All eyes were now turned on Eleazar, who sat unmoved in his place, affecting a composure which he was far from feeling. His mind, indeed, was tortured to agony, by the conflict that went on within. Should he stand boldly forward and confess that he had sent his own brother into the Roman camp, with proposals for surrender? Well he knew that such a confession would be tantamount to placing his neck at once under John of Gischala’s foot. Who amongst his most devoted partisans would have courage to profess a belief in his patriotic motives, or allow that he was satisfied with the explanation offered for such a flagrant act of treason? The condemnation of the Sanhedrim would be the signal for his downfall and his death. When he was gone who would be left to save Jerusalem? This was the consideration that affected him, far more than any personal apprehensions of danger or disgrace. On the other hand, should he altogether renounce his brother, and disavow the authority he had given him? It has already been said, that as far as he loved any living being, he loved Calchas; perhaps had it not been so, he might have shrunk from the disgrace of abandoning one who had acted under his own immediate orders, and risked so much in obeying them; but in the depths of his fierce heart, something whispered that self-sacrifice was essentially akin to duty, and that because he loved him, therefore he must offer up his brother, as a man offers up a victim at the altar.
Nevertheless, he ran his eye hastily over his seventy-two colleagues, as they sat in grave deliberation, and summed up rapidly the score of friends and foes. It was nearly balanced, [pg 377]yet he knew there were many who would take their opinions from the Nasi; and from that stern old man he could expect nothing but the severity of impartial justice. He dared not look at Calchas, he dared not cover his face with his hand to gain a brief respite from the cold grave eyes that were fixed upon him. It was a bitter moment, but he reflected that, in the cause of Jerusalem, shame and suffering and sorrow, and even sin, became sacred, and he resolved to sacrifice all, even his own flesh and blood, to his ascendency in the town.
He was spared the pain, however, of striking the fatal blow with his own hand. Matthias, scrupulous in all matters of justice, had decided that until the accusation against him was supported by some direct evidence, no member of the Sanhedrim could be placed in the position of a culprit. He therefore determined to interrogate the prisoners himself, and ascertain whether anything would be elicited of so grave a nature as to cause Eleazar’s suspension from his present office, and the consequent reassembling of the whole Sanhedrim; a delay that in the present critical state of matters it was desirable to avoid, the more so that the day was already far advanced, and the morrow was the Sabbath. He therefore ordered the two prisoners to be placed in the centre of the hall; and, looking sternly towards the accused, began his interrogations in the severe accents of one who is an avenger rather than a judge.
The mild eye and placid demeanour of Calchas afforded a strong contrast to the frowning brows and flashing glances of the Nasi.
“Your name, old man,” said the latter abruptly. “Your name, lineage, and generation?”
“Calchas the son of Simeon,” was the reply, “the son of Manahem, of the house of Manahem, and of the tribe of Judah.”
“Art thou not the brother of Eleazar Ben-Manahem, who is sitting yonder in his place as a member of the Sanhedrim, before whom thou hast to plead?”
Ere he replied, Calchas stole a look at Eleazar, who forced himself to return it. There was something in the elder brother’s face that caused the younger to turn his eyes away, and bend them on the ground. The fierce old president, impatient of that momentary delay, broke out angrily—
“Nay, look up, man! no subterfuges will avail thee here. Remember the fate of those who dare to lie in the presence of the Sanhedrim!”
[pg 378]Calchas fixed his eye on the president’s in mild rebuke.
“I am in a higher presence than thine, Matthias son of Boethus,” said he; “neither need the children of Manahem be adjured to speak truth before God and man!”
“Hast thou heard the accusation brought against thee by John of Gischala?” proceeded the Nasi. “Canst thou answer it with an open brow and a clean heart?”
“I heard the charge,” replied Calchas, “and I am ready to answer it for myself, and for him who is in bonds by my side. Have I permission to clear myself before the Sanhedrim?”
“Thou wilt have enough to do to slip thine own neck out of the yoke,” answered Matthias sternly. “Colleagues,” he added, looking round, “ye have heard the accuser—will ye now listen to the accused?”
Then Phineas, speaking for the rest, answered: “We will hear him, Nasi, without favour, we will judge him without mercy.”
Thus encouraged, Calchas shook the white hair from his brow, and entered boldly on his defence.
“It is true,” said he, “that I have been outside the walls. It is true that I have been in the Roman camp, nay, that I have been in the very presence of Titus himself. Shall I tell the assembly of the strength of Rome, of the discipline of her armies, of the late reinforcement of her legions? Shall I tell them that I saw the very auxiliaries eating wheaten bread and the flesh of kids and sheep, whilst my countrymen are starving behind the walls? Shall I tell them that we are outnumbered by our foes, and are ourselves weakened by dissensions, and wasting our strength and courage day by day? Shall I tell them that I read on the face of Titus confidence in himself and reliance on his army, and, even with a conviction that he should prevail, a wish to show pity and clemency to the vanquished? All this they already know, all this must make it needless for me to enter into any defence beyond a simple statement of my motives. Nay, I have gathered intelligence from the Roman camp,” he added, now fixing his eyes on his brother, to whom he had no other means of imparting the answer, which the prince had confided to him through Licinius by word of mouth,—“intelligence, the importance of which should well bear me harmless, even had I committed a greater offence than escaping from a beleaguered town to hold converse with the enemy. Titus,” he spoke now in a loud clear voice, of which every syllable rang through the [pg 379]building—“Titus bade me be assured that his determination was unalterable, to grant no further delay, but, surrender or no surrender, to enter Jerusalem the day after the Sabbath, and if he encountered resistance, to lay waste the Holy City with fire and sword!”
Eleazar started to his feet, but recollected himself, and resumed his seat instantaneously. The action might well be interpreted as the mere outbreak of a soldier’s energy, called, as it were, by the sound of the trumpet to the wall. This, then, was what he had gained, a respite, a reprieve of one day, and that one day he had purchased at the dear price of his brother’s life. Yet even now the fierce warrior reflected with a grim delight, how judiciously he had used the time accorded him, and how, when the proud Roman did make his threatened assault, he would meet with a reception worthy of the warlike fame so long enjoyed by the Jewish nation.
The rest of the Sanhedrim seemed scared and stupefied. Every man looked in his neighbour’s face, and read there only dismay and blank despair. The crisis had been long threatening, and now it was at hand. Resistance was hopeless, escape impossible, and captivity insupportable. The prevailing feeling in the assembly was, nevertheless, one of indignation against the bearer of such unwelcome tidings. The Nasi was the first to recover himself, yet even he seemed disturbed.
“By whose authority,” said he—and every eye was turned on Eleazar while he spoke—“by whose authority didst thou dare to enter the camp of the enemy, and traffic with the Gentile who encompasseth the Holy City with bow and spear?”
The chief of the Zealots knew well that he was the observed of all his colleagues, many of whom would triumph at his downfall, whilst even his own partisans would detach themselves from it, each to the best of his abilities, when his faction ceased to be in the ascendant. He knew, too, that on his brother’s answer hung not only his life—which indeed he had risked too often to rate at a high value—but the stability of the whole fabric he had been building for months—the authority by which he hoped to save Jerusalem and Judæa, for which he grudged not to peril his immortal soul; and knowing all this, he forced his features into a sedate and solemn composure. He kept his eye away from the accused indeed, but fixed sternly on the president, and sat in his place the only man in the whole of that panic-stricken assembly who appeared master of the situation, and confident [pg 380]in himself. Calchas paused before he answered, waiting till the stir was hushed, and the attention which had been diverted to his brother settled once more on his own case. Then he addressed the Nasi in bold sonorous accents, his form dilating, his face brightening as he spoke—
“By the authority of Him who came to bring peace on earth—by the authority that is as far greater than that of Sanhedrim, or priest, or conqueror, as the heavens are higher than the sordid speck of dust on which, but for that authority, we should only swarm and grovel and live one little hour, like the insects dancing in the sunbeams, to die at the close of day—I am a man of peace! Could I bear to see my country wasted by the armed hand, and torn by the trampling hoof? I love my neighbour as myself. Could I bear to know that his grasp was day by day on his brother’s throat? I have learned from my Master that all are brethren, besieger and besieged, Roman and barbarian, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. Are they at variance, and shall I not set them at one? Are their swords at each other’s breasts, and shall I not step between and bid them be at peace? By whose authority, dost thou ask me, Matthias son of Boethus? By His authority who came to you, and ye knew Him not. Who preached to you, and ye heeded Him not. Who would have saved you in His own good time from the great desolation, and ye reviled Him, and judged Him, and put Him to death on yonder hill!”
Even the Prince of the Sanhedrim was staggered at the old man’s boldness. Like other influential men of his nation, he could not ignore the existence of a well-known sect, which had already exchanged its title of Nazarenes for that of Christians, the name in which it was hereafter to spread itself over the whole earth; but the very mention of these self-devoted men was an abomination in his ears, and the last house in which he could have expected to find a votary of the cross, was that of Eleazar Ben-Manahem, chief of such a party as the Zealots, and grounding his influence on his exclusive nationality and strict adhesion to the very bigotry of the Jewish law. He looked on Calchas for a space, as if scarcely believing his eyes. Then there came over his features, always stern and harsh, an expression of pitiless severity, and he addressed his colleagues, rather than the accused.
“This is even a graver matter than I had thought for,” said he, in a low yet distinct voice, that made itself heard in the farthest corner of the Court. “Princes of the house of [pg 381]Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and Levites of the nation, I am but the instrument of your will, the weapon wielded by your collective might. Is it not the duty of mine office that I smite and spare not?”
“Smite and spare not!” repeated Phineas; and the whole assembly echoed the merciless verdict.
There was not one dissentient, not even Eleazar, sitting gloomy and resolved in his place. Then Matthias turned once more to Calchas, and said, still in the same suppressed tones—
“Thou speakest in parables, and men may not address the Sanhedrim save in the brief language of fact. Art thou then one of those accursed Nazarenes who have called themselves Christians of late?”
“I am indeed a Christian,” answered Calchas, “and I glory in the name. Would that thou, Matthias son of Boethus, and these the elders of Judah, were partakers with me in all that name affords.”
Then he looked kindly and joyfully in Eleazar’s face, for he knew that he had saved his brother. The corselet of the latter rattled beneath his long black robe with the shiver that ran through his whole frame. The tension was taken off his nerves at last, and the relief was great, but it was purchased at too dear a price. Now that it was doomed, he felt the value of his brother’s life. He was totally unmanned, and shifted uneasily in his seat, not knowing what to do or say. They seemed to have changed places at last—Calchas to have assumed the bold unyielding nature, and Eleazar the loving tender heart. He recovered himself, however, before long. The ruling passion triumphed once more, as he anticipated the discomfiture of his rival, and the speedy renewal of his own ascendency amongst his countrymen.
The Prince of the Sanhedrim reflected for a few moments ere he turned his severe frown on Esca, and said—
“What doth this Gentile here in the Court of the Sanhedrim? Let him speak what he knoweth in this matter, ere he answer his own crime. Thy testimony at least may be valid,” he added scornfully, “for thou surely art not a Christian?”
The Briton raised his head proudly to reply. If there was less of holy meekness in his demeanour than in that of Calchas, there was the same bold air of triumph, the same obvious defiance of consequences, usually displayed by those who sealed their testimony with their blood.
“I am a Christian,” said he. “I confess it, and I too, like [pg 382]my teacher there, glory in the name! I will not deny the banner under which I serve. I will fight under that banner, even to the death.”
The Nasi’s very beard bristled with indignation; he caught up the skirt of his mantle, and tore it asunder to the hem. Then, raising the pieces thus rent above his head, he cried out in a loud voice, “It is enough! They have spoken blasphemy before the Sanhedrim. There is nothing more but to pronounce immediate sentence of death. Phineas Ben-Ezra, bid thy colleagues adjourn to the Stone-paved Hall!”
Then the assembly rose in silence, and, marching gravely two by two, passed out into an adjoining chamber, which was paved, and roofed, and faced with stone. Here alone was it lawful to pass sentence of death on those whom the Sanhedrim had condemned; and here, while their judges stood round them in a circle, the prisoners with their guard fronting the Nasi took their position in the midst. The latter stooping to the ground went through the form of collecting a handful of dust and throwing it into the air.
“Thus,” said he, “your lives are scattered to the winds, and your blood recoils on your own heads. You, Calchas the son of Simeon, the son of Manahem, of the house of Manahem, and you, Gentile, called Esca on the scroll which has been delivered into my hand, shall be kept in secure ward till to-morrow be past, seeing that it is the Sabbath, and at morning’s dawn on the first day of the week ye shall be stoned with stones in the Outer Court adjoining the Temple until ye die; and thus shall be done, and more also, to those who are found guilty of blasphemy in the presence of the Sanhedrim!”
Then turning to Eleazar, who still retained his forced composure throughout the hideous scene, he added—
“For thee, Eleazar Ben-Manahem, thy name is still untarnished in the nation, and thy place still knows thee amongst thy brethren. The testimony of a Nazarene is invalid; and no accusation hath yet been brought against thee supported by any witness save these two condemned and accursed men. That thou hast no portion, my brother, with blasphemers scarcely needs thine own unsupported word in the ears of the Sanhedrim!”
Eleazar, with the same fixed white face, looked wildly round him on the assembled elders, turning up the sleeves of his gown the while, and moving his hands over each other as though he were washing them.
[pg 383]“Their blood be on their own head,” said he. “I renounce them from my family and my household—I abjure them, I wash my hands of them—their blood be on their own head!”
And while he spoke, the warning voice was heard again outside the Temple, causing even the bold heart of the Nasi to thrill with a wild and unaccustomed fear—the voice of the wailing prophet crying, “Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin and sorrow and desolation! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”
The man who has resolved that he will shake himself free from those human affections and human weaknesses which, like the corporeal necessities of hunger and thirst, seem to have been given us for our enjoyment rather than our discomfort, will find he undertakes a task too hard for mortal courage and for mortal strength. Without those pleasant accessories, like water and sunshine, the simple and universal luxuries of mankind, existence may indeed drag on, but it can scarcely be called life. The Great Dispenser of all knows best. His children are not meant to stand alone, independent of each other and of Him. While they help their fellows, and trust in His strength, they are strong indeed; but no sooner do they lean on the staff themselves have fashioned, than they stumble and fall. It wounds the hand that grasps it, and breaks too surely when it is most needed at the last.
Eleazar believed, when he quitted the Paved Hall in which the Sanhedrim pronounced their sentence, that the bitterest drop was drained in the cup he had forced himself to quaff. He had not anticipated the remorseful misery that awaited him in his own home—the empty seats, where they were not—the tacit reproach of every familiar object—worst of all, the meeting with Mariamne, the daughter of his affections, the only child of his house. All that dreary Sabbath morning the Zealot sat in his desolate home, fearing—yes, he who seemed to fear nothing; to whom the battle-cry of shouting thousands on the wall was but as heart-stirring and inspiring music—fearing the glance of a girl’s dark eye, the tone of her gentle voice—and that girl his own daughter. There was no daily sacrifice in the Temple now; that last cherished prerogative of the Jewish religion had been suspended. His creed forbade him to busy himself in any further measures of defence which would involve labour on the Sacred Day. He might not work with lever and [pg 385]crowbar at the breach. All that could be done in so short a space of time had been done by his directions yesterday. He must sit idle in his stately dwelling, brooding darkly over his brother’s fate, or traverse his marble floor in restless strides, with clenched hands, and gnashing teeth, and a wild despair raging at his heart. Yet he never yielded nor wavered in his fanatical resolve. Had it all to be done once more, he would do the same again.
One memory there was that he could not shake off—a vague and dreary memory that sometimes seemed to soothe, and sometimes to madden him. The image of Mariamne would come up before his eyes, not as now in her fair and perfect womanhood, but as a helpless loving little child, running to him with outstretched arms, and round cheeks wet with tears, asking him for the precious favourite that had gone with the rest of the flock to one of those great sacrifices with which the Jews kept their sacred festivals—the kid that was his child’s playfellow—that he would have ransomed, had he but known it in time, with whole hecatombs of sheep and oxen, ere it should have been destroyed. The child had no mother even then; and he remembered, with a strange clearness, how he had taken the weeping little girl on his knee and soothed her with unaccustomed tenderness, while she put her arms round his neck, and laid her soft cheek against his own, accepting consolation, and sobbing herself to sleep upon his breast.
After this there seemed to grow up a tacit confidence—a strong though unspoken affection—between father and daughter. They seldom exchanged many words in a day, sometimes scarcely more than a look. No two human beings could be much less alike, or have less in common. There was but this one slender link between them, and yet how strong it had been! After a while it angered him to find this memory softening, while it oppressed him, whether he would or no. He resolved he would see Mariamne at once and face the worst. She knew he had avoided her, and held him in too great awe to risk giving offence by forcing herself upon him. Ignorant of Esca’s arrest, the instinctive apprehension of a woman for the man she loves had yet caused her to suspect some threatened danger from his prolonged absence. She watched her opportunity, therefore, to enter her father’s presence and gain tidings, if possible, of his brother and the Briton.
The hours sped on, and the fierce Syrian noon was already glaring down upon the white porches and dazzling [pg 386]streets of the Holy City. The hush of the Sabbath was over all; but it seemed more like the brooding, unnatural hush that precedes earthquake or tempest, than the quiet of a day devoted to peaceful enjoyment and repose. Her father was accustomed to drink a cup of wine at this hour, and Mariamne brought it him, trembling the while to learn the certainty of that which she could not yet bear to leave in doubt. She entered the room in which he sat with faltering steps, and stood before him with a certain graceful timidity that seemed to deprecate his resentment. His punishment had begun already. She reminded him of her mother, standing there pale and beautiful in her distress.
“Father,” she said softly, as he took the cup from her hand and set it down untasted, without speaking, “where is our kinsman, Calchas? and—and Esca, the Briton? Father! tell me the worst at once. I am your own daughter, and I can bear it.”
The worst, had she allowed herself to embody her vague fears, would have applied to the younger of the absent ones. It would have assumed that he was gravely wounded, even dangerously. Not killed—surely not killed! He turned his eyes upon her sternly, nay, angrily; but even then he could not tell her till he had lifted the cup and drained it every drop. His lip was steady now, and his face was harder, gloomier, than before, while he spoke—
“Daughter of Ben-Manahem!” said he, “henceforth thou hast no portion with him who was thy kinsman but yesterday, neither with him the Gentile within my gate, who has eaten of my bread and drunk from my cup, and stood with me shoulder to shoulder against the Roman on the wall.”
She clasped her hands in agony, and her very lips turned white; but she said true—she was his own daughter, and she neither tottered nor gave way. In measured tones she repeated her former words.
“Tell me the worst, father. I can bear it.”
He found it easier now that he had begun, and he could lash himself into a spurious anger as he went on, detailing the events of the previous day; the charges brought forward by John of Gischala, the trial before the Sanhedrim, his own narrow escape, and the confession of the two culprits, owning, nay, glorying in their mortal crime. He fenced himself in with the sophistry of an enthusiast and a fanatic. He deluded himself into the belief that he had been injured and aggrieved by the apostasy of the condemned. He poured forth all the eloquence that might have vindicated him before [pg 387]Matthias and his colleagues, had John’s accusation been ever brought to proof. The girl stood petrified and overpowered with his violence: at last he denounced herself, for having listened so eagerly to the gentle doctrines of her own father’s brother, for having consorted on terms of friendship with the stranger whom he had been the first to encourage and welcome beneath his roof. Once she made her appeal on Esca’s behalf, but he silenced her ere she had half completed it.
“Father,” she urged, “though a Gentile, he conformed to the usages of our people; though a stranger, I have heard yourself declare that not a warrior in our ranks struck harder for the Holy City than your guest, the brave and loyal Esca!”
He interrupted her with a curse.
“Daughter of Ben-Manahem! in the day in which thou shalt dare again to speak that forbidden name, may thine eye wax dim, and thy limbs fail, and thy heart grow cold within thy breast—that thou be cut off even then, in thy sin—that thou fall like a rotten branch from the tree of thy generation—that thou go down into the dust and vanish like water spilt on the sand—that thy name perish everlastingly from among the maidens of Judah and the daughters of thy father’s house!”
Though his fury terrified it did not master her. Some women would have fled in dismay from his presence; some would have flung themselves on their knees and sought to move him to compassion with prayers and tears. Mariamne looked him fixedly in the face with a quiet sorrow in her own that touched him to the quick, and maddened him the more.
“Father,” she said softly, “I have nothing left to fear in this world. Slay me, but do not curse me.”
The vision of her childhood, the memory of her mother, the resigned sadness of her bearing, and the consciousness of his own injustice, conspired to infuriate him.
“Slay thee!” he repeated between his set teeth. “By the bones of Manahem—by the head of the high-priest—by the veil of the Temple itself, if ever I hear thee utter that accursed name again, I will slay thee with mine own hand!”
It was no empty threat to a daughter of her nation. Such instances of fanaticism were neither unknown to the sterner sects of the Jews, nor regarded with entirely unfavourable eyes by that self-devoted and enthusiastic people. The tale of Jephthah’s daughter was cherished rather as an example of [pg 388]holy and high-minded obedience, than a warning from rash and inconsiderate vows. The father was more honoured as a hero than the daughter was pitied for a victim. And in later times, one Simon of Scythopolis, who had taken up arms against his own countrymen, and repented of his treachery, regained a high place in their estimation by putting himself to death, having previously slain every member of his family with his own hand.19 It would have only added one more incident, causing but little comment, to the horrors of the siege, had the life of Mariamne been taken by her own father on his very threshold. She looked at him more in surprise than fear, with a hurt reproachful glance that pierced him to the heart. “Father!” she exclaimed, “you cannot mean it. Unsay those cruel words. Am I not your daughter? Father! father! you used to love me, when I was a little girl!”
Then his savage mood gave way, and he took her to him and spoke to her in gentle soothing accents, as of old.
“Thou art a daughter of Manahem,” said he, “a maiden of Judah. It is not fit for thee to consort with the enemies of thy nation and of thy father’s house. These men have avowed the pernicious doctrines of the Nazarenes, who call themselves Christians. Therefore they are become an abomination in our sight, and are to be cut off from amongst our people. Mariamne, if I can bear unmoved to see my brother perish, surely it is no hard task for thee to give up this stranger guest. It is not that my heart is iron to the core, though thou seest me ofttimes so stern, even with thee; but the men of to-day, who have taken upon themselves the defence of Jerusalem from the heathen, must be weaned from human affections and human weaknesses, even as the child is weaned from its mother’s milk. I tell thee, girl, I would not count the lives of all my kindred against one hour of the safety of Judah; and Mariamne, though I love thee dearly, ay, better far than thou canst know—for whom have I now but thee, my daughter?—yet, if I believed that thou, too, couldst turn traitor to thy country and thy faith—I speak it [pg 389]not in anger—flesh and blood of mine own though thou be, I would bury my sword in thy heart!”
Had Eleazar’s looks corresponded with his words, such a threat, in her present frame of mind, might have caused Mariamne to avow herself a Christian, and brave the worst at once; but there was a weight of care on her father’s haggard brow, a mournful tenderness in his eyes, that stirred the very depths of her being in compassion—that merged all other feelings in one of intense pity for the misery of that fierce, resolute, and desolate old man. For the moment she scarcely realised Esca’s danger in her sympathy for the obvious sufferings of one usually so self-reliant and unmoved. She came closer to his side, and placed her hand in his without speaking. He looked fondly down at her.
“Abide with me for a space,” said he; “Mariamne, thou and I are left alone in the world.”
Then he covered his face with his hands, and remained without speaking, wrapped, as it seemed, in gloomy reflections that she dare not disturb. So the two sat on through the weary hours of that long hot Sabbath day. Whenever she made the slightest movement, he looked up and signed for her to remain where she was. Though it was torture, she dared not disobey; and while the time slipped on and the shadows lengthened, and the breeze began to stir, she knew that every minute, as it passed, brought her lover nearer and nearer to a cruel death. Thus much she had learned too surely; but with the certainty were aroused all the energies of her indomitable race, and she resolved that he should be saved. Many a scheme passed through her working brain, as she sat in her father’s presence, fearing now, above all things, to awake his suspicion of her intentions by word or motion, and so make it impossible for her to escape. Of all her plans there was but one that seemed feasible; and even that one presented difficulties almost insurmountable for a woman.
She knew that he was safe at least till the morrow. No execution could take place on the Sabbath; and although the holy day would conclude at sundown, it was not the custom of her nation to put their criminals to death till after the dawn, so that she had the whole night before her in which to act. But, on the other hand, her father would not leave his home during the Sabbath, and she would be compelled to remain under his observation till the evening. At night, then, she had resolved to make her escape, and taking advantage of the private passage, only known to her father’s [pg 390]family, by which Calchas had reached the Roman camp, to seek Titus himself, and offer to conduct his soldiers by that path into the city, stipulating as the price of her treachery an immediate assault, and the rescue of her kinsman, Calchas, with his fellow-sufferer. Girl as she was, it never occurred to her that Titus might refuse to believe in her good faith towards himself, and was likely to look upon the whole scheme as a design to lead his army into an ambush. The only difficulty that presented itself was her own escape from the city. She never doubted but that, once in the Roman camp, her tears and entreaties would carry everything before them, and, whatever became of herself, her lover would be saved.
It was not, however, without a strong conflict of feelings that she came to this desperate resolve. The blood that flowed in her veins was loyal enough to tingle with shame ever and anon, as she meditated such treachery against her nation. Must she, a daughter of Judah, admit the enemy into the Holy City? Could the child of Eleazar Ben-Manahem, the boldest warrior of her hosts, the staunchest defender of her walls, be the traitor to defile Jerusalem with a foreign yoke? She looked at her father sitting there, in gloomy meditation, and her heart failed her as she thought of his agony of shame, if he lived to learn the truth, of the probability that he would never survive to know it, but perish virtually by her hand, in an unprepared and desperate resistance. Then she thought of Esca, tied to the stake, the howling rabble, the cruel mocking faces, the bare arms and the uplifted stones. There was no further doubt after that—no more wavering—nothing but the dogged immovable determination that proved whose daughter she was.
When the sun had set, Eleazar seemed to shake off the fit of despondency that had oppressed him during the day. The Sabbath was now past, and it was lawful for him to occupy mind and body in any necessary work. He bade Mariamne light a lamp, and fetch him certain pieces of armour that had done him good service, and now stood in need of repair. It was a task in the skilful fulfilment of which every Jewish warrior prided himself. Men of the highest rank would unwillingly commit the renewal of these trusty defences to any fingers but their own; and Eleazar entered upon it with more of cheerfulness than he had shown for some time. As he secured one rivet after another, with the patience and precision required, every stroke of the hammer seemed to smite upon his daughter’s brain. There she was compelled [pg 391]to remain a close prisoner, and the time was gliding away so fast! At length, when the night was already far advanced, even Eleazar’s strong frame began to feel the effects of hunger, agitation, labour, and want of rest. He nodded two or three times over his employment, worked on with redoubled vigour, nodded again, let his head sink gradually on his breast, while the hammer slipped from his relaxing fingers, and he fell asleep.
Mariamne watched her father for a few impatient minutes, that seemed to lengthen themselves into hours, till she had made sure by his deep respiration that her movements would not wake him. Then she extinguished the lamp and stole softly from the room, scarcely breathing till she found herself safe out of the house. The door through which she emerged was a private egress, opening on the wide terrace that overhung the gardens. Its stone balustrades and broad flight of steps were now white and glistening in the moonlight, which shone brighter and fairer in those mellow skies than doth many a noonday in the misty north. While she paused to draw breath, and concentrate every faculty on the task she had undertaken, she could not but admire the scene spread out at her very feet. There lay the gardens in which she had followed many a childish sport, and dreamed out many a maiden’s dream, sitting in the shade of those black cypresses, and turning her young face to catch the breeze that stirred their whispering branches, direct from the hills of Moab, blending in the far distance with the summer sky. And lately, too, amid all the horrors and dangers of the siege, had she not trod these level lawns with Esca, and wondered how she could be so happy while all about her was strife, and desolation, and woe? The thought goaded her into action, and she passed rapidly on; nevertheless, in that one glance around, the fair and gorgeous picture stamped itself for ever on her brain.
Beneath her—here black as ebony, there glistening like sheets of burnished steel—lay the clear-cut terraces and level lawns of her father’s stately home, dotted by tall tapering cypresses pointing to the heavens, and guarded by the red stems of many a noble cedar, flinging their twisted branches aloft in the midnight sky. Beyond, the spires and domes and pinnacles of the Holy City glittered and shone in the mellow light, or loomed in the alternate shade, fantastic, gloomy, and [pg 393]indistinct. Massive blocks of building, relieved by rows of marble pillars supporting their heavy porticoes, denoted the dwellings of her princes and nobles; while encircling the whole could be traced the dark level line of her last defensive wall, broken by turrets placed at stated intervals, and already heightened at the fatal breach opposite the Tower of Antonia, from the summit of which glowed one angry spot of fire, a beacon kindled for some hostile purpose by the enemy. High above all, like a gigantic champion guarding his charge, in burnished armour and robes of snowy white, rose the Temple, with its marble dome and roof of beaten gold. It was the champion’s last watch—it was the last sleep of the fair and holy city. Never again would she lie in the moonlight, beautiful, and gracious, and undefaced. Doomed, like the Temple in which she trusted, to be utterly demolished and destroyed, the plough was already yoked that should score its furrows deep into her comeliness; the mighty stones, so hewn and carved and fashioned into her pride of strength, were even now vibrating to that shock which was about to hurl them down into such utter ruin, that not one should be left to rear itself upon the fragments of another!
The moonbeams shone calm and pleasant on the doomed city, as they shone on the stunted groves of the Mount of Olives, on the distant crest of the hills of Moab, and, far away below these, on the desolate plains that skirt the waters of the Dead Sea. They shone down calm and pleasant, as though all were in peace and safety, and plenty and repose; yet even now the arm of the avenger was up to strike, the eagle’s wing was pruned, his beak whetted; and Mariamne, standing on the terrace by her father’s door, could count the Roman watch-fires already established in the heart of the Lower City, twinkling at regular distances along the summit of Mount Calvary.
The view of the enemy’s camp, the thought of Esca’s danger, spurred her to exertion. She hurried along the terrace, and down into the garden, following the path which she knew was to lead her to the marble basin with its hidden entrance to the secret passage. Her only thought now was one of apprehension that her unassisted strength might be unable to lift the slab. Full but of this care, she advanced swiftly and confidently towards the disused fountain, to stop within ten paces of it, and almost scream aloud in the high state of tension to which her nerves had been strung—so startled was she and scared at what she saw. Sitting with its back to her, a long lean figure stooped and cowered over [pg 394]the empty basin, waving its arms, and rocking its body to and fro with strange unearthly gestures, and broken, muttered sentences, varied by gasps and moans. Her nation are not superstitious, and Mariamne had too many causes for fear in this world to spare much dread for the denizens of another; nevertheless she stood for a space almost paralysed with the suddenness of the alarm, and the unexpected nature of the apparition, quaking in every limb, and unable either to advance or fly.
There are times when the boldest of human minds become peculiarly susceptible to supernatural terrors—when the hardest and least impressionable persons are little stronger than their nervous and susceptible brethren. A little anxiety, a little privation, the omission of a meal or two, nay, even the converse of such abstinence in too great indulgence of the appetites, bring down the boasted reason of mankind to a sad state of weakness and credulity. The young, too, are more subject to such fantastic terrors than the old. Children suffer much from fears of the supernatural, conceiving in their vivid imaginations forms and phantoms and situations, which they can never have previously experienced, and of which it is therefore difficult to account for the origin. But all classes, and all ages, if they speak truth, must acknowledge, that at one time or another, they have felt the blood curdle, the skin creep, the breath come quick, and the heart rise with that desperate courage which springs from intense fear, at the fancied presence or the dreaded proximity of some ghostly object which eludes them after all, leaving a vague uncertainty behind it, that neither satisfies their curiosity nor ensures them against a second visitation of a similar nature.
Mariamne was in a fit state to become the victim of any such supernatural delusion. Her frame was weakened by the want of food; for like the rest of the besieged, she had borne her share of the privations that created such sufferings in the city for many long weeks before it was finally reduced. She had gone through much fatigue of late—the continuous unbroken fatigue that wears the spirits even faster than the bodily powers; and above all she had been harassed for the last few hours by the torture of inaction in a state of protracted suspense. It was no wonder that she should suffer a few moments of intense and inexplicable fear.
The figure, still with its back to her, and rocking to and fro, was gathering handfuls of dust from the disused basin of the fountain, and scattering them with its long lean arms upon its head and shoulders, chanting at the same time, in [pg 395]wild, mournful tones, the words “Wash and be clean,” over and over again. It obviously imagined itself alone, and pursued its monotonous task with that dreary earnestness and endless repetition so peculiar to the actions of the insane.
After a while, Mariamne, perceiving that she was not observed, summoned courage to consider what was best to be done. The secret of the hidden passage was one to be preserved inviolate under any circumstances; and to-night everything she most prized depended on its not being discovered by the besieged. While the figure remained in its present position, she could do nothing towards the furtherance of her scheme. And yet the moments were very precious, and Esca’s life depended on her speed.
There was no doubt, the unfortunate who had thus wandered into her father’s gardens was a maniac; and those who suffered under this severe affliction were held in especial horror among her people. Unlike the Eastern nations of to-day, who believe them to be not only under its special protection, but even directly inspired by Providence, the Jews held that these sufferers were subject to the great principle of evil; that malignant spirits actually entered into the body of the insane, afflicting, mocking, and torturing their victim, goading it in its paroxysms to the exertion of that supernatural strength with which they endowed its body, and leaving the latter prostrate, exhausted, and helpless when they had satiated their malice upon its agonies. To be possessed of a devil was indeed the climax of all mental and corporeal misery. The casting out of devils by a mere word or sign, was perhaps the most convincing proof of miraculous power that could be offered to a people with whom the visitation was as general as it was mysterious and incomprehensible.
Mariamne hovered about the fountain, notwithstanding her great fear, as a bird hovers about the bush under which a snake lies coiled, but which shelters nevertheless her nest and her callow young. Standing there, in long dark robes, beneath a flood of moonlight, her face and hands white as ivory by the contrast, her eyes dilating, her head bent forward, her whole attitude that of painful attention and suspense, she might have been an enchantress composing the spell that should turn the writhing figure before her into stone, cold and senseless as the marble over which it bent. She might have been a fiend, in the form of an angel, directing its convulsions, and gloating over its agonies; or she might have been a pure and trusting saint, exorcising the [pg 396]evil spirit, and bidding it come out of a vexed fellow-creature in that name which fiends and men and angels must alike obey.
Presently the night-breeze coming softly over the Roman camp, brought with it the mellow notes of a trumpet, proclaiming that the watch was changed, and the centurions, each in his quarter, pacing their vigilant rounds. Ere it reached Mariamne’s ears, the maniac had caught the sound, and sprang to his feet, with his head thrown back and his muscles braced for a spring like some beast of chase alarmed by the first challenge of the hound. Gazing wildly about him, he saw the girl’s figure standing clear and distinct in the open moonlight, and raising a howl of fearful mirth, he leaped his own height from the ground, and made towards her with the headlong rush of a madman. Then fear completely overmastered her, and she turned and fled for her life. It was no longer a curdling horror that weighed down the limbs like lead, and relaxed the nerves like a palsy, but the strong and natural instinct of personal safety, that doubled quickness of perception for escape and speed of foot in flight.
Between herself and her father’s house lay a broad and easy range of steps, leading upward to the terrace. Instinctively she dared not trust the ascent, but turned downwards over the level lawn into the gardens, with the maniac in close pursuit. It was a fearful race. She heard his quick-drawn breath, as he panted at her very heels. She could almost fancy that she felt it hot upon her neck. Once the dancing shadow of her pursuer, in the moonlight, actually reached her own! Then she bounded forward again in her agony, and eluded the grasp that had but just missed its prey. Thus she reached a low wall, dividing her father’s from a neighbour’s ground; feeling only that she must go straight on, she bounded over it, she scarce knew how, and made for an open doorway she saw ahead, trusting that it might lead into the street. She heard his yell of triumph as he rose with a vigorous leap into the air, the dull stroke of his feet as he landed on the turf so close behind her, and the horror of that moment was almost beyond endurance. Besides, she felt her strength failing, and knew too well that she could not sustain this rate of speed for many paces farther; but escape was nearer than she hoped, and reaching the door a few yards before the madman, she gained slightly on him as she shot through it, and sped on, with weakening limbs and choking breath, down the street.
[pg 397]She heard his yell once again, as he caught sight of her, but two human figures in front restored her courage, and she rushed on to implore their protection from her enemy; yet fear had not so completely mastered her self-possession, as to drive her into an obvious physical danger, even to escape encounter with a lunatic. Nearing them, and indeed almost within arm’s-length, she perceived that one was blasted with the awful curse of leprosy. The moon shone bright and clear upon the white glistening surface of his scarred and mortifying flesh. On his brow, on his neck, in the patches of his wasting beard and hair, on his naked arms and chest, nay, in the very garment girt around his loins, the plague-spots deepened, and widened, and festered, and ate them all away. It would be death to come in contact, even with his garments—nay, worse than death, for it would entail a separation from the touch of human hand, and the help of human skill.
Yet grovelling there on the bare stones of the street, the leper was struggling for a bone with a strong active youth, who had nearly overpowered him, and whom famine had driven to subject himself to the certainty of a horrible and loathsome fate, rather than endure any longer its maddening pangs. There was scarcely a meal of offal on the prize, and yet he tore it from the leper whom he had overpowered, and gnawed it with a greedy brutish muttering, as a dog mumbles a bone.
Gathering her dress around her to avoid a chance of the fatal contact, Mariamne scoured past the ghastly pair, even in her own imminent terror and distress feeling her heart bleed for this flagrant example of the sufferings endured by her countrymen. The maniac, however, permitted his attention to be diverted for a few moments, by the two struggling figures, from his pursuit; and Mariamne, turning quickly aside into a narrow doorway, cowered down in its darkest corner, and listened with feelings of relief and thankfulness to the steps of her pursuer, as, passing this unsuspected refuge, he sped in his fruitless chase along the street.