He carried out his plans, and went back into his domus, and called Conatus, saying: "Conatus, I have bought Ophidion, Ophidion and his household, yea and his domus too, which abutteth upon mine. These own I. I have bought them. I have paid for them. Their title is in me. Rejoice therefore, and let not metes nor limits be placed upon thy rejoicing. For behold, I am even a companion of the Prince, great Cæsar. And I own Ophidion!"

But Conatus said softly and all of a tremble, "Master! I fear, I fear! Master, I fear! When Cæsar permitteth unto any one such a thing-I do fear!"

CHAPTER L

AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARD

THERE were, in those days, signs, significations, and portents. Arms were heard clashing in the sky. A lion, loose from the vivarium, ran about the Forum whining piteously and harming no one. In the country cattle had spoken, blood had flowed from wells. Wolves, coming into the city (Apollo knoweth whence) had howled about the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus for a night. The brazen and marble statues in all the heathen temples had shed tears and sweated blood.

And swifter indeed than a weaver's shuttle passed the crossweighted days of Simon of Cyrene-each bearing him steadily downward (so he sometimes felt) yet each, too, in some strange way, withholding his bones from destruction.

Where would this all end? When would come some final upturnor downturn? What was there could ruin a man like him? he asked; again, What was there could save him?

He began to revert to certain other plans he had formed in the viridarium.

And a great stir and bustle arose by consequence in the deeps of his house; yea, in the deeps of all his house arose a great commotion. There was many a hurried consultation with Conatus and with lesser supervisors. While, apparently, the familia of Simon of Cyrene had not increased, yet, in some of his insulas he was softly getting together hundreds of high-thewed men-servants they, well hardened and rightly understanding all the arts of sword and buckler. "There is some great dream at the bottom of all these things," said Conatus, and wondered.

And Simon enlarged his house continually, and filled it with more and ever more servants, and these toiled day and night-that the beautiful idea which lay in the mind of Simon of Cyrene might on a day be accomplished. So he dreamed and toiled and drave, and drave and toiled and dreamed. And the hours and the months ran by as handfuls of sand.

And all the houses that were round about his own, these became Simon's also. And still he built more houses.

And still he dreamed and toiled and drave, and drave and toiled and dreamed. And a part of the world cried, "Simon of Cyrene hath gone mad!" Others answered, "Yea, for gold. Have we not always said unto you, he is of kin with Alukah?”

But none of the peoples appeared to know, or at least in any wise to understand, the great Jew's dream, which was brighter than the shiningest gold.

And so the Jew toiled and drave and dreamed, and dreamed and toiled and drave.

And hardest of all he drave the servants of Ophidion, for he hated that man and his house. Yea, even though the house was the house of himself now, still hated he them.

He said often to his supervisors, "Lay the work most heavily of all upon the house of Ophidion, for, even though it be mine own house also, yet it is very hateful unto me, because of all that I have endured."

The supervisors obeyed, laying the tasks most heavily on Ophidion and on all his house, for that their master had suffered heavily from that house in former days.

And Simon of Cyrene prospered as had he a Midas touch in both his hands and yet a great fear lay ever in his heart together with his dream.

What about Cæsar? What about Rome? Mines-amphitheaters crosses- Poor factor merely, why dost thou dream thou art rich in thine own right?

Whenever the Jew went upon the Forum-which he did like a remorseless emblem of eternal energy-people stopped and pointed him out to one another, saying: "That is he." Others said, "Cæsar is a sharp one." Also, "The Jew will get what he deserves." "Pig!" "Usurer!" "Extortioner!" "Formalist!" "Fool!" Even his ancient patrons, Nummus and Praesens Pecunia, began to whisper strange things about him and to wonder what would come in "the Jew's next great caravan of solid dreams." "His eye," said they, "is filling with preternatural light. He talketh in the very Basilica

of Æmilius as if to imaginary buyers. Sometimes he giveth orders as though to legionaries." "The man imagineth he is Cæsar," said many.

And, indeed, Simon did often declare in his heart: "Thou, O Cæsar! From thee I will wrest thy bright throne itself, but I will do the thing I purpose."

And all the world grew more and more in awe of Simon. Whenever he appeared in the streets or Forum, a lane of wondering heads was made for him, and lips grew silent.

Yet ever the double-tongued belied him, and the single-tongued abused him straightforwardly.

Sometimes a riot arose on account of the Cross-bearer, and once an angry multitude surrounded him (in the presence, too, of Nummus and Praesens Pecunia) there upon the very Forum, and voices declared that Simon of Cyrene ought to die, for that any man grown rich as he, must have done nothing useful, but must perforce have taken his money from the poor-or else have starved his servants, or (if it be not wholly unthinkable) have robbed Cæsar. Do not even Alukah and Gannab the same?"

Then a voice in the crowd cried out, "He hath instituted immense plans of commerce, which have enriched both Rome and the far distant world. Is he himself entitled to nothing?" Simon thought the voice the voice of Christopherus, but he could not see the man. And he recalled then that, somewhere, he had heard that Christopherus also had had a trial before Cæsar, and before the multitudes of this world. He wondered how it had happened that he, Simon, had not been present at that trial, even as Christopherus had been present at his.

Just at this moment, a number of people were shouting: "Down with him! Away with him! He is a fool!"-meaning both Christopherus and Simon.

Then some cried, "The soldiers! The soldiers of Cæsar!"

And they fled, every man of them, for it was the common impression among the multitudes that Simon (though not Christopherus) was, at this time, the friend of Cæsar.

But Christians, whenever they gazed on the eyes of Simon of Cyrene, forgot both time and place, and beheld alone old prophecies.

As for the servant, Conatus, he looked upon his Master daily with greater and greater devotion. He recognized indeed the free choice which he had himself exercised in staying with his Master, as well as the fearful coercion which destiny had wielded over Simon of Cyrene -to make of the Jew so shining a man and so shining a mark for

Cæsar and for the world. "Poor bearer of the cross and of Cæsar's gold! Thou art really very poor, O Crucifer Aureatus. Jesus himself was not poorer than thou. Pitiable Simon!"

Often he looked not at his Master at all, but beyond him-at something the Master could not see.

Then again there was the great desire to the which he could never give utterance. Would not the He wanted the "wonderful thing" (for so he still called it) the wonderful thing of things to happen.

And Conatus, in those days, felt always bewildered and expectant, had a sense of waiting-for he knew not what.

His dumb fear sometimes caused him to stand at gaze, when he should have been at work. He seemed to be ever listening, listening, with more and more attentive ear for some world-assault on the outermost door of Simon of Cyrene.

And Simon himself sometimes declared in his soul that his days were counted. Yet again he shouted in ecstasy, "I have never borne one load, I, Abraham's son. More worlds! Mine arms are full of pristine energy, mine heart with happy hope. Come intrigues, combatants, competitions, plotters, profound problems and prophecies, shipwrecks, Sarcogeneses, Cæsars!"

And when, as happened on other occasions, he listened and listened for something to come at his outermost door (a predestined sound, as it were, or something which hath not a name, perchance because no rightful word can ever be found to express it) then the man shouted not at all, but only whispered: "I am but the tool, the feeble instrument of time and space." He felt on some occasions that his downfall was to be a sudden leap, then again a slow descent amid ever-thickening shadows.

At such times he companied much with one of his own familia, Abjectio (Self-abasement), also with the sisters of this man, Poenitentia (Repentance) and Humilitas (Humility). He did not know that these people were all Christians; he understood too little of the sect to guess the truth. He only knew that, whenever he was among them, he felt, at times, a great pleasure which, in the presence of the Romans, he would have been too proud to acknowledge.

Then again he tried to make himself believe that, somehow, Jesus was responsible for all his sufferings. Spite of these endeavors, he could not quite blame Jesus-feeling all the while that his own execution drew anigh, and that, somehow, he too, like Jesus (yet in a different wise also) had been, from the beginning, destined as a sacrifice to many people. He called up ancient prophecies, which now seemed to apply either unto him or unto Jesus, and with almost equal apti

tude. ""Tis well," said he, “O Jesus, that thou wast a Jew, for thou hast been at least as a type of many others of our people-poor, cast-out sheep, fit only for heathen sacrifices. O dumb, long-driven Israel! O Lord! O Adonai, Adonai! Canst thou not come in the flesh? Blessed is He that is yet to appear in the name of Adonai.”

He was ever busy, Simon of Cyrene, in those curious days, as hath been already said, with some immense but unknown task. Yet ever his eyes were vacant in a dreaming also, for he dreamed and dreamed as he worked. And ever the dream and the work ran on together, like the busy flowing of the little brook, Kedron, and the tune it made in the sweet valley of Jehosaphat.

And the thing which mostly troubled the man from Cyrenaica, in those days, was not even the nameless fear of the coming of an unnamed sound, or of an emissary, or of a rapidly growing body of emissaries or of terrible groups of unnamed sounds at the outermost door of his insula. But that which troubled him most was his ever-increasing loneliness and feeling of being different from other men. There was no more desolate way between the eternities than that which Simon of Cyrene trod alone. He struggled to make himself like other people. But the more he struggled, the more he became quite different-this atheist which loved Adonai and had borne Christ's cross. One after another, this door and that was closed to his tragic intimacies. Poor expatriate! Poor wanderer! Poor outcast even from the hearthstone of himself, for behold, his very slaves do call him "different."

And the feeling of his likeness to Christ grew stronger and stronger on Simon of Cyrene-not a likeness, to be sure, in the matter of extreme perfection, and divinity of patience under sufferings greater than flesh and blood could endure. Only-a likeness. At all events, he had borne Christ's cross, and, ever since, had been in an agony of heart and mind for the fact. Via dolorosa through all the years of his existence! Selah!

And ever the work and the dream went on together. What was the dream?

On a day he called Conatus, saying: "Thou art o'erwatched. I will give thee therefore freedom for the Saturnalia. Even as a freedom is given to the servants of Romans, so give I unto thee thy freedom now."

And Conatus went to a meeting-place of Christians (but was there, of purpose, too early and in great solitude). So, in the solitude, he preached with fervor to empty chairs. Never could he gird up cour