"How can she, when the siege is laid?"
There was a moment of silence. The woman drew in a deep breath that
was wholly one of relief.
"Now what will she do?" she asked.
"She expects," John answered, "the mediation of the Messiah. It is the
talk among the slaves that He is in the city and she has heard it. She
seems not to be overconfident, however."
"It is her end," the woman remarked with meaning.
"Perchance not. She is a good Jew, it seems, whatever else she may be,
and every good Jew may have his wishes come to pass if the Messiah
come. So it has become the national habit to expect the Messiah in
every individual difficulty. Now, according to prophecies, the time is
of a surety ripe and the whole city is expectant. She may have her
wish."
She stared at him coolly. There was implied disbelief in this speech.
She debated with herself if it would serve to resent his doubt.
Whatever her conclusion she added no more to the discussion of
Laodice's hopes.
"Are you expectant?" she asked.
"I see the need of a Messiah," he responded.
"Doubtless. You and Simon do not unite the city; nothing but an
united, confident and supremely capable people can resist Rome in even
this most majestic fortification in the world--unless miracle be
performed, indeed."
"Nothing but a divine visitor can achieve union here."
"What an event to behold!" she mused. "That would be an excitement!
Surely that would be a new thing! No one really ever beheld a god
before."
"What learned things dreams are! What things of experience!" he
remarked with a sly smile. She refused to observe his insisted
disbelief in her claim, but went on as if to herself.
"Whatever Jove can do, man can do!" she declared. "I never heard that
the gods do more than change maidens into trees or themselves into
swans for an old mortal purpose that even man's a better adept at. Why
can there not rise one who is greater than Alexander and of stouter
heart than Julius Cæsar? There is no limit to the greatness of
mankind. Behold, here is a city rich beyond even the wealth of
Croesus; and a country which the emperor is longing to bestow upon
some orderly king! Heavens, what an opportunity! I could pray,
Jerusalem should pray, that the hour may bring forth the man!"
Her eyes shone with an unnatural yearning. The immense scope of her
desires suddenly brought a smile to his lips that he checked in time.
He had remembered offering his Idumeans in women's clothing for her
diversion.
Hunger for power, the next greatest hunger after hunger for love! He
felt that he stood in the presence of a desire so immense that it
belittled his own hopes. He was not too much of a Jew to have sympathy
with the ambition that dwells in the breasts of women. Cleopatra had
been an evil that he had admired profoundly, because she had attained
that which his own soul yearned after but which had eluded him. Yet he
was large enough not to be envious of a success. He was made of the
stuff that seekers of excitement are made of. If he could not furnish
the intoxication of activity he was a ready supporter of that one who
could.