THE ROBE by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XV

They had reached Cana too late to hear Miriam sing, but Marcellus thought it was just as well, for Jonathan was so tired and sleepy that he could hardly hold his head up.

By the time they had pitched camp, washed off their dust, eaten a light supper, and put the little boy to bed, many voices could be heard; villagers strolling home in the moonlight from their customary rendezvous at the fountain.

Justus sauntered out to the street. Marcellus, wearily stretched at full length on his cot, heard him talking to a friend. After a while he returned to say he had been informed by Hariph the potter that Jesse, the son of Beoni, was leaving early in the morning for Jerusalem. Doubtless he would carry the letter to Demetrius.

'Very good!' Marcellus handed him the scroll and unstrapped his coin purse. 'How much will he expect?'

'Ten shekels should be enough.' There was an expression of satisfaction in Justus's face and tone, perhaps because the letter had been given up so casually. His look said that there could be nothing conspiratorial in this communication. 'Jesse will probably be over here presently,' he added. 'Hariph will tell him. He lives hard by the home of Beoni.'

'You can talk with him,' said Marcellus. 'I am going to sleep.'

And he did; but after a while the murmur of low-pitched voices roused him. He raised up on his elbow, and through the open tent-door the white moonlight showed Justus and a stocky, shaggy-haired man of thirty, seated cross-legged on the ground. Jesse, the son of Beoni, was rumbling gutturally about the business that was taking him to Jerusalem. He was going to attend the annual camel auction. They always had it at the end of Passover. Many caravans from afar, having disposed of their merchandise, offered their pack-animals for sale rather than trek them home without a pay-load. You could get a sound, three-year-old she-camel for as little as eighty shekels, Jesse said. He hoped to buy six, this time. He could easily sell them in Tiberias for a hundred or better. Yes--he made this trip every year. Yes, he would gladly carry Justus's letter to the Greek who worked for Benyosef. And when Justus asked him how much, Jesse said, 'Nothing at all. It's no bother.'

'But it isn't my letter,' explained Justus. 'It is sent by this Roman, Marcellus Gallio, who is up here buying homespun. He's there in the tent, asleep.'

'Oh, that one! My mother told me about him. It is strange that he should want our simple weaving. No one ever thought it was valuable. Well, if it is his letter, and not yours, he should pay me eight shekels.'

'He will give you ten.' The coins were poured chinking into Jesse's hand.

'Eight is enough,' said Jesse. 'You keep the other two.'

'But I have done nothing to earn them,' protested Justus. 'They are yours. I think the Roman would prefer to give you ten.'

Jesse chuckled, not very pleasantly.

'Since when have the Romans turned soft-hearted?' he growled.

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