The Silver Chalice (29 page)

Luke did not follow any of the usual routine of medical ministration. No purpose could be served, he knew, in that way. As he took a seat beside the bed he said to himself, “Nothing but his will is keeping him alive.”

The sick man made a gesture with one hand as though to draw something from under his pillow, but found his strength unequal to it.

“My son knows about the Cup,” he whispered. “He was asking questions last night. And making threats. It must not be left in this house or they will get it when I die. I am no longer able to plan how it may be saved. In your hands, Luke, I place this sacred trust.” The voice fell to such a low note that the physician had to hold his ear close to the moving lips to distinguish the words. “It is under the pillows. Take it—and God grant you find a way to keep it safe.”

Luke ran an exploring hand under the pillow and encountered many objects: a roll of accounts, a bag of gold, a carved piece of ivory in the form of a cross, the phylactery that had been removed from the dying man’s brow. Finally his fingers encountered the Cup and he drew it forth. The urgency that showed in Joseph’s eyes caused him to drop it immediately out of sight in the folds of his robe.

Joseph’s eyes then closed as though glad to rest. “I have kept my trust,” he whispered.

Adam ben Asher had been told of Luke’s presence in the house. He was waiting outside the door, his brows drawn into a deep furrow. “Well?” he demanded brusquely.

“I see no change,” answered Luke. “No other man could continue to keep himself alive this way.”

Adam nodded his head in pride. “Joseph of Arimathea has always been different from other men. And now he is different in his dying.” He proceeded reluctantly with an explanation: “I took it upon myself yesterday
to send word to his granddaughter and now I am afraid I made a mistake. Will she be delivered over to the Romans by these men outside? Because, of course, she will return at once.”

“Yes,” said Luke, “she will return.”

“She cannot get here before tomorrow morning. Will my poor master live that long?”

“It is as God wills,” said the physician.

Luke made his way at once to the dark hole where Basil was in hiding. He found the latter wrapping all his belongings and his tools together in a piece of cloth. The lamp had guttered down to a low point, but it was possible to see that his face wore a look of grave resolution.

“I am giving myself up,” said Basil. “It is the only way.”

“You are giving yourself up? Do you mean to the men who stand outside the house?”

Basil nodded his head slowly. “They are here to find me, to make sure I do not get away. I broke my promise. I went out, and I am sure I was seen and followed here. It is better now to end it at once. There is enough trouble in this house without having me here any longer.” He knotted the top of the cloth with hands that were unsteady. “This is all my fault. I did not have the good sense to see that what you told me was true, that I was letting the evil side of me get the upper hand. No, it did not suit me to believe that. I was sure an evil spirit had taken possession of me. I was so sure of it that I—I went to Simon the Magician and asked to have it cast out.”

Luke seated himself beside the table and watched him with eyes that had become deeply intent.

“You went to see Simon the Magician! When did you do that?”

“I am ashamed now of how I acted. I went to see him first the night of his performance. You thought I was returning here when we parted company. But I went back and made inquiries. I found he was staying with a Samaritan, one Kaukben, who is in trade here. I went to his house, but I did not see Simon then. I asked for his assistant, the girl who appeared on the platform with him. You see, I knew who she was. She had been a slave in my father’s house in Antioch.”

“You did not tell me at the time that you recognized the girl.”

“No, I did not want you to know what I planned to do. I can see now that I behaved very badly.”

“I wish, my son, you had consulted me before you took such a step. When did you see Simon?”

“Two days later. Helena had promised to arrange things for me.”

“And what was the result?”

“I found he was no better than you had said.” Basil spoke with a bitterness that was directed entirely at himself. “I believed at first he had great powers. But he is a trickster.”

Luke regarded him with a smile that was sympathetic and kindly. “I know something of their methods,” he said. “Was the vessel of water spilled?”

“Yes,” answered Basil. “But I saw how it was done. There was a cord under the rug.”

“So that is it! I have often wondered. I am glad, my boy, that your eyes have been opened in time. Perhaps it was well that you had to be convinced the man was a fraud. Now, I can see, you are most sincerely convinced of the truth. You know that the state of your mind is always due to how much you give in to the evil in you—the evil that is in all of us.”

“The consequences of what I have done seem to be falling on others,” said Basil. He proceeded to tell of the conversation he had overheard between Joseph and his son, putting special emphasis on the fact that the High Priest had been paying a member of the household staff for information. “Aaron is working against his father. The house is surrounded by armed men. And this has been brought about by my blindness and selfishness.”

Luke listened with a frown, his hands busy replenishing the oil in the lamp. When the task was completed, he raised it close to Basil’s face. “I can see you are quite serious about this,” he said. “You are willing to assume the blame and the punishment, and that counts very strongly in your favor. Yes, I am sure all this will be set down fairly and fully by the angels up there beyond the clouds who keep the everlasting records in books of gold and ivory. But, my son, I am disposed to think you are magnifying the faults of which you have been guilty. The clash between Joseph and his son was part of a quarrel of long standing. I have been talking to Joseph, and he is convinced that Rub Samuel’s men have been placed about the house for a different reason. He is sure they want to get their bloodstained hands on something very much more important than a young artist from Antioch.” He reached into the umber-colored robe he
was wearing over his tunic and produced the Cup. “He believes this is what they want.”

With the utmost reverence Luke placed the Cup on the table, his eyes filled with awe and wonder.

“See!” he said, reaching out and touching Basil’s shoulder. “There is a light about it! It is like a celestial beam from above. A beam sent by the Lord, Whose beloved Son lifted this Cup and Whose lips touched its rim.”

It was true. In the semidarkness the Cup could be seen clearly, its outline plain to the eye, even the indentations and irregularities of the lip easily distinguishable. There was something strange about it, something unearthly, which made Basil feel that he stood on the threshold of another world.

His feet must have carried him over the threshold, for he knew immediately that he had gone a long way from this close and dark corner in the house of Joseph where he had existed so long. He found himself looking into a room with an open window facing the east. The sun had set and the early stars could be seen in the sky. A group of men sat about a long table, partaking of the paschal supper. Why he knew all this would have puzzled him ordinarily, but now he did not give the matter as much as a single thought. There were certain things about this scene that were as clear to him as though he had been able to see into their minds. A cup, this same Cup, because the light playing about it now had illuminated it then, stood in the center of the board. One of the things he knew was that the room was part of a humble little dwelling at the Wall of David.

“These men,” he said to himself, “are the disciples of Jesus.”

It was strange that there should be one spot over which a curtain had been drawn. He could not see the figure in the center of the group. That someone sat there was clear enough, for all eyes were turned that way and all talk was directed to the One who occupied this shrouded part of the scene. Basil said to himself in wonder: “Deborra told me that the face of Jesus would be hidden from me. And here is the proof of what she said. But why am I allowed to see so much, and to see it so clearly, if that which is most important of all is to be withheld from me?”

Luke reached out and gave his shoulder a shake. “Come!” he said. “It is to be expected that you would be bemused, but—have you any idea how long you have been looking? Many minutes, my son. And there is so much for us to do.”

Basil brought himself back with an effort. His eyes remained fixed on
the Cup, and he became aware of a new quality in it. “It looks lonely!” he whispered.

“Yes,” agreed the physician sadly. “And that is not strange. There was a divine moment when it was clasped in His hands. It was passed about the circle and consecrated by the touch of those brave men. Thereafter it was kept for many years in a darkness where no eyes, friendly or hostile, could look upon it. And now it is released into a mad world where the memory of the Son of Man is spat upon, a world torn and unhappy and ripe for a harvest of blood. This Cup, which Jesus blessed, finds itself in a cruel place that has not yet taught itself to accept His gentle teachings. Yes, my son, it looks lonely; and well it might.”

The light did not fade away as they talked. Instead it continued to glow about the Cup, a glow as beneficent as the laws Jesus had preached. They watched in silence for several moments longer, Luke more than half convinced that a heavenly hand, like the one that wrote words of doom on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace, would materialize out of the darkness and snatch it away.

“Joseph is getting very close to the end,” said Luke. “Perhaps the Lord will allow him to live until tomorrow, when the little granddaughter will return, but it is beyond nature for his flesh to keep any longer from dissolving back into clay. I have just left him, and he gave the Cup into my keeping, charging me to find the way of saving it from hostile hands. But how am I to do it? He was convinced that the hidden niche he had built for it was no longer safe. Where can I find a place that will serve better? It cannot be taken away from here. Everyone who leaves is searched.”

They sat and discussed the problem for a long time, their eyes never leaving the Cup, their minds filled with the gravity of their responsibility and the fear that they would not prove equal to it.

“We cannot walk blindly to the one place within these walls where it could rest safely,” declared Luke. “Not unless the Lord directs us; and I do not yet hear the inner Voice that sometimes tells me what I am to say or do. Must we find the solution ourselves?” He went down on his knees and began to pray. “O Lord, look down upon us. We do not know which way to turn in this difficulty. Tell us how we may keep this sacred Cup from falling into wicked hands.”

After a moment of silence he rose from his knees. “If the Voice does not speak to me now,” he said, “we will know that for some reason we are expected to find the answer ourselves.”

If the Voice answered, it was in Basil’s mind that it gave the much-desired
response. The reason for this was clear enough; he was familiar with the interior of the house in a way that Luke was not.

“There is a way,” he said doubtfully. “I hesitate to suggest it, for it may seem to you wrong and perhaps even sacrilegious.”

“Tell me,” urged Luke. “The precious minutes are being consumed while we sit here in doubt.”

“In the room where the slaves have their meals,” said Basil, “there are a number of cups similar to this. They are kept on an open shelf together. I cannot remember how many—half a dozen, I think. Who would notice if there was one more than usual?”

Luke sprang to his feet. “The Voice has spoken!” he exclaimed. “This, of course, is the way: the safest hiding place is one that is not a hiding place at all. Place the Cup in full view, and it will be as free from notice as a chameleon against a tree trunk.”

A doubt had come into Basil’s mind. “The other cups are quite similar to this. How could we be sure of picking it out later from the rest on the shelf?” Then a solution of this difficulty came into his mind. “The lip is irregular. It was carelessly turned in the making and it is possible that since—since it was last used pieces have been cut away. Would you allow me to place a mark on it by which it could always be told from the others?”

Luke had no doubts. “I am sure the Lord would regard anything you did with a lenient eye.”

Basil reached out a hand to raise the Cup, then drew back and looked doubtfully at his companion. “Am I worthy to touch it?” he asked. “I had a strange feeling in my arm, as though something was holding me back.”

Luke’s face lighted up with a warm smile. “It may have been a test. That you think yourself unworthy is enough to make it right for you to touch it. Do not hesitate, my son.”

Thus reassured, the young artist lifted it in his hands and studied the lip. It seemed now no different from any other drinking vessel of the same kind. It had been shaped in great haste and it was entirely without decoration. The light that had radiated from it before had departed.

Basil touched a broken section of the lip with one finger. “I think a mark could be placed here. Could it be a symbol; a small fish, perhaps? I have been told that Christians are called the Order of the Fish.”

“The term was used for a time after the death of Jesus.” Luke seemed disposed to pass this over quickly, as though he disapproved. “It has not been used much of recent years. Still, it might serve as you suggest.”

“I shall do no more than hint at it.”

Basil placed the bundle of his tools back on the table and selected from it a small chisel and a hammer. Placing the drinking vessel on the table, he set to work and in a very few minutes had succeeded in raising a small figure that had a suggestion of a fish about it.

“The Lord has guided your hand,” declared Luke. “It looks like the flat fish of Galilee.” He collected the shavings of the metal that had accumulated on the table. “These I shall keep. I shall treasure them as long as I live.”