Devil's Island (6 page)

5

ELIZABETH HELD REBECCA'S HAND while the members of the household staff who had assembled in the dining room prayed and sang hymns with them. Peter had stayed in his room, saying he was not feeling well. Naomi had come downstairs briefly, asking, “How am I supposed to sleep with all this racket? What on earth is going on?” When she discovered it was a prayer meeting, she had retreated hastily to her room, muttering that if God didn't hear their pitiful pleas, the neighbors undoubtedly would.

Her heart aching for her wayward daughter, Elizabeth asked the group to pray for Naomi as well as for the safety of Abraham, Jacob, and John. They prayed for divine protection, and they prayed for strength and courage. Throughout the long night they travailed in prayer, sometimes groaning, sometimes singing in the Spirit. Toward dawn a sweet peace settled over the dozen saints who had petitioned heaven so earnestly.

Elizabeth was still concerned about her missing husband and son, but she felt as if a heavy stone had been lifted from her heart. “I don't know why,” she said, “but I keep thinking of a passage of Scripture. One we sometimes sing as a hymn. It's from the book of Job, I believe.” She began to sing softly, and the others joined her:

I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God.

“That is the source of our strength,” Servius said when the last note of the song had echoed off the marble walls. “Our living Redeemer.”

“Amen,” said several of the worshipers.

“I was also thinking of a Scripture passage.” Servius's face lit up. “One that makes me smile.”

“Which one is that?” Elizabeth reached over and squeezed his hand fondly.

“The one in Luke's second book, where an angel led Peter out of prison. He went to the house where his fellow disciples were praying, and when he knocked on the door, the maid—”

“Rhoda!” Rebecca said. “I remember her name.”

“Yes, Rhoda. She was so excited to learn that it was Peter at the door, she ran to tell everyone about his miraculous escape—and forgot to let Peter inside.” Servius chuckled briefly and then became sober. “Perhaps we will hear a knock on the door even at this hour, and it will be our master, or young Jacob and the Apostle.”

Moisture brightened Elizabeth's eyes. “Let it be so,” she murmured. “Let it be so.”

Elizabeth watched her daughter's head drop almost to her chest, then pop back up. “It must be almost daylight by now,” Elizabeth said as she stood up from the sofa where she'd sat next to Rebecca for most of the night.

One of the women rose stiffly from the floor. “Ma'am, would you like me to prepare a light meal?” she asked.

“Yes, but just bread and oil with some fruit or cheese. And serve everyone here. We'll make room at the table.”

One of the kitchen helpers left with the cook, and a moment later Elizabeth heard a knock at the door. But it was not the knock they had hoped for. It was a thunderous pounding, accompanied by shouts of “Open up!”

One of the servants, a young girl, shrieked in terror and someone clamped a hand over her mouth.

The dining room opened onto the atrium, directly across the courtyard from the main door of the villa. The shouting was so loud that every word could be heard clearly by those inside.

“In the name of Lord Domitian, Emperor of Rome, open this door or we will break it down!”

No one moved. Rebecca clung to her mother, and several of the servants began to pray out loud. The pounding stopped suddenly but was followed by a mighty cracking sound as the solid wooden door splintered and crashed to the ground.

Elizabeth stepped from the dining room into the atrium, Rebecca and Servius close behind her. “We're in here,” she said firmly. “And I will thank you not to trample my house the way you've just ruined that door.”

Her calm dignity momentarily halted the soldiers streaming through the broken entry. A centurion came to the front of the marauders.

“You are holding illegal meetings here,” he said to Elizabeth. “We have orders to remove everyone from the house and take you before the authorities to answer charges.”

Several soldiers had already routed the others out of the dining room, using their long spears to prod the terrified group into the atrium. “Search the rest of the house,” the centurion ordered his troops. A half-dozen soldiers went up the staircase and another group scattered through the main floor of the villa.

Elizabeth prayed silently and tried not to let her rising fear show on her face.
I know that my Redeemer lives,
she thought over and over as she listened to the heavy thud of boots moving from room to room.

In a few minutes, Naomi's voice drifted down the stairs. “Get your filthy hands off me. I am perfectly capable of walking unassisted.” She maintained an imperious tone as she strode into the atrium, clad only in her sleeveless tunic, her long hair cascading down her back. Quickly discerning who was in charge, Naomi walked over to the centurion. “There's been some mistake,” she said. “I am not one of
them
!”

The centurion circled Naomi slowly, eyeing her from head to toe. He lifted her thick mane of hair and held it on top of her head for a moment before letting it fall. “I believe I saw this little vixen at the baths yesterday,” he said.

“So you did.” Naomi smiled seductively. “I told you I was not one of them,” she repeated. She appeared serenely poised, but her hands were balled into tight fists.

The soldiers who had searched the downstairs returned with the cook and her helper in tow. “We found these two in the kitchen,” one of them reported to their commander. “The rest of the house is empty.”

They didn't find Peter!
Elizabeth realized with a burst of gratitude that at least one of her family members might be spared the coming ordeal.
He must have hidden in the library,
she thought.

“Let's go,” the centurion ordered. “Commander Damian will be waiting at the temple.”

Elizabeth stepped carefully over the shattered door of her home, a Roman spear at her back. The centurion had said his orders were to take them to “the authorities.” Now he had clarified that he was taking them to Damian.

The calm she had felt earlier evaporated, and Elizabeth's cheeks went numb with fear.
Abraham, where are you?
she wondered desperately.
What's going to happen to us?

After his night in a cold dark prison cell, Abraham savored the sunshine, but his gratitude for its warmth was tempered by the cruelty of his captors. The centurion and four legionnaires who had arrested him returned early that morning. Now they marched him up the steep Marble Street, repeatedly shoving and poking him with the shafts of their spears. His back and ribs were bruised and burning by the time they reached the Temple of Domitian.

A crowd of spectators, both soldiers and civilians, surrounded the immense stone altar. Abraham looked up at the statue of Domitian with loathing. The monstrosity was more than twenty feet tall, a sculptor's testament to the emperor's enormous ego.

The noise of the crowd increased, and Abraham's attention was riveted on several dozen soldiers propelling a group of people toward him.
Elizabeth!
He spied his wife at the front of the prisoners, and cringed to see the spears pointed at her. Anxiously searching the throng, he found Rebecca and Servius and what appeared to be most of his household staff. And Naomi, looking as furious as she did fearful.

The sound of hoofbeats tore Abraham's gaze away from his family. A white stallion whinnied and reared on its hind legs as the rider reined it in beside the statue. The officer dismounted in a fluid motion and stood with his hands on his hips as the carriage that had accompanied his dramatic entrance stopped and disgorged its passengers.

Abraham's heart stopped as a soldier yanked the apostle John out of the carriage, followed by Jacob. His son's right eye was black and his face had been scratched as if he had fallen on the gravel. He had not surrendered without a fight, Abraham guessed.

The officer who had ridden in on the white horse turned and strode toward Abraham. The scrawny legs and bony knees would have been laughable, Abraham thought, if they had not belonged to the most menacing face he had ever seen. He instantly recognized the sinister, hate-filled eyes of Damian. A surge of anger rose up in Abraham, and he clenched his fists.

“I'm sure you'd like to have a little family reunion,” Damian said sarcastically, “but we have official business to conduct, Abraham. It's time to find out just how committed you are to this contemptible faith you profess.” His piercing black eyes never left Abraham's as he extended a hand toward the centurion standing nearby and snapped his fingers.

“Bring the incense,” Damian growled.

With a start Abraham realized that
he
was about to be required to make the mandatory sacrifice to the emperor. He had worried so long about the consequences of his son being forced to sacrifice, knowing Jacob would refuse, had been so concerned about Elizabeth's well-being and his family's safety, that he had spent little time thinking of his own response. Now the moment of reckoning had been thrust upon him, and Abraham knew that his actions in the next few moments would determine the course of his life.

No matter what he did, his life would change irrevocably. If he offered the sacrifice, he would deny the God he loved and served, and face the eternal implication of his betrayal. If he held fast to his Christian beliefs and refused to worship Caesar, Rome would strip him of all his possessions and either execute him or send him into exile. Knowing Damian's deep animosity toward him, Abraham guessed that his refusal to sacrifice could result only in a death sentence.

He listened to the shouted commands of the legionnaires, the indistinct murmuring of the crowd, and the sound of feminine weeping. The scene was eerily familiar: armies using weapons to force political and religious beliefs on people who wanted only to live in peace, not be compelled to take sides.

For an instant Abraham let his gaze wander from Damian's. He had heard Rebecca crying and now saw Elizabeth cradling Rebecca's head against her shoulder. His wife's eyes were clear, and it occurred to Abraham that over the last few weeks she had emptied her reservoir of tears in anticipation of this moment. Now Elizabeth stood straight, facing her ordeal dry-eyed, and Abraham was proud of her resolve.

The requested bowl of incense in his hand, Damian took a step toward Abraham. “Perhaps you recognize the design,” he said, holding the gold container aloft in admiration. “A souvenir from the miserable time I was stationed in Jerusalem.”

Abraham looked at the small bowl, beautifully engraved with a pattern of figs, a motif synonymous with the nation of Israel.
How
like Damian,
he thought,
to have kept plundered treasure for his personal
benefit, and to savor its use for this sacrilege.

A scene of looting flashed across Abraham's mind—Roman soldiers scrambling over the bodies of revolutionaries to gather the spoils of war while noncombatants, like himself, fled for their lives. But it was a simple response of nature, caused by not eating for more than twenty-four hours, that sent Abraham on a brief but intensely powerful emotional journey. When his stomach rumbled, it all came back to him . . .

6

ABRAHAM HAD ARRIVED IN JERUSALEM in the spring of his twenty-fifth year. His father had suggested the trip as a way of distracting Abraham from his newfound spirituality. “You should rediscover your Jewish roots,” his father had said. “Walk where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked. Celebrate the Passover at the temple of Solomon.”

Disenchanted with the practice of law, Abraham had embraced the idea enthusiastically. He had always wanted to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but his motives now were vastly different from his father's: Abraham wanted to walk where Jesus of Nazareth had walked and to worship in the birthplace of Christianity.

In the last few years he had defended several Christians in civil lawsuits brought by vindictive Romans. The Christians had become easy prey after Nero's spate of persecution following the burning of Rome. The emperor had made the “atheists” his scapegoat for the catastrophe—which, it was rumored, he had instigated in order to initiate a grand scheme to rebuild his palace and the heart of the city. Many followers of Christ were burned alive, some as torches to light Nero's estate; others faced martyrdom in the arena with wild animals. The savage persecution gradually dwindled, and four years after the fire, Nero committed suicide in the face of rebellion and public condemnation. The stigma against the Christians, however, survived, and they remained targets of harassment.

Abraham had found the Christian believers—most of whom were Jewish, as he was—to be peaceful, gracious, and kind. In short, they were upstanding citizens who had been unfairly maligned. Over the months he had engaged many of them in lengthy spiritual discussions, eventually recognizing for himself that Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed, the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of mankind.

So Abraham traveled to his ancestral homeland, the origin of so much Jewish and Christian history, arriving just before Passover, and just about the time General Titus and four legions of battle-tested Roman soldiers encamped around the city.

Before his trip Abraham had been aware of the ongoing conflict in the area. Jewish nationalists had rebelled against Rome four years earlier and Rome had been trying to smash the revolt ever since. But when Nero had died two years after the outbreak of hostilities, Rome was forced to turn its attention to the ensuing civil war at home. Once Vespasian, who had commanded the forces in Palestine, successfully claimed the throne, he sent his son Titus back to Jerusalem to put an end to the rebellion once and for all. Rome knew how to be brutal.