intervals in niches in the wall. These made brief spaces of light in the gloomy passageway, through which the man went and came with monotonous tread. There was silence in that part of the prison where they were, indicating that the other condemned cells were vacant. For a time the sound of voices reached them faintly through the slit in the wall, but these gradually ceased as the night advanced.

One of the lamps had been set directly opposite their cell, but its feeble glimmer hardly extended to the bars of their cage, although it rendered objects in the corridor dimly distinct.

Hour followed hour, and each seemed like a week to the young Athenian. Chares, overcome by drowsiness, had fallen asleep at his side. Clearchus wondered at the careless nature of his friend that permitted him to close his eyes in the face of so horrible a death. He had no doubt that Nathan would seek to rescue them, but he knew not when nor how. Perhaps he would attempt intercession with Darius. Perhaps he would defer the trial until the morning. What if he should fail? Clearchus was far from being a coward, but his nerves shrank from the thought of the torture and the lingering agony that would follow before death came to set them free. The very idea of death, since now he knew that Artemisia was living and in need of him, filled his heart with anguish.

As he lay gazing into the corridor, with his head upon his hand, he recalled her face as it had appeared to him in the happy garden in Academe, with the sunlight on her hair and the color of the wild rose in her cheeks. He remembered how her blue eyes had looked into his with sweet wistfulness and how the tears dimmed them when she told him of the fears that had beset her. The tears rose to his own eyes at the remembrance, and he ground his teeth as he thought of his helplessness. Why had he not trusted the prevision of her finer perceptions, half ethereal as they were? Why had he not remained to defend her and to prevent the train of misfortunes which had followed?

The sentinel paused at the door of the cell for a moment in passing. He noted the deep breathing of Chares and resumed his march with a yawn. Clearchus listened, mechanically counting his steps until he should reach the spot where they were to turn. Suddenly a sound came to his ears that caused him to sit up and listen intently. There were other footfalls in the corridor. They were advancing in the track of the sentinel from the direction of the entrance.

The Athenian's pulses bounded. Help had come. He stretched out his hand to rouse Chares, but in an instant he reflected that there was evidently no effort at concealment on the part of the newcomer. The steps were careless and deliberate. Probably they were made by another guard, who had come to relieve the bloodthirsty wretch outside. His hope sank as suddenly as it had arisen and he let his hand fall.

"Why should I awaken him?" he thought. "Let him sleep."

Slowly the steps advanced. Clearchus crept to the door of the cell and peered out through the grating. A man's figure was approaching along the passage. It was Nathan. Clearchus rose quickly to his feet and shook Chares by the shoulder.

"Silence!" he whispered.

The Theban rubbed his eyes and stretched his great limbs.

"Where am I?" he muttered. "Oh, yes, I remember. What has happened?"

"Nathan is here," Clearchus said.

Chares was on his feet with a bound, and both stood listening breathlessly.

Nathan had reached the dim circle of light before their cell. His keen black eyes were glancing to the right and left at the dark gratings.

"We are here!" Clearchus whispered through the bars.

The Israelite turned his face toward them and smiled, trying to distinguish them in the darkness. In his hand he carried a roll of papyrus.

"Be ready!" he said, in a scarcely audible tone.

"Who are you?" the sentinel demanded, catching sight of Nathan for the first time.

Nathan halted close to the bars of the cell and awaited his approach without reply.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked gruffly as he approached.

"I have an order for you," Nathan replied coolly, unrolling the papyrus as he spoke. "Read it."

The man took the papyrus in his hand and looked at it. Then he glanced cunningly at Nathan.

"What does it mean?" he growled, handing it back. "I cannot read."

This was evidently a contingency that had not entered into Nathan's calculations.

"It is signed by Boupares – here, do you see!" he said, holding the writing under the jailer's nose.

"Well, what then?" the man asked suspiciously.

"It is an order," Nathan continued. "You are to deliver the Greek prisoners to me immediately."

"What are you going to do with them?" the jailer asked.

"Boupares desires to talk with them before they are examined," Nathan explained.

"I shall not give them up," the jailer replied, with the air of a man who has made up his mind. "If Boupares wishes to see them, let him come here. They were sent to me under the seal of the king himself, and this order of yours has no seal. Do you think I want to be boiled alive as my comrade was last month? I can hear his yells yet, for I helped to do it. You can tell Boupares what I have said, and now be off."

Like most ignorant men when they think, or pretend to think, that they are being imposed upon, the jailer raised his voice to a bullying shout. Nathan looked apprehensively over his shoulder toward the entrance of the prison. The harsh tone echoed between the narrow walls and might be easily heard at the gate, where several men were stationed.

"Give me your keys," he said quietly. "You know the penalty for disobeying an order."

The jailer stepped to the door of the cell and stood defiantly, with his back against the bars.

"I will not give them!" he said.

From within the cell the man's figure was outlined against the light of the lamp. Chares moved forward in the darkness behind him with noiseless tread, and his fingers closed suddenly around the jailer's throat. The wretch gasped once and threw up his chin, struggling convulsively to free himself from the iron clutch that encircled his neck. His struggles were in vain. The Theban drew him silently back against the bars. His feet scuffled on the stone floor, and his short spear clattered from his hand.

"Take the keys," Clearchus whispered.

Nathan quickly detached the keys from the jailer's belt and unlocked the door of the cell. Clearchus slipped through the open door, picking up the jailer's spear as he went. Chares relaxed his hold, and the man's body slipped in a huddled heap to the floor.

"Come," said the Israelite. "We have no time to lose."

What he said was true. From the direction of the entrance came the sound of voices and the flickering of a torch danced upon the walls.

"Neshak! Ho, Neshak, where are you?" called a voice.

"They are seeking the jailer," Nathan whispered. "Come!"

He darted down the corridor into the darkness, with the two Greeks at his heels. At the end of a dozen yards they turned quickly to the left, up a flight of stairs, and then through other passageways, until they reached a second short stairway and emerged upon the roof.

They stood panting and listening beside the head of the stair. Above them the wide arch of the sky was sown with stars. From the black opening at their feet came a confused sound of cries and shouting.

"They have found the jailer's body," Nathan said. "I fear we are lost. It shall be as Jehovah wills!"

He drew a short sword from its sheath at his side.

"Is there no other way to the roof?" Clearchus asked.

"No other way," Nathan replied; "but how can we hope to hold this against them?"

The Athenian looked about him. The roof was built of huge slabs of stone, fitted together without mortar, and there was nothing that might serve as even a temporary barricade.

"If we could only raise one of these," he said, stooping over one of the slabs.

"Not ten men could do it," Nathan replied, shaking his head.

"Let us see," said Chares.

He thrust his fingers under the stone and set his feet wide apart. The muscles of his back and arms rose in ridges. The veins of his neck swelled like knotted cords. The great stone stirred in its bed.

Clearchus and Nathan dropped their weapons and bent eagerly to assist him. The ponderous mass heaved slowly upward, tilting toward the opening that led to the stairway. From the sound of the voices within they knew that their pursuers were close at hand.

"Life or death!" groaned Chares, the sweat streaming from his body like rain. "Now!"

The mighty stone rose inch by inch upon its edge, standing higher than the heads of the three men, who were now behind and beneath it. Their pursuers had evidently halted on the stairs, expecting the opening to the roof to be defended. Puzzled by the silence, they seemed to be concerting a plan of attack. Suddenly they sprang upward with a shout, thrusting forward their spears and crowding for the aperture.

The great slab stood upright, balancing on its lower end. While a man might draw breath, it hung motionless, and then it toppled over upon the opening from the stairs.

The foremost of the pursuers saw it and with inarticulate cries sought to retreat. They were too late. The heavy mass crashed down upon their heads and covered the opening. Nathan and Clearchus fell forward with it and lay gasping. Chares swayed upon his feet and his head reeled. The blood dripped from the ends of his fingers, where it had burst from beneath his nails. Faintly from under the stone issued cries of agony, as though some of the guard had been caught there and held fast by mangled limbs.

Nathan staggered to his feet and groped for his sword. "Now for the wall," he cried. "We may yet escape!"

CHAPTER XXVIII
BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

As Clearchus lay upon the broad slab, the voices of his friends seemed to him faint and far away. He tried to rise, but a strange languor weighed him down. Chares seized him and dragged him to his feet.

"Wake up!" cried the Theban. "We still have a chance. You tremble like a girl."

Clearchus gathered his senses with an effort of will, and the two Greeks followed Nathan across the roof toward the great wall, against which the prison was built.

Nathan led them straight to the foot of a narrow flight of steps, roughly hewn in the masonry and scarcely discernible a few yards away. Up these he climbed with the agility of a cat. Clearchus, still faint and dizzy, hesitated for a moment, gazing at the sheer height that towered above his head.

"Forward!" Chares cried behind him. "It is our only hope."

Clearchus set his feet in the narrow steps and followed Nathan, carrying the jailer's spear in his left hand and clinging to each projection with his right. More than once his feet slipped and Chares saved him from falling. The steps wound upward almost perpendicularly, and it was evident that they were rarely used, for in places the soft brick had crumbled, leaving wide gaps.

"Look up!" Chares cried desperately, as Clearchus halted at one of these dangerous points. "Look up – and remember Artemisia, whom thou alone canst save!"

He had touched the right chord at last. The Athenian's brain cleared at the mention of Artemisia's peril, and he forgot his own. The wall no longer seemed to waver before his eyes. All doubt of his ability to pass where Nathan had passed before him vanished from his mind, and he gained the top with an even pulse.

They paused for a moment to get their bearings. Far beneath them they saw the starlight trembling on the broad sweep of the Euphrates, beyond which for miles lay a level country, dotted with trees and fields. Behind them spread the sleeping city, an endless succession of roofs and towers. Here and there a torch glimmered like a firefly. The crest of the wall, upon which they stood and where four chariots might have been driven abreast without crowding, was apparently deserted.

The sound of shouting rose from the direction of the prison. They saw a cluster of torches issue from the main entrance and scatter in every direction.

"They are giving the alarm," Nathan said, "but I think we shall have time to disappoint them. There is a rope waiting for us where the river touches the wall, and at its lower end we shall find a boat."

The river was several hundred yards distant from the spot where they stood. Before they could reach the place where the rope was concealed, they must traverse nearly a quarter of a mile. Between them and safety stood one of the guard-houses built for the sentries whose duty it was to patrol the wall night and day. Still worse, they must pass the entrance of a broad flight of steps that led downward into the city and formed the usual means of ascent to the top of the wall.

It had been Nathan's plan to come up by these steps and gain the rope without passing the guard-house. The obstinacy of the jailer had disarranged everything. It was of the first importance that they should reach the rope before the sentinels on the wall could learn what had happened, or the guards from below could mount.

Like shadows they sped along the top of the wall, holding as near as possible to the outer edge so as not to be seen from the city. Outside the guard-house a sentry stood, craning his neck to see what was going on beneath him to cause all the shouting. They stole by behind his back without arousing his attention.

They had fled past the head of the stairway and were congratulating themselves on their good fortune when they came suddenly face to face with a returning sentry, slowly pacing his beat. The man was as much surprised as they and seemed in doubt as to whether they were friends or foes. Before he could make up his mind, Chares gripped him by the throat and the broad blade of the jailer's spear buried itself in his heart. He had uttered no cry. Chares dragged the body under the parapet that had been built where the wall overhung the river to protect the defenders from the archers who might be sent to attack the city from ships.

Crouching in the shadow of this elevation, they went on at a slackened pace, expecting every moment to come upon the rope. It was nowhere to be found. The shouting from the city now came clearly up from the staircase as the guards ascended. Finally Nathan paused and looked doubtfully about him.

"It should be very near here," he said, "but I do not see it."

"Then there is nothing for it but to take as many of them with us as we can," Chares said, rising to his full height. "Zeus, how my back aches! I hate this skulking."

Apparently the sentinel at the guard-house whom they had passed understood at last what was the matter. He roused the rest of the guard. Clearchus and Nathan pulled Chares down into the shadow. They were so near that they could hear what was said.

"Captives have escaped! They are coming up by the prison stairway!" the man told his companions in an excited voice. "They are asking us to stop them. Boupares himself is on his way up."

The men came tumbling out of the guard-house and ran to the inner edge of the wall, shouting down with much gesticulation that they would meet the fugitives. Then they hastened back toward the prison.

"Much good that will do them," Chares laughed.

"We have still a few moments," Clearchus said. "Where was the rope to be?"

"Here – opposite the Tower of Baal," Nathan replied.

"Look on the outside of the wall; it may be there," the Athenian suggested.

Nathan climbed upon the parapet and looked over.

"Here it is," he cried joyfully. "Follow me!"

As he spoke, he slipped over the edge of the wall and vanished.

"Follow him, Chares," Clearchus said. "Go quickly!"

"You first," the Theban answered doggedly.

"No," Clearchus answered with firmness. "It is my turn to guard the rear. I shall not stir until you are over the wall."

"Very well, have your way," Chares replied.

He vaulted upon the parapet and looked down. The rope had been attached to a bar of iron driven firmly into the bricks near the coping, and it dangled from between his feet into the gulf beneath him. The cord seemed slender to sustain his weight, but there was no time in which to test it. Swinging himself over the edge, he grasped the bar and then the rope, letting himself down hand over hand, with his feet against the rough surface of the wall. From the twitching of the cord in his hands, he knew that Nathan had not yet reached the bottom. He wondered how long it would be before the rope would break and send him headlong into the dark abyss.

Clearchus, left alone behind the parapet, flattened his body in the shadow and waited. He had seen Chares begin his descent, and he knew that the rope would not sustain the weight of all three at the same time. He resolved to allow Chares an opportunity to reach the foot of the wall before he himself started down. He counted upon the mistake that the sentries had made, in going back to the prison staircase in their search, to give him time.

Hardly had Chares disappeared before a company of soldiers, with torches in their hands, emerged from the head of the great stairway. The glare searched every corner on top of the wall, and the Athenian saw that concealment was no longer possible.

He knew that he must act promptly. The faces of the new arrivals were turned toward the sentinels, who were still engaged in searching about the prison stairway. It could be only a few moments before the futility of further effort in that direction must become evident to them, and the hunt would turn toward where he lay.

Should he attempt to gain the great staircase and slip into the city, where the Israelites might hide him, at least for a time? It would be impossible to evade the soldiers who were still coming up. He dismissed the idea from his mind.

Possibly he could escape along the southern stretch of wall. Beyond him at a distance there seemed to be a bridge, or causeway, connecting the wall with the enormous mass of earth and bricks that upheld the Hanging Gardens. The groves of palms and the tangle of shrubbery that crowned the Gardens might conceal him, even though the place was within the precincts of the palace itself.

He was about to try this plan and had already partly risen to put it into execution, when he saw the guard turning out at a station between him and the causeway. His chance of flight in that direction was cut off.

He could hear the chafing of the rope against the bricks on the other side of the parapet. Chares was still lowering himself toward the river. To try the rope now would be not only to endanger the lives of his two friends by overstraining the cord, but to reveal their mode of escape and expose them to certain death, since the guard would lose no time in cutting it.

Clearchus felt that he had been caught in a trap from which there was no outlet. He thought of the words the jailer had used in describing the death allotted to them. He thought of Artemisia, defenceless in Tyre. A vision of the life he had hoped to lead in the pleasant city of his birth, with her at his side, flitted through his mind. The Gods had bestowed upon him the hope of happiness that was not to be fulfilled. Chares would tell Artemisia how he died. At least she would know that he had given his life for his friend.

So ran the young man's thoughts as he lay awaiting the moment of discovery. His mind was made up. They would never take him back to the prison. Perhaps his friends might recover his body and give it burial amid the groves beyond the river.

Although the time seemed long, in reality only a few minutes passed before the portly form of Boupares, supported on either side by a stalwart soldier, appeared upon the platform at the head of the broad stair. The governor was out of breath and also out of patience. The knowledge that he would find it difficult to account for the loss of the prisoners weighed upon his mind.

The guards crowded about him with explanations and excuses. No trace could be found of the fugitives, they told him. It was certain they had not reached the top of the wall. If they had, they must have wings, since they had disappeared, leaving no trace.

"Search, you dogs!" Boupares gasped. "A thousand darics to the man who finds them!"

The moment was at hand. Clearchus unclasped the fibula that fastened the chiton upon his shoulder and drew his feet out of his sandals.

There was a cry from one of the guards. He had found the body of the sentinel. A group gathered about it to see. It was proof that the fugitives had passed along the wall, and all eyes were directed toward the Athenian's hiding-place.

Clearchus let fall his garments and with a bound gained the top of the parapet. The red light of the torches shone full upon his naked figure, gleaming against the dark sky, as perfect in every line as the form of Phœbus Apollo. For an instant the soldiers were dumb with astonishment and superstitious dread. The shape had appeared where there had been nothing a moment before. It seemed to them that it must be that of a God. Then one of them caught sight of the abandoned chiton and the spell was broken.

"Seize him! Strike him down!" they cried.

"Take him alive!" bellowed Boupares.

Clearchus turned his back upon them and gave a single glance at the wide sweep of water that eddied and gurgled at the foot of the great wall, how far below him he dared not guess. A javelin hissed past him and was swallowed by the darkness. With muscles as firm as steel, he took two steps forward and shot out from the dizzy height.

He heard the cry of astonishment and involuntary alarm from the soldiers behind him. The light of the torches flashed in his eyes, and then fled suddenly upward.

He looked down upon the wrinkled surface of the river. The impetus of his leap had carried him out beyond the slope of the wall, and he saw that he would strike the water as he had planned, instead of being dashed to pieces.

The rushing air blinded him like a mighty wind. He heard its roar in his ears. Mechanically he pressed the palms of his hands together below his head, and stiffened and straightened his body so that it might offer no surface of resistance in the plunge. Then he knew no more.

Faintly the cry of the guards floated downward. Their torches twinkled over the parapet. Chares, who, with aching arms, was clinging to the last few fathoms of the rope, looked upward. So did Nathan, pausing in his task of fitting a pair of oars to the rowlocks of a small boat that he had pushed out from the wall.

They saw the form of Clearchus as it shot downward from the sky. They saw it strike the water not twenty feet from them, leaving a circle of foam, with hardly a splash to mark where it had fallen, so straight and true was its descent.

Chares let the end of the rope slip through his hands and leaped into the boat. With a few rapid strokes Nathan brought the little craft to the centre of the widening ripple, where the bubbles were still rising. Both leaned over the gunwale, straining their eyes for sight of the body in the dark water.

A minute passed, and another, while they held their breath. Then Nathan uttered a cry.

"There he is!" he shouted, pointing downward.

It was only a glimmer of white under the ripple, which showed for an instant and was gone; but Chares plunged from the boat and disappeared beneath the surface. When he rose, he held the body of his friend across his arm, hanging limp and apparently lifeless. Nathan drew it into the boat and then helped Chares to his place in the stern.

"Is he dead, think you?" the Theban asked, taking the form across his knees as though it were that of a child.

"There is no mark on him; he may be only stunned," Nathan replied, resuming his oars.

Chares gazed at the pale face, with the dripping hair streaming back from its temples, and, bending forward, placed his ear over the heart.

"It beats," he cried. "He lives! Pull away, Nathan, and let the jackals howl!"

Arrows and javelins struck the water around the boat, but there was little danger from the marksmen above, unless some missile should find them by chance. The craft was almost indistinguishable from the top of the wall.

Nathan worked hard at the oars, while Chares rolled the body of Clearchus on his knees. Then he rubbed the pale limbs briskly and by no means gently until the blood began to circulate again. At last Clearchus opened his eyes and drew a deep breath.

"Is this the Styx?" he asked faintly. "Is the story true then, after all?"

"Not yet," Chares replied, with a laugh. "Your time has not yet come. You are dreaming."

Clearchus turned his head and saw the precipice of the mighty wall, rising black toward the stars and crowned with the red glow of the torches.

"Did I dive from there?" he asked wonderingly; "or is that, too, a dream?"

"It is no dream," Chares replied, "but a deed that will be told throughout the army for the Companions to envy. Give me the oars, Nathan; I need exercise."

Nathan yielded the oars, and the tough blades bent as the Theban threw his weight upon them. The boat sped through the water toward a grove of trees that stood like a patch of darker shadow on the other shore. From behind they could hear the clank of levers, and they knew the river-gate was being opened. Boupares had ordered pursuit; but they were a mile away before the first of the biremes shot out from the portal. A few minutes more and they had reached the friendly grove and entered the mouth of one of the numerous canals which formed a network through the plain as complicated as the Cretan labyrinth.

"Now let them search," said Nathan. "I would not stand in Boupares' shoes to-morrow!"