# Lazarus, a tale of the world's great miracle/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
THE light came in in streaks through the curtained windows of the highest, most gorgeous apartment in the house of Caiaphas, lighting up the costly silks which hung above the couches, and the amber-coloured robe of his handsome daughter, the dark-eyed Rebekah. After the Magdalene, with whom, of course, she was never mentioned in the same breath, she was the loveliest woman in Judæa. The Jewish nose had halted midway down the face in Grecian fashion, and the olive skin, protected from almost every ray of sun, had grown of an opaque creamy whiteness, faintly stained as though by some sweet pink flower; and the eyes no one had ever quite known what was their colour; for, though they looked almost black and were fringed with the long, curling Jewish lash, still some declared that, if she looked upwards, they were blue as sapphire, yet that, when she was angry, they flashed ruby red. The beautiful face, the rounded chin of youth, the sweet, smiling mouth, like early barley in a coral pod, betrayed not yet the heritage of soul, for all the pride of a long line of priests, the subtlety of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the crafty cunning of Annas mingled in the stream that coursed through those blue veins.
Of an intriguing spirit and brought up amongst ​the politicians and great rulers of the day, she had become a personage of some importance in Jerusalem, and young lawyers and rulers, anxious to ingratiate themselves with Caiaphas, and young Romans, and even Greeks, were included in the no small group of her admirers.
Her mother, Annas's daughter, was an invalid, a poor weak woman, whom dread of Caiaphas's outbursts of bad temper had reduced almost to imbecility.
Rebekah was no mean linguist, too; she could converse in Greek and Latin, and was often of great assistance to her father; but this was more from the pleasure of the importance she derived from it than from any wish to help, for Rebekah loved no one like herself.
To-day she lay across her couch, gazing moodily from the window, while her maidens played to her on the cithern, an instrument the Greeks had lately introduced. But its notes seemed but to irritate her.
"Stop, stop, stop!" she cried. "Ye do play such mournful tunes, 't is like the wailing at a burial. Come tell me, when ye passed the market place, were there great multitudes listening to this this carpenter. Saw ye any rulers there?" she asked, with scathing irony; "or did only the foul, the blind, the beggars, and the leprous assemble? For I hear this Man doth, above all, love sinners, and the beautiful Magdalene they say hath become a saint. Oh, the world must be upside down when the Magdalene doth become a penitent." And while she spoke and laughed there was something fraught with scorn and malice that reminded one of Caiaphas. "But ​tell me, maidens, saw ye any comely young men in the crowd?"
"Verily we saw Lazarus and Nicodemus and several wealthy rulers, listening so intently that they saw us not when we passed by."
"Oh, Nicodemus," she said scornfully, "that causeth me no surprise; but Lazarus!" She rose from the couch and went to the window and looked out, while she conjured up the beautiful, stern face of Lazarus. That was the man she had singled out in all Judæa to be the idol of her heart. On the few occasions of her seeing him, he had done no more than give her courteous recognition. Once, at the bidding of Caiaphas, Lazarus had come to the house, but he had barely addressed her. How well the young ruler remembered, when he had left her presence, how she had barred the doorway, and looking him in the eyes had said: "Why hatest thou me, Lazarus?" And how well she remembered the scorn in his eyes at her unmaidenly assurance, and yet the gentle courtesy of his voice, while he had answered: "Lady, I hate no one." And with a proud gesture she had moved aside and let him pass.
Then in that dark heart had sprung up a love that was so jealous and so fierce that it was almost hate.
"He shall love me, or he shall die," she had often murmured to herself.
But Lazarus came no more; and if, perchance, she saw him at some public gathering, he greeted her but distantly.
No alliance would have been more agreeable to Caiaphas than would this. Lazarus was wealthy, Lazarus was clever, and his life was such an one as ​Caiaphas would have desired for his daughter, though he himself could not have lived it.
Besides, he recognised in Lazarus a spirit of meekness that he fancied might make the mouldings of a creature in his hands; and Lazarus, by the side of Rebekah, with ambition and craft, would be a powerful colleague in the council chamber.
"He is spoilt by his own goodness," Caiaphas would tell himself."
Long did Rebekah muse. Then, turning to her maidens, said: "Thinkest thou that Lazarus doth believe in this Nazarene?"
" 'T is so said," one of them made reply, not wholly without malice. It was a satisfaction to see one who made others suffer suffer a little in return. "They say that Mary and Martha and Lazarus do receive the Nazarene in their house at Bethany, and that they believe He is the Christ."
A scowl came over Rebekah's handsome face. "Tush! 'T is foolishness! He would not be so great a fool," she retorted scathingly. "He knoweth that, at most, 't is but a prophet. Yet I hear that this Nazarene hath so much persuasion that even wiser men than Lazarus are bewitched. Even my father doth say so much," she added with the vehemence that, with her, always ended argument. Then, changing suddenly her tone, she said softly, so as barely to be heard, and coming to where the maidens were still seated on their cushions: "Come, listen, I have somewhat to tell ye."
Then, when they rose, she came close and whispered so that both could hear: "Methinks I, too, would like to hear this Man. How can this be ​brought about? It could but be at night," she went on slowly, like one making a plan while speaking—"could but be at night, when my father writeth and my mother hath gone to sleep. We will robe ourselves like poor women, and carry baskets on our heads, and mingle with the crowd."
The two girls' faces expressed such horror that Rebekah burst out laughing.
"Oh, ye two poor frightened things! Can ye not go where the High Priest's daughter can? Then stay at home, and I will go alone."
"Nay, but it is thou, lady," they exclaimed in one voice. "How canst thou, the daughter of Caiaphas, go out at night to mingle with the crowd? If Caiaphas hear?"
"If Caiaphas hear, if Caiaphas hear, well, Caiaphas will laugh," she answered mischievously.
"Nay, he might laugh with thee, but with us he would be very wroth," said one.
"Well then, Caiaphas shall not know. This very night shall we go. Find out where he preacheth, and leave to me the rest."
Half anxious, yet enjoying the prospect of this escapade, the two girls vanished at her order, while she paced the room, the long, orange-tinted robe, which reached her feet, looking now green, now golden, according as it passed through the sun's rays or through the shadow. Nervously she played with the beads of a girdle of amber she wore round her waist.
"Indeed," she muttered, " 't is not the Nazarene that I would seek; but, if to get sight of Lazarus I must needs find the Nazarene, then go I must."
Proud Rebekah, what hath come to thee, that ​thou, whom, hitherto, all men have sought, dost follow now one man? What is love, that strange, subtle fire that eateth out the heart and bringeth the mighty low? "Oh, I would that Lazarus did feel for me as I for him! That stern, sweet face, how beauteous must it look when melting into love! O Lazarus, Lazarus!"
The afternoon wore on. The streets grew silent, and day slid back, as it were, from the gaze of men. Yet still dreamed on the maiden of the man who cared not for her, pondering, the while, how she could bring him to her feet.
"He shall be mine. He shall," she said at last. "Women are stronger far than men, and I am beautiful." She held a mirror to her face. "Oh, I am very beautiful," she murmured.
"Yet, if this Nazarene should bewitch him? If he should take the vows of a Nazarite and follow ever after good! Oh, that would be dreadful! No, no, it shall not be that the Nazarene shall come between Lazarus and me. I will not suffer it, I will not suffer it." Then she clapped her hands, that the attendants might bring lights, and left the room to begin her preparations for the night's adventure.
It was almost dark when the three girls issued from the house. They had arranged to go first into the garden at the back, and thence to pass on to the Jericho road, which led to Bethany.
Rebekah looked anxious, and every now and then she bit her lips. Her maidens had learned that the Nazarene would preach that evening from the top of a mountain. The multitude would probably be very great, because, as yet, the novelty of His presence ​had not worn off. Miracles had only just begun to strike the people with awe and wonder, and, so far, the authorities had feared to check enthusiasm, lest thus to fan the embers of sedition. It would be easy enough to mingle with the listening crowd, but would it be so easy to meet or single out Lazarus ? Would the object of this night sortie be attained? Their sole chance was that, by walking on the road to Bethany, they would meet the crowd coming towards the town and perchance fall in with Lazarus and Mary.
Few suspected in the darkly attired women, with veiled faces, who walked up the hill to Bethany, the proud daughter of Caiaphas and her attendants. Here and there some woman greeted them, or some man called out, but the girls were silent and strolled along.
The maidens guessed easily whom she sought, for it had long been common talk that Rebekah loved Lazarus, but that the proud, stern young ruler would have naught to say to any woman.
Fortune favoured her; she had got not far when a dancing, shrieking, clamouring crowd proclaimed that the Nazarene was coming that way. Rebekah stood against the wall to let them pass, and motioned to her women to do the same; then her eyes searched anxiously in the crowd for the face which to her meant day or night—life or death. But, as yet, she saw it not.
The centre piece of that seething mass of humanity was the Nazarene. The Messiah walked along the dreary, dirty road, talking little, but, by a strange set earnestness, led men on to follow Him.
​What was it that riveted her gaze and made her tremble? This Man, who knew her not, seemed to unearth the secrets of her soul, and as He passed, for an instant, she saw herself as she was, a brazen, flaunting hypocrite, joining with a believing, enthusiastic crowd, not to worship or to learn, but to seek out a man who cared not for her, and who, in moral worth, was as far removed from her as were the stars. Then, while she looked, she saw the face she sought, pure, pale, and passionless, gazing either at his Master or at heaven, but thinking not of her.
"Lazarus!" The voice that called was full of tenderness and piteous appeal, but it had a sensuous, luring tone which filled him to whom it was addressed with terror. He fell from his grand musings on things of heaven, as one who catches his foot upon a stone falls down a mountain side. An impatient: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" was on his lips; but, as he turned, his gaze met two deep, unfathomable eyes that searched his in the darkness. His heart beat quickly. 'T was as though an enemy had caught hold of him and would not let him follow Christ.
"Lazarus, 't is I, the daughter of Caiaphas, the High Priest."
"What wouldst thou?" he asked impatiently. "What seekest thou ?"
" 'T is thee I seek," rose all but to her lips, in her mad frenzy to be wooed and loved by the young ruler; but something in his face, something solemn in the surroundings, a purified, restraining atmosphere, something she could not account for, checked the words that were on her lips, and rapidly, as an ​empty basin refills itself with water at a fountain, so wily, crafty thoughts poured in.
"I would hear the Nazarene," she said. "Wilt take me with thee?"
Her voice was soft and low, and he could not detect the false ring in it. What new wonder was this? What if the proud Rebekah should believe, and, by believing, bring her father also to the feet of Jesus? It seemed incredible, but stranger things than that had come to pass; and so poor Lazarus was duped, as so many sympathetic souls are duped who do not recognise the livery of Satan when his servants wear it.
"I will take thee, noble maiden," he said, with gentle voice; "and as thou hearest, so mayst thou believe." The sermon was over, a sermon such as no man on earth had ever heard before, or would ever hear again. Interested, despite herself, carried away by the persuasive power of the voice, the divine beauty of the Nazarene; clever enough to grasp the purport and to interpret the subtle meanings of each allusion; surprised at the fluent speech of one reputed to be an humble and illiterate man; amazed at doctrines, that were the complement rather than the upheaval of the Mosaic Law, Rebekah almost forgot the subject of her errand, the enslavement of the affections of the man she loved. It could not be, with the words ringing in her ears, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," and "Blessed are the pure in heart," that she should broach the question of earthly love. Lazarus's face, the faces of Martha and Mary in the distance, the silence of the adoring multitude, all struck her with ​a sudden, paralysing shock, as if an ice wind had blown across her cunning heart. An overpowering terror seized her. Was this indeed the Christ, or was He a devil? What spirit of folly had led her forth that night to listen to such things? Truly 't was a moral earthquake to hear this Man speak.
From very terror, she seized Lazarus's arm and gasped: "Who is this Man? Who is this Man?"
"Surely 't is the Son of God," said Lazarus. For one instant both hearts were locked in a common interest, while he, believing in her, breathed a prayer to God to open the heart of Rebekah, and, through her, that harder one of Caiaphas.
But the Christ was moving on and the multitude was following Him. The pale moon floated gently above the blue-grey olive trees, giving a weird, subdued colouring to the scene; while on in front the white robe of the Nazarene seemed to glow with a supernatural luminosity that guided the crowd along the mountain path.
Then, in dismay, Rebekah looked round for her attendant maidens; but they were nowhere to be found. They, too, were seeking her, but, in such a crowd, 't would be no easy task to find her in her disguise.
"I know not what I shall do!" she cried. "I cannot see my maidens!"
Unnerved by the words of the Nazarene, and filled with terror at her loneliness and at the growing darkness, her voice trembled with no feigned concern.
"Doubtless we shall find them," answered Lazarus consolingly; "but if we find them not, I will accompany thee to thine house."
​Then, while she thanked him, Satan, with a sardonic grin, closed up once more and followed in their wake.
With the comfort of Lazarus's presence came a sense of safety, and terror flew away. Gradually the words of the Saviour lost their hold on the sandy soil on which they had fallen. Love and the presence of the loved one, two forces stronger than life or death, even than eternity to some, regained their sway, and the beautiful Rebekah's good angel fled forever. And Lazarus? Lazarus began to feel the magnetic influence of her presence. The power of evil he knew was close, appealing to him in the form of a lovely woman, whose soul he longed to save. Chained to his post by the claims of courtesy and chivalry, he could still cry out to the white-robed figure descending the hill, "Lord, save me, Lord, save me." Words that Rebekah's lips had never learned. "Take no thought for the morrow, take no thought for the morrow."
Surely 't was Satan who thus misused the injunctions of the Messiah. Why did they ring thus? Why, why should he, a ruler of the Synagogue, in the vigour of his manhood, surrounded by wealth, sighed after by the most beautiful woman in Judæa—why should he wander footsore and tired, hurryng hither and thither after a man who preached impossible doctrines, surrounded by a vociferating crowd of illiterate, uneducated fanatics? and for what? To attain a crown, of whose value he knew nothing, to enter a kingdom, of whose existence, even, he was not sure. Earthly life, what joyous, moving excitements it presented to one young and ​influential as himself! A leader of the people, surely that were better than to follow in such a crowd, seeking after—what?
For one instant, this horrible temptation seized him, or, rather, it was photographed on his brain, for there was no wavering in the man himself. He was like a man betwixt two flashes of lightning, each one of which lights up a different piece of scenery. They had walked quickly, they were almost alongside the Christ.
"Lazarus!" He knew not whether the name had been breathed to him or not, but he met the yearning look of infinite pity, infinite love. In that look he saw the great height attainable by the soul; and indistinctly he could discern the rungs of a ladder that went ever upwards to an altitude of infinite variety and limitless possibility. His soul, his will, his very being, grasped once for all Eternal Life, and he lost it never again.
And Jesus and the multitude passed on.
Two eyes in the crowd followed with sadness the figures of Lazarus and Rebekah; those of the Magdalene. There was no jealousy in that look; on the contrary, there was gentle resignation. It was part of the Crucifixion of Joy that she knew had been allotted as the expiation of her former sins. Oh. how vividly the past rushed back, paying her out, as is ever the case with sinners even in this world. She was reaping now, reaping bitterly, wearily, in the noonday sun, the fruits of her own sowing; but, as she had told the mother of Jesus, the very grief seemed to give birth to a new joy; the joy of suffering for her dear Lord's sake. As her eyes followed ​the two dark figures that now barely emerged from the gloom around, her heart seemed to die within her, and, by its death-throes, to give birth to a new ambition of her soul.
Love, human love, companionship, friendship, were passing away. Humanly speaking, she was alone. Dark shadows seemed to be rising up, a great wall shutting her out from all the brightness of this world. The conviction of man's solitude here on earth was forced upon her, and with it came the remembrance that there was One who never failed in His companionship and solace.
Yet what right had she to be pained if Lazarus cared for some other woman? What claim had she, the harlot, on the heart of any man? The wealthy ruler's least of all. It was all right and as it should be; yet, at her heart, lay a dull thickening of grief.
Lazarus was certainly not prepared for the scene that awaited him on his arrival at the house of Caiaphas. He was about to conduct Rebekah to the presence of the High Priest; but she, laying her hand on his arm when they reached the wall of the garden, bade him be silent.
"My father knoweth not that I went to hear the Nazarene," she whispered. "Come into our garden, and I will tell thee."
What could he do but follow? He could not leave her at that hour in the street, yet he much disliked the situation.
​The moon was high in the heavens now, lighting up almost with brilliancy the walls of Caiaphas's house and the grass around their feet. The garden was laid out in Roman fashion, with paths and labyrinths and stiffly cut yews; the leaves of the dark fig trees glistened in the moonlight, while the cedars rose like ghosts from the dark corners, their weird branches spreading out from them like great curtains of velvet; and everywhere was that deep night silence that raises thoughts of death—except far away in the town quarters of the city, where distant music floated upwards and wild dogs barked.
The hour, the strange silence, the moonlight, the weird beauty of the haughty woman in her new appealing meekness, all these were not without effect on Lazarus's mystic temperament. The man who loved things beautiful around him could not but appreciate the artistic poetry of the situation, or fail to admire the unusual beauty of the daughter of Caiaphas.
As he pushed open the iron gate of the garden let into the wall, she turned her head towards him. "I would speak with thee, Lazarus," she said, a faint touch of the domineering, despotic spirit returning; it was the voice of one who brooked no opposition.
"The hour is late, and my sisters will be waiting for me; maybe too, the Lord hath returned with them. If thou art safe within these walls, noble lady, I would return."
Rebekah winced at his words, but, in her frenzied love, there was no room for pride. Now Lazarus must be caught, if caught he could be by deepest ​wiles of feigned meekness, by despair, by appealing love. To him the daughter of Caiaphas was at present naught, and this she knew; to be loved by Lazarus one must be lovable, true, pure. Oh, she knew well, this wily daughter of the wiliest of Jews of whom no nation is more wily that she was none of the things she would appear to be, yet that she must needs seem all to win him. She felt, too, that now was her final chance. If Lazarus—Lazarus, enchained so far and kept in her presence by the claims of courtesy, should leave her now, never again would she have such a chance in such a place at such an hour. Her lips paused only to give her brain time to revolve the best means of winning him to stay. For one moment, whose madness later made her shiver, she thought of using the weapons that with others would have been so powerful. Could he resist, she wondered, the softness of her arms entwining round his neck, the sweet intensity of her soft lips, the clinging appeal in her silvery voice, the crystal tears in those speaking eyes? No, though she knew full well that Rebekah brought low in meek subjection to love, the haughty daughter of Caiaphas telling her tale of seductive passion in that secluded garden on a summer's night, would have driven most hearts in Jerusalem mad, from very love and wonderment, still to Lazarus it would be no temptation; the very boldness of it would disgust him. "Yet he must have a heart," she murmured to herself; then added, "Whereof I have not the key." Then aloud, fearful lest he should suddenly depart, she said: "I would talk to thee one moment and ask thee more of this Nazarene."
​Oh, lowest wile of woman, to take the World's Salvation as her bait to gain so base an end!
"Perchance this woman seeketh to believe," he said to himself, and suffered her to lead him across the dewy grass to a marble seat beneath a palm that waved gently hither and thither in the evening breeze.
Then, with one hand on the back of the marble seat and the other resting on her knee, she turned towards him. "Thinkest thou, noble Lazarus, that this is indeed the Christ? For if thou dost, methinks I must needs think so too, for thou art learned and well versed in His sayings."
"Oh, if thou wouldst but believe!" said Lazarus, in his intense wish to instil into her some of his own faith turning and looking straight at her, his face burning with heavenly fire.
"Look not at me thus, Lazarus," she said.
"Forgive me, I thought of naught but of how deeply I would that thou didst believe," he answered somewhat brusquely.
"What matters it to thee whether I believe or not?" she retorted bitterly.
"It mattereth to Him," he answered, "for without His knowledge not one sparrow falleth to the ground. It mattereth to me, because I would win all souls to Him for their own sakes."
"And to win my soul what wouldst thou do, most noble Lazarus?" And she looked searchingly into his face with her great eyes.
Her deep voice stirred Lazarus strangely, her words seemed to cut the clear air and throb there, as if with expectation.
​"What wouldst thou do? What then is my soul worth, thinkest thou, Lazarus?"
"What is thy soul worth to thyself?" he answered. "What thinkest thou of Eternity?"
"Methinks," replied Rebekah, "that Eternity with thee were well spent, whether in Heaven or Hell."
He turned and fixed his eyes upon her sternly.
"Dost know that which thou sayest, noble maiden?" he asked her solemnly.
"Yea, I know well that I do love thee, Lazarus, and that, if thou wouldst but love me in return, I, too, for thy dear sake, would love the Nazarene; but if so be that thou dost spurn my love, then care I not whether Satan have me or not, or whether, as the Sadducees say, there be resurrection or another world at all; for where Lazarus is not I would not live."
"Thou art mad," said Lazarus, rising from the seat and pacing up and down the path in front of her. Then he came and stood in front of her.
"Thy words have moved me strangely, maiden," he resumed hoarsely, "and I would ask thee to let me go, for this conversation becometh neither thee nor me. The hour hath bewitched thee, and thy mind is overwrought with listening to the Christ's words, and the long journey hath wearied thee. To-morrow thou wilt have forgotten thy words, and so shall I."
Then Rebekah rose, and, with a despairing gesture, wailed bitterly: "Thou mayst forget, but I shall not, for night and day I think of thee, and long but for thy heart only in all Judæa. If thou ​hadst loved me, I would have tried to believe in this mad carpenter, for what thou believest I could not do otherwise than believe; and, if He promised thee Eternal Life, I too must needs have that Eternal Life; thus should I not leave thee either in life or death."
But here her voice grew shrill and angry, reminding Lazarus of those extraordinary fits of rage to which Caiaphas occasionally gave way.
"But if thou wilt not of me, then will I curse and curse and curse the Nazarene, because He and His strange doctrines have taken thy heart away from me; and my soul shall be upon thee, and, maybe, my life, for I cannot live without thee."
Kind-hearted as Lazarus was, his heart ached for this impetuous girl.
"Thou talkest foolishness," he said to her, trying even to smile away her excitement. "There are many noble rulers who are more worthy of the hand of Caiaphas's daughter than am I, who am so wrapt up in this one great conception of salvation."
"And what are great rulers to me, if they be not Lazarus?" she went on impatiently.
"Nay but, maiden, listen; Lazarus would be but a sorry husband for thee, with his heart given to the Christ. Maybe, one day the Christ will be condemned to death; for it is written that for the sins of the world He must yield His life; then they too will be condemned who loved Him, and thou and I, Rebekah, perchance would die a terrible death."
"What matter that, if I were with thee and thou wert with me?" she asked passionately, her ​glowing face upturned to heaven, the while she spoke, a faint hope illuminating her brow.
For one moment Lazarus paused for words that might repulse and yet not wound.
"Noble lady," he said, "farewell; thou art not thyself to-night, and to listen to thee were wrong; for thou thyself wouldst weep if thou didst know the words which thou hast said. I thank thee for the love thou offerest, but 't would be but sorry love I gave thee, for my heart and soul are given to the Nazarene; henceforth in life and death I belong to Him, and of naught else can I think; and if I cause thee pain, sweet lady, forgive me, for I would not; but, if thou hast a sorrow for a while, turn thee to the Nazarene who doth assuage all sorrow. So shall we be united, thee and I, in one common heavenly love, that will wipe out all earthly yearning."
But his words fell upon unresponsive ears. A dull rage curdled in her heart that she, the proud daughter of Caiaphas, should thus have lowered herself to sue for love, and sue in vain. Far-reaching plans of hate and vengeance were begotten in her raging soul. If Lazarus would have none of her, then she would scheme and plot against the Nazarene, until her father should condemn Him to the death He merited. She would brook no opposition. No man or woman should live who should come between her love and her. Her heart had grievously been wrung by Lazarus; she would wring the heart of Lazarus in return, and let him feel the full weight of her hand, the full strength of her hate.
"Farewell," she said coldly; then passionately, "Go, heartless mummy, and may thy ill-spent love ​come back to thee with usury. May eternal life not fail thee, after all; and mayst thou yet reap all the joys that thou hast spurned; but if, perchance, thy dust shall fail to rise again in all the glory that thou covetest, and if the delusive promises of the Nazarene leave thee but one atom of remembering heart and brain, recall to thyself that Rebekah offered thee one certain thing for all this doubtful wealth, the love and passion of the proudest, loveliest woman in all Judæa."
"Nay, but it is not doubtful," answered Lazarus; "nor will I wait till I be risen to think of thee, for every day my prayer shall rise for thee, that thou too mayst love the Nazarene, and believe that He is sent of God."
" 'T will be a thankless, weary task," she retorted scornfully, as he raised her white hand to his lips. "Farewell, thou heartless, thou bewitched, misguided ruler."
With head erect, she stood motionless in the moonlight; and the heart within her seemed to die when Lazarus swung open the gate and passed out into the street. Like one in a dream she listened to his departing footsteps till they died away. This was the end, the bitter, bitter end; Lazarus would never belong to her. That one short hour in the fragrant, silent garden had brought him closer than ever he would be again. On that sweet memory she must feed till ages should have rolled away, while swathed in grave clothes of finest embroidered linen, the High Priest's daughter would be lying in her granite sepulchre.
Who would bring ointments and rare spices? ​Would Lazarus sometimes come and see her grave and think of her?
But between now and then there was life, life; long years of life, with all its possibilities of happiness, with all its whisperings of love; there were thousands of days to dawn, and thousands of silent nights to come and go, and they must be lived and lived without Lazarus. And Rebekah, the proud Rebekah, sank to the ground and bowed her head, and swayed backwards and forwards in her grief, till the cry of the watchman at the corner of the street reminded her of the hour. Then with a step weary as if with sudden age, and weeping passionately, she crept into the house; while the watchman cried out again to the sleeping world:
"Babylon is fallen, Babylon is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods He hath broken unto the ground. Babylon is fallen, Babylon is fallen! Fall-en."
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