The Washington times., 1923-04-08
CONTINUED from Page 1s)

HdIlu-U0dLSH uIuIIl. 1WO young
men, dressed in the Roman fash
ion, emerged. Their arms were
about each others shoulders. Both
were more than half drunk. One
started to sing. He had a good
voice, but the tune escaped him.
mot that! Oh, anything, but
not thatv expostulated the other.
eff you love me keep your mouth
shutp
In the place of the dancing be-
hind the opened double doors the
lamps of Venus flared. Zillah, the
Syrian child-woman, was in the
arms of a man whose ears bore
jewelled studs and whose curled
beard was perfumed with musk.
He was forcing her to drink wine
from his own cup, and she glggled
and squirmed, h If terrified, half
delighted, captive of joy.
At the top of the flight of steps
leading to the screened gallery a
tall-seeming, slender figure, draped
in purple, stood for about a min
ute. Then Cassandra began to
descend, one hand resting on the
stair railing. Reaching the floor
of the court, she passed to the arch
that gave upon the street. She
did not even turn her head to look
toward the lighted square that was
the double doorway of the dancing
place. None of those within was
aware of her passing.
The arch was aboye her. She
paused again. Tomorrow Evan
would go south to Jerusalem. And
the morrow had already come, for
midnight was past. The fingers
of one hand felt at the rings that
were upon the fingers of the other.
They were valuable. They would
procure her an ass or mule on
which to travel to the south. But
if she had possessed nothing of
any worth it would have made no
difference. The name of the city
of which he had spoken had power
upon her as though it was COM
polling invocation whose summons
even the dry bones of the dead
must obey. Somewhere in this
town there would be an open
square where were the camels,
mules and asses of travellers and
traders. She must find it. In a
few hours it would be dawn.
Moving from beneath the arch,
she was again into the street of
Love. All was darkness. Some
distance ahead a mans singing
voice sounded-grossly loud in the
muteness of the night. One of
the two drunken young fellows
who had emerged from the house
of the dancing girls had become
vocal again. Probably they would
tread the streets for an hour or
so, happy, aimless and unsteady,
banging at secretive and carefully
shut outer doors, trying by the
faint starlight to scratch their
names with the point of pOig-
nard on the marble wall-slabs of
synagogue or temple and adjoining
the bust of the emperor in the
principal market place with a gar
land Of young onions found in the
baskets of market refuse.
Silence, darkness. Nothing now
but the wall-muffled cry of child
Z: waking suddenly from sleep.
WEAKNESS assaulted Cassandra. The
sable alleys she followed were in
tricate as the legendary labyrinth
of the Minotaur. She put out her
hand, resting the palm of it against
a wall. A flight of steps-felt
rather than seen-climbed upward.
Upon the lowest of these, after a
moments gripping, she seated her
self, leaning Sideways II r
hooded head, thrown a little back,
rested. She closed her eyes.
The grating sound of an open
ing door. Cassan Ira shl 'dered. It
did not seem to her that she had
slept. Her body had bruised
feeling. Her eyes opened. The
amethystine greyness that comes
before the dawn had laid hold
upon the sky that was visible
above the dim walls. She turned
her head, looking UP toward the
sound that had awakened her.
At the top of the steps was an
arched opening, narrow as a
statue niche, before which burned
a perpetual lamp. A woman stood
in it.. Her robe was of the dark
est blue. White drapery covered
her head, and hung down over
either shoulder. Her perfect face
might have been either young or
old. The mouth was indescribably
sweet. The blue-grey eyes were
childlike, but behind them there
was an infinite sadness-the sad
ness which is in the eyes of all
mothers and which is so inextric-
ably interviewer with love that
only God can disentangle the ole
from the other.
The woman spoke, low voiced.