There is nothing in the history of ancient or modern times that can at all help us to realise the feelings with which the Jews regarded their Temple. To them the sacred building was not only the very type and embodiment of their religion, but it represented also the magnificence of their wealth, the pride of their strength, the glory, the antiquity, and the patriotism of the whole people—noble in architecture, imposing in dimensions, and glittering with ornament, it was at once a church, a citadel, and a palace. If a Jew would express the attributes of strength, symmetry, or splendour, he compared the object of his admiration with the Temple. His prophecies continually alluded to the national building as being identical with the nation itself; and to speak of injury or contamination to the Temple was tantamount to a threat of defeat by foreign arms, and invasion by a foreign host—as its demolition was always considered synonymous with the total destruction of Judæa; for no Jew could contemplate the possibility of a national existence apart from this stronghold of his faith. His tendency thus to identify himself with his place of worship was also much fostered by the general practice of his people, who annually flocked to Jerusalem in great multitudes to keep the feast of the Passover; so that there were few of the posterity of Abraham throughout the whole of Syria who had not at some time in their lives been themselves eye-witnesses of the glories in which they took such pride. At the period when the Roman army invested the Holy City, an unusually large number of these worshippers had congregated within its walls, enhancing to a great degree the scarcity of provisions, and all other miseries inseparable from a state of siege.
The Jews defended their Temple to the last. While the terrible circle was contracting day by day, while suburb after suburb was taken, and tower after tower destroyed, [pg 417]they were driven, and, as it were, condensed gradually and surely, towards the upper city and the Holy Place itself. They seemed to cling round the latter and to trust in it for protection, as though its very stones were animated by the sublime worship they had been reared to celebrate.
It was a little before the dawn, and the Outer Court of the Temple, called the Court of the Gentiles, was enveloped in the gloom of this, the darkest hour in the whole twenty-four. Nothing could be distinguished of its surrounding cloisters, save here and there the stem of a pillar or the segment of an arch, only visible because brought into relief by the black recesses behind. A star or two were faintly twinkling in the open sky overhead; but the morning was preceded by a light vapoury haze, and the breeze that wafted it came moist and chill from the distant sea, wailing and moaning round the unseen pillars and pinnacles of the mighty building above. Except the sacred precincts themselves, this was perhaps the only place of security left to the defenders of Jerusalem; and here, within a spear’s-length of each other, they had bound the two Christians, doomed by the Sanhedrim to die. Provided with a morsel of bread, scarce as it was, and a jar of water, supplied by that spurious mercy which keeps the condemned alive in order to put him to death, they had seen the Sabbath, with its glowing hours of fierce pitiless heat, pass slowly and wearily away; they had dragged through the long watches of the succeeding night, and now they were on the brink of that day, which was to be their last on earth.
Esca stirred uneasily where he sat; and the movement seemed to rouse his companion from a fit of deep abstraction, which, judging by the cheerful tones of his voice, could have been of no depressing nature.
“It hath been a tedious watch,” said Calchas, “and I am glad it is over. See, Esca, the sky grows darker and darker, even like our fate on earth. In a little while day will come, and with it our great and crowning triumph. How glorious will be the light shining on thee and me, in another world, an hour after dawn!”
The Briton looked admiringly at his comrade, almost envying him the heartfelt happiness and content betrayed by his very accents. He had not himself yet arrived at that pinnacle of faith, on which his friend stood so confidently; and, indeed, Providence seems to have ordained, that in most cases such piety should be gradually and insensibly attained, [pg 418]that the ascent should be won slowly step by step, and that even as a man breasting a mountain scales height after height, and sees his horizon widening mile by mile as he strains towards its crest, so the Christian must toil ever upwards, thankful to gain a ridge at a time, though he finds that it but leads him to a higher standard and a farther aim; and that, though his view is extending all around, and increasing knowledge takes in much of which he never dreamed before, the prospect expands but as the eye ascends, while every summit gained is an encouragement to attempt another, nobler, and higher, and nearer yet to heaven.
“It will be daylight in an hour,” said Esca, in a far less cheerful voice, “and the cowards will be here to pound us to death against this pavement with their cruel stones. I would fain have my bonds cut, and a weapon within reach at the last moment, Calchas, and so die at bay amongst them, sword in hand!”
“Be thankful that a man’s death is not at his own choice,” replied Calchas gently. “How would poor human nature be perplexed, to take the happy method and the proper moment! Be thankful, above all things, for the boon of death itself. It was infinite mercy that bade the inevitable deliverer wait on sin. What curse could equal an immortality of evil? Would you live for ever in such a world as ours if you could? nay, you in your youth, and strength, and beauty, would you wish to remain till your form was bent, and your beard grey, and your eyes dim? Think, too, of the many deaths you might have died,—stricken with leprosy, crouching like a dog in some hidden corner of the city, or wasted by famine, gnawing a morsel of offal from which the sustenance had long since been extracted by some wretch already perished. Or burnt and suffocated amongst the flaming ramparts, like the maniple of Romans whom you yourself saw consumed over against the Tower of Antonia but a few short days ago!”
“That, at least, was a soldier’s death,” replied Esca, to whose resolute nature the idea of yielding up his life without a struggle seemed so hard. “Or I might have fallen by sword-stroke, or spear-thrust, on the wall, like a man. But to be stoned to death, as the shepherds stone a jackal in his hole! It is a horrible and an ignoble fate!”
“Would you put away from you the great glory that is offered you?” asked Calchas gravely. “Would you die but as a heathen, or one of our own miserable Robbers and Zealots, of whom the worst do not hesitate to give their blood [pg 419]for Jerusalem? Are you not better, and braver, and nobler than any of these? Listen, young man, to him who speaks to you now words for which he must answer at the great tribunal ere another hour be past. Proud should you be of His favour whom you will be permitted to glorify to-day. Ashamed, indeed, as feeling your own unworthiness, yet exulting that you, a young and inexperienced disciple, should have been ranked amongst the leaders and the champions of the true faith. Look upon me, Esca, bound and waiting here like yourself for death. For two-score years have I striven to follow my Master, with feeble steps, indeed, and many a sad misgiving and many a humbling fall. For two-score years have I prayed night and morning; first, that I might have strength to persevere in the way that I had been taught, so that I might continue amongst His servants, even though I were the very lowest of the low. Secondly, that if ever the time should come when I was esteemed worthy to suffer for His sake, I might not be too much exalted with that glory which I have so thirsted to attain. I tell thee, boy, that in an hour’s time from now, thou and I shall be received by those good and great men of whom I have so often spoken to thee, coming forward in shining garments, with outstretched arms, to welcome our approach, and lead us into the eternal light of which I dare not speak even now, in the place which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived. And all this guerdon is for thee, coming into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, yet sharing with those who have borne the labour and heat of the day. Oh, Esca, I have loved thee like a son, yet from my heart, I cannot wish thee anywhere but bound here by my side this night.”
The other could not but kindle with his companion’s enthusiasm. “Oh, when they come,” said he, “they shall find me ready. And I too, Calchas, believe me, would not flinch from thee now if I could. Nay, if it be His will that I must be stoned to death here in the Outer Court of the Temple, I have learned from thee, old friend, gratefully and humbly to accept my lot. Yet I am but human, Calchas. Thou sayest truly, I lack the long and holy training of thy two-score years. I have a tie that binds me fast to earth. It is no sin to love Mariamne, and I would fain see her once again.”
A tear rose to the old man’s eye. Chastened, purified, as was his spirit, and ready to take its flight for home, he could yet feel for human love. Nay, the very ties of kindred were [pg 420]strong within him, here in his place of suffering, as they had been at his brother’s hearth. It was no small subject of congratulation to him, that his confession of faith before the Sanhedrim, while it vindicated his master’s honour, should at the same time have preserved Eleazar’s character in the eyes of the nation, while his exultation at the prospect of sharing with his disciple the glory of martyrdom, was damped by the reflection that Mariamne must grieve bitterly, as the human heart will, ere her nobler and holier self could become reconciled to her loss. For a moment he spoke not, though his lips moved in silent prayer for both, and Esca pursued the subject that occupied most of his thoughts even at such an hour as this.
“I would fain see her,” he repeated dreamily. “I loved her so well; my beautiful Mariamne. And yet it is a selfish and unworthy wish. She would suffer so much to look on me lying bound and helpless here. She will know, too, when it is over, that my last thought was of her, and it may be she will weep because she was not here to catch my last look before I died. Tell me, Calchas, I shall surely meet her in that other world? It can be no sin to love her as I have loved!”
“No sin,” repeated Calchas gravely; “none. The God who bears such love for them has called nine-tenths of His creatures to His knowledge through their affections. When these are suffered to become the primary object of the heart, it may be that He will see fit to crush them in the dust, and will smite, with the bitterest of all afflictions, yet only that He may heal. How many men have followed the path to heaven that was first pointed out by a woman’s hand? That a woman hath perhaps gone on to tread, beckoning him after her as she vanished, with a holy hopeful smile. No, Esca, it is not sin to love as thou hast done; and because thou hast not scrupled to give up even this, the great and precious treasure of thy heart, for thy master’s honour, thou shalt not lose thy reward.”
“And I shall see her again,” he insisted, clinging yet somewhat to earthly feelings and earthly regrets, for was he not but a young and untrained disciple? “It seems to me, that it would be unjust to part her from me for ever. It seems to me that heaven itself would not be heaven away from her!”
“I fear thou art not fit to die,” replied Calchas, in a low and sorrowful voice. “Pray, my son, pray fervently, unceasingly, that the human heart may be taken away from thee, [pg 421]and the new heart given which will fit thee for the place whither thou goest to-day. It is not for thee and for me to say, ‘Give me here, Father, a morsel of bread, or give me there a cup of wine.’ We need but implore in our prayers, of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Mercy, to grant that which it knows is best for our welfare; and He who has taught us how to pray, has bidden us, even before we ask for food, acknowledge a humble unquestioning resignation to the will of our Father which is in heaven. Leave all to Him, my son, satisfied that He will grant thee what is best for thy welfare. Distress not thyself with weak misgivings, nor subtle reasonings, nor vain inquiries. Trust, only trust and pray, here in the court of death, as yonder on the rampart, or at home by the beloved hearth, so shalt thou obtain the victory; for, indeed, the battle draweth nigh. The watches of the night are past, and it is already time to buckle on our armour for the fight.”
While he spoke the old man pointed to the east, where the first faint tinge of dawn was stealing up into the sky. Looking into his companion’s face, only now becoming visible in the dull twilight, he was struck with the change that a few hours of suffering and imprisonment had wrought upon those fair young features. Esca seemed ten years older in that one day and night; nor could Calchas repress a throb of exultation, as he thought how his own time-worn frame and feeble nature had been supported by the strong faith within. The feeling, however, was but momentary, for the Christian identified himself at once with the suffering and the sorrowful; nor would he have hesitated in the hearty self-sacrificing spirit that his faith had taught him, that no other faith either provides or enjoins, to take on his own shoulders the burden that seemed so hard for his less-advanced brother to bear. It was no self-confidence that gave the willing martyr such invincible courage; but it was the thorough abnegation of self, the entire dependence on Him, who alone never fails man at his need, the fervent faith, which could see so clearly through the mists of time and humanity, as to accept the infinite and the eternal for the visible, and the tangible, and the real.
They seemed to have changed places now; that doomed pair waiting in their bonds for death. The near approach of morning seemed to call forth the exulting spirit of the warrior in the older man, to endow the younger with the humble resignation of the saint.
“Pray for me that I may be thought worthy,” whispered [pg 422]the latter, pointing upwards to the grey light widening every moment above their heads.
“Be of good cheer,” replied the other, his whole face kindling with a triumphant smile. “Behold, the day is breaking, and thou and I have done with night, henceforth, for evermore!”
While faith has its martyrs, fanaticism also can boast its soldiers and its champions. Calchas in his bonds was not more in earnest than Eleazar in his breastplate; but the zeal that brought peace to the one, goaded the other into a restless energy of defiance, which amounted in itself to torture.
The chief of the Zealots was preparing for the great struggle that his knowledge of warfare, no less than the words of his brother before the Sanhedrim (words which yet rang in his ears with a vague monotony of repetition), led him to expect with morning. Soon after midnight, he had woke from the slumber in which Mariamne left him wrapped, and without making inquiry for his daughter, or indeed taking any thought of her, he had armed himself at once and prepared to visit the renewed defences with the first glimpse of day. To do so he was obliged to pass through the Court of the Gentiles, where his brother and his friend lay bound; for in the strength of the Temple itself consisted the last hopes of the besieged, and its security was of the more importance now that the whole of the lower town was in possession of the enemy. Eleazar had decided that if necessary he would abandon the rest of the city to the Romans, and throwing himself with a chosen band into this citadel and fortress of his faith, would hold it to the last, and rather pollute the sacred places with his blood, than surrender them into the hand of the Gentiles. Sometimes, in his more exalted moments, he persuaded himself that even at the extremity of their need, Heaven would interpose for the rescue of the chosen people. As a member of the Sanhedrim and one of the chief nobility of the nation, he had not failed to acquire the rudiments of that magic lore, which was called the science of divination. Formerly, while in compliance with custom he mastered the elements of the art, his strong intellect laughed to scorn the power it pretended to confer, and the mysteries [pg 424]it professed to expound. Now, harassed by continual anxiety, sapped by grief and privation, warped by the unvaried predominance of one idea, the sane mind sought refuge in the shadowy possibilities of the supernatural, from the miseries and horrors of its daily reality.
He recalled the prodigies, of which, though he had not himself been an eye-witness, he had heard from credible and trustworthy sources. They could not have been sent, he thought, only to alarm and astonish an ignorant multitude. Signs and wonders must have been addressed to him, and men like him, leaders and rulers of the people. He never doubted now that a sword of fire had been seen flaming over the city in the midnight sky; that a heifer, driven there for sacrifice, had brought forth a lamb in the midst of the Temple; or that the great sacred gate of brass in the same building had opened of its own accord in the middle watch of the night; nay, that chariots and horsemen of fire had been seen careering in the heavens, and fierce battles raging from the horizon to the zenith, with alternate tide of conquest and defeat, with all the slaughter and confusion and vicissitudes of mortal war.22
These considerations endowed him with the exalted confidence which borders on insanity. As the dreamer finds himself possessed of supernatural strength and daring, attempting and achieving feats which yet he knows the while are impossibilities, so Eleazar, walking armed through the waning night towards the Temple, almost believed that with his own right hand he could save his country—almost hoped that with daylight he should find an angel or a fiend at his side empowered to assist him, and resolved that he would accept the aid of either, with equal gratitude and delight.
Nevertheless, as he entered the cloisters that surrounded the Court of the Gentiles, his proud crest sank, his step grew slower and less assured. Nature prevailed for an instant, and he would fain have gone over to that gloomy corner, and bidden his brother a last kind farewell. The possibility even crossed his brain of drawing his sword and setting the prisoners free by a couple of strokes, bidding them escape in the darkness, and shift for themselves; but the fanaticism which had been so long gaining on his better judgment, checked the healthy impulse as it arose. “It may be,” thought [pg 425]the Zealot, “that this last great sacrifice is required from me—from me, Eleazar Ben-Manahem, chosen to save my people from destruction this day. Shall I grudge the victim, bound as he is now with cords to the altar? No, not though my father’s blood will redden it when he dies. Shall I spare the brave young Gentile, who hath been to me as a kinsman, though but a stranger within my gate, if his life too be required for an oblation? No! not though my child’s heart will break when she learns that he is gone forth into the night, never to return. Jephthah grudged not his daughter to redeem his vow; shall I murmur to yield the lives of all my kindred, freely as mine own, for the salvation of Jerusalem?” And thus thinking, he steeled himself against every softer feeling, and resolved he would not even bid the prisoners farewell. He could not trust himself. It might unman him. It might destroy his fortitude; nay, it might even offend the vengeance he hoped to propitiate. Besides, if he were known to have held communication with two professed Christians, where would be the popularity and influence on which he calculated to bear him in triumph through the great decisive struggle of the day? It was better to stifle such foolish yearnings. It was wiser to harden his heart and pass by on the other side.
Nevertheless he paused for a moment and stretched his arms with a yearning gesture towards that corner in which his brother lay bound, and, while he did so, a light step glided by in the gloom; a light figure passed so near that it almost touched him, and a woman’s lips were pressed to the hem of his garment with a long clinging kiss, that bade him a last farewell.
Mariamne, returning to the city by the secret way from her interview with Valeria in the Roman camp, had been careful not to enter her father’s house, lest her absence might have been discovered, and her liberty of action for the future impaired. She would have liked to see that father once more; but all other considerations were swallowed up in the thought of Esca’s danger, and the yearning to die with him if her efforts had been too late to save. She sped accordingly through the dark streets to the Temple, despising, or rather ignoring, those dangers which had so terrified her in her progress during the earlier part of the night. While she stole under the shadow of the cloisters towards her lover, her ear recognised the sound of a familiar step, and her eye, accustomed to the gloom, and sharpened by a child’s affection, made out the figure of her father, armed and on his way to the wall. She could not but remember that the morning light which [pg 426]was to bring certain death to Esca, might not, improbably shine upon Eleazar’s corpse as well. He would defend the place she knew to the last drop of his blood; and the Roman would never enter the Temple but over the Zealot’s body. She could never hope to see him again, the father whom, notwithstanding his fierceness and his faults, she could not choose but love. And all she could do was to shed a tear upon his garment, and wish him this silent and unacknowledged farewell. Thus it was that Eleazar bore with him into the battle the last caress he was ever destined to receive from his child.
The day soon broke in earnest, cold and pale on the towers and pinnacles of the Temple. The lofty dome that had been looming in the sky, grand and grey and indistinct, like the mass of clouds that rolls away before the pure clear eye of morning, glowed with a flush of pink; and changed again to its own glittering white of polished marble, as its crest caught the full beams of the rising sun. Ere long the golden roof was sparkling here and there in points of fire, to blaze out at last in one dazzling sheet of flame; but still the Court of the Gentiles below was wrapped in gloom, and the two bound figures in its darkest corner, turned their pale faces upward to greet the advent of another day—their last on earth.
But their attention was soon recalled to the court itself; for through the dark recesses of the vaulted cloisters, was winding an ominous procession of those who had been their judges, and who now approached to seal the fiat of their doom. Clad in long dark robes, and headed by their “Nasi,” they paced slowly out, marching two by two with solemn step and stern unpitying mien: it was obvious that the Sanhedrim adhered strictly to that article of their code, which enjoined them to perform justice without mercy. Gravely advancing with the same slow step, gradual and inevitable as time, they ranged themselves in a semicircle round the prisoners—then halted every man at the same moment; while all exclaimed as with one voice, to notify their completion and their unanimity—
“Here in the presence of the Lord!”
Again a deathlike silence, intolerable, and apparently interminable to the condemned. Even Calchas felt his heart burn with a keen sense of injustice and a strange instinct of resistance; while Esca, rising to his full height, and in spite of his bonds, folding his brawny arms across his chest, frowned back at the pitiless assembly a defiance that [pg 428]seemed to challenge them to do their worst. Matthias the son of Boethus then stepped forward from amongst his fellows; and addressed, according to custom, the youngest member of the Sanhedrim.
“Phineas Ben-Ezra. Hath the doom gone forth?”
“It hath gone forth through the nation,” answered Phineas, in deep sonorous tones. “To north and south, to east and west; to all the people of Judæa hath the inevitable decree been made manifest. The accuser hath spoken and prevailed. The accused have been judged and condemned. It is well. Let the sentence be executed without delay!”
“Phineas Ben-Ezra,” interposed Matthias, “can the condemned put forth no plea for pardon or reprieve?”
It was according to ancient custom that the Nasi should even at the last moment urge this merciful appeal—an appeal that never obtained a moment’s respite for the most innocent of sufferers. Ere Calchas or Esca could have said a word on their own behalf, Phineas took upon himself the established reply—
“The voice of the Sanhedrim hath spoken! There is no plea; there is no pardon; there is no reprieve.”
Then Matthias raised both hands above his head, and spoke in low grave accents—
“For the accused, justice; for the offender, death. The Sanhedrim hath heard; the Sanhedrim hath judged; the Sanhedrim hath condemned. It is written, ‘If a man be found guilty of blasphemy, let him be stoned with stones until he die!’ Again I say unto you, Calchas Ben-Manahem, and you, Esca the Gentile, your blood be upon your own heads.”
Lowering his hands, the signal was at once answered by the inward rush of some score or two of vigorous young men, who had been in readiness outside the court. These were stripped to the waist, and had their loins girt. Some bore huge stones in their bare arms; others, loosening the pavement with crow and pick-axe, stooped down and tore it up with a fierce and cruel energy, as though they had already been kept waiting too long. They were followers of John of Gischala, and their chief, though he took no part in the proceeding, stood at their head. His first glance was one of savage triumph, which faded into no less savage disappointment, as he saw Eleazar’s place vacant in the assembly of judges—that warrior’s duties against the enemy excusing his attendance on the occasion. John had counted on this critical moment for the utter discomfiture of his rival; but [pg 429]the latter, whose fortitude, strung as it had been to the highest pitch, could scarcely have carried him through such a trial as was prepared for him, had escaped it by leading a chosen band of followers to the post of danger, where the inner wall was weakest, and the breach so lately made had been hastily and insufficiently repaired.
John saw in this well-timed absence another triumph for his invincible enemy. He turned away with a curse upon his lips, and ordered the young men to proceed at once in the execution of their ghastly duty. It seemed to him that he must not lose a moment in following his rival to the wall, yet he could not resist the brutal pleasure of witnessing that rival’s brother lying defaced and mangled in the horrible death to which he had been condemned. Already the stones were poised, the fierce brows knit, the bare arms raised, when even the savage executioners held their hands, and the grim Sanhedrim glanced from one to another, half in uncertainty, half in pity, at what they beheld. The figure of a woman darting from the gloomy cloister, rushed across the court to fall in Esca’s arms with a strange wild cry, not quite a shout of triumph, not quite a shriek of despair; and the Briton looking down upon Mariamne, folded her head to his breast, with a murmur of manly tenderness that even such a moment could not repress, while he shielded her with his body from the threatened missiles, in mingled gentleness and defiance, as a wild animal turned to bay protects its young.
She passed her hands across his brow with a fond impulsive caress. With a woman’s instinct, too, of care and compassion, she gently stroked his wrist where it had been chafed and galled by his bonds; then she smiled up in his face, a loving happy smile, and whispered, “My own, my dear one; they shall never part us. If I cannot save thee, I can die with thee; oh! so happy. Happier than I have ever been before in my life.”
It was a strange feeling for him to shrink from the beloved presence, to avoid the desired caress, to entreat his Mariamne to leave him; but though his first impulse had been to clasp her in his arms, his blood ran cold to think of the danger she was braving, the fate to which those tender limbs, that fair young delicate body, would too surely be exposed.
“No, no,” he said, “not so. You are too young, too beautiful to die. Mariamne, if you ever loved me—nay, as you love me, I charge you to leave me now.”
[pg 430]She looked at Calchas, whom she had not yet seemed to recognise, and there was a smile—yes! a smile on her face, while she stood forth between the prisoners, and fronted that whole assembly with dauntless forehead and brave flashing eyes; her fair slight figure the one centre of all observation, the one prominent object in the court.
“Listen,” she said, in clear sweet tones, that rang like music to the very farthest cloisters. “Listen all, and bear witness! Princes of the House of Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and Levites of the nation! ye cannot shrink from your duty, ye cannot put off your sacred character. I appeal to your own constitution and your own awful vow. Ye have sworn to obey the dictates of wisdom without favour; ye have sworn to fulfil the behests of justice without mercy. I charge ye to condemn me, Mariamne, the daughter of Eleazar Ben-Manahem, to be stoned with stones until I die; for that I too am one of those Nazarenes whom men call Christians. Yea, I triumph in their belief, as I glory in their name. Ye need no evidence, for I condemn myself out of my own mouth. Priests of my father’s faith, here in its very Temple I deny your holiness, I abjure your worship, I renounce your creed! This building that overshadows me shall testify to my denunciations. It may be that this very day it shall fall in upon you and cover you with its ruins. If these have spoken blasphemy, so have I; if these are offenders worthy of death, so am I. I bear witness against you! I defy you! I bid you do your worst on those who are proud and happy to die for conscience’ sake!”
Her cheek glowed, her eye flashed, her very figure dilated as she shook her white hand aloft, and thus braved the assembled Sanhedrim with her defiance. It was strange how like Eleazar she was at that moment, while the rich old blood of Manahem mounted in her veins; and the courage of her fathers, that of yore had smitten the armed Philistine in the wilderness, and turned the fierce children of Moab in the very tide of conquest, now blazed forth at the moment of danger in the fairest and gentlest descendant of their line. Even her very tones thrilled to the heart of Calchas, not so much for her own sake, as for that of the brother whom he so loved, and whose voice he seemed to hear in hers. Esca gazed on her with a fond astonishment; and John of Gischala quailed where he stood, as he thought of his noble enemy, and the hereditary courage he had done more wisely not to have driven to despair.
But the tension of her nerves was too much for her [pg 431]woman’s strength. Bravely she hurled her challenge in their very teeth; and then, shaking in every limb, she leaned against the Briton’s towering form, and hid her face once more on his breast.
Even the Nasi was moved. Stern, rigid, and exacting, yet apart from his office he too had human affections and human weaknesses. He had mourned for more than one brave son, he had loved more than one dark-eyed daughter. He would have spared her if he could, and he bit his lip hard under the long white beard, in a vain effort to steady the quiver he could not control. He looked appealingly amongst his colleagues, and met many an eye that obviously sympathised with his tendency to mercy; but John of Gischala interposed, and cried out loudly for justice to be done without delay.
“Ye have heard her!” he exclaimed, with an assumption of holy and zealous indignation; “out of her own mouth she is condemned. What need ye more proof or further deliberation? The doom has gone forth. I appeal to the Sanhedrim that justice be done, in the name of our faith, our nation, our Temple, and our Holy City, which such righteous acts as these may preserve even now from the desolation that is threatening at the very gate!”
With such an assembly, such an appeal admitted of no refusal. The Seventy looked from one to another and shook their heads, sorrowfully indeed, but with knitted brows and grave stern faces that denoted no intention to spare. Already Phineas Ben-Ezra had given the accustomed signal; already the young men appointed as executioners had closed round the doomed three, with huge blunt missiles poised, and prepared to launch them forth, when another interruption arrived to delay for a while the cruel sacrifice that a Jewish Sanhedrim dignified with the title of justice.
A voice that had been often heard before, though never so wild and piercing as at this moment, rang through the Court of the Gentiles, and seemed to wail among the very pinnacles of the Temple towering in the morning air above. It was a voice that struck to the hearts of all who heard it—such a voice as terrifies men in their dreams; chilling the blood, and making the flesh creep with a vague yet unendurable horror, so that when the pale sleeper wakes, he is drenched with the cold sweat of mortal fear. A voice that seemed at once to threaten and to warn, to pity and to condemn; a voice of which the moan and the burden were ever unbroken and the same—“Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin, [pg 432]and sorrow, and desolation! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”
Naked, save for a fold of camel’s hair around his loins, his coarse black locks matted and tangled, and mingled with the uncombed beard that reached below his waist—his dark eyes gleaming with lurid fire, and his long lean arms tossing aloft with the wild gestures of insanity—a tall figure stalked into the middle of the court, and taking up its position before the Nasi of the Sanhedrim, began scattering around it on the floor the burning embers from a brazier it bore on its head; accompanying its actions with the same mournful and prophetic cry. The young men paused with their arms up in act to hurl; the Nasi stood motionless and astonished; the Sanhedrim seemed paralysed with fear; and the Prophet of Warning, if prophet indeed he were, proceeded with his chant of vengeance and denunciation against his countrymen.
“Woe to Jerusalem!” said he once more. “Woe to the Holy City! A voice from the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds; a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house; a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides; and a voice against the whole people!”
Then he turned aside and walked round the prisoners in a circle, still casting burning ashes on the floor. Matthias, like his colleagues, was puzzled how to act. If this were a demoniac, he entertained for him a natural horror and aversion, enhanced by the belief he held, in common with his countrymen, that one possessed had the strength of a score of men in his single arm; but what if this should be a true prophet, inspired directly from heaven? The difficulty would then become far greater. To endeavour to suppress him might provoke divine vengeance on the spot; whereas, to suffer his denunciations to go abroad amongst the people as having prevailed with the Great Council of the nation, would be to abandon the inhabitants at once to despair, and to yield up all hope of offering a successful defence to the coming attack. From this dilemma the Nasi was released by the last person on whom he could have counted for assistance at such a time. Pointing to the prisoners with his wasted arm, the prophet demanded their instant release, threatening divine vengeance on the Sanhedrim if they refused; and then addressing the three with the same wild gestures and incoherent language, he bade them come forth from their bonds, and join him in his work of prophecy through the length and breadth of the city.
“I have power to bind,” he exclaimed, “and power to [pg 433]loose! I command you to rend your bonds asunder! I command you to come forth, and join me, the Prophet of Warning, in the cry that I am commissioned to cry aloud, without ceasing—‘Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!’ ”
Then Calchas, stretching out his bound hands, rebuked him, calmly, mildly, solemnly, with the patience of a good and holy man—with the instinctive superiority of one who is standing on the verge of his open grave.
“Wilt thou hinder God’s work?” he said. “Wilt thou dare to suppress the testimony we are here to give in His presence to-day? See! even this young girl, weak indeed in body yet strong in faith, stands bold and unflinching at her post! And thou, O man! what art thou, that thou shouldst think to come between her and her glorious reward? Be still! be still! Be no more vexed by the unquiet spirit, but go in peace, or rather stay here in the Court of the Gentiles, and bear witness to the truth, for which we are so thankful and so proud to die!”
The prophet’s eye wandered dreamily from the speaker’s face to those of the surrounding listeners. His features worked as though he strove against some force within that he was powerless to resist; then his whole frame collapsed, as it were, into a helpless apathy, and placing his brazier on the ground, he sat down beside it, rocking his body to and fro, while he moaned out, as it seemed unconsciously, in a low and wailing voice, the burden of his accustomed chant.
To many in the assembly that scene was often present in their after lives. When they opened their eyes to the light of morning they saw its glow once more on the bewildered faces of the Sanhedrim; on the displeasure, mingled with wonder and admiration, that ruffled the austere brow of Matthias; on the downward scowl that betrayed how shame and fear were torturing John of Gischala; on the clear-cut figures of the young men he had marshalled, girded and ready for their cruel office; on Esca’s towering frame, haughty and undaunted still; on Mariamne’s drooping form, and pale patient face; above all, on the smile that illumined the countenance of Calchas, standing there in his bonds, so venerable, and meek, and happy, now turning to encourage his companions in affliction, now raising his eyes thankfully to heaven, his whole form irradiated the while by a flood of light, that seemed richer and more lustrous than the glow of the morning sun.
But while the prophet, thus tranquillised and silenced by [pg 434]the rebuke he had provoked, sat muttering and brooding amongst his dying embers on the floor; while the Sanhedrim, with their Nasi, stood aghast; while John of Gischala gnawed his lip in impatient vindictive hatred; and the young men gathered closer round their victims, as the wolves gather in upon their prey,—Mariamne raised her head from Esca’s breast, and, pushing the hair back from her ears and temples, stood for an instant erect and motionless, with every faculty absorbed in the one sense of listening. Then she turned her flashing eyes, lit up with great hope and triumph, yet not untinged by wistful mournful tenderness, upon the Briton’s face, and sobbed in broken accents, between tears and laughter—
“Saved! Saved! beloved. And by my hand, though lost to me!”
Sharpened by intense affection, her ear alone had caught the distant note of the Roman trumpets sounding for the assault.