Yet I turned away from those convictions. A thousand times I was on the point of throwing myself at the feet of the men who bore this transcendent gift and asking: “What shall I do?” A thousand times I could have cried out: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” But oh, my doubting heart! I make no attempt to account for myself or my career—I have felt as strongly driven back as if there were an actual hand forcing me away. The illusion was a willing one, and it was suffered, like all such, to hold me in its captivity. But even when I shrank away I have said: “Whence had those men this knowledge? If angels from God were to come down to reclaim the world, could they tell us things different or tell us more?”

I looked round upon the labors of ancient wisdom, and I saw how trivial a space its utmost vigor had cleared, and how soon even that space was overrun by the rankness of the world, and I said: “Here is the central fire, the mighty reservoir of light, awaiting but the divine command to burst up in splendor, consume the impurities of the world at once, and regenerate mankind.” But the veil was upon my face. I labored against conviction, and shutting out the subject from my thoughts, sternly determined to live and die in the faith of my fathers.

I now heard but the few and simple closing words of the speaker in this group of the devoted. He was sorrowful that the Gospel had been so long committed to his hands in vain. He had, through fear of his own inadequacy, and in the remaining deference to the prejudices of his people, suffered the truth to decay, and seen the illustrious labors of the apostles without following their example.

“But,” said he, “I was rebuked; the opportunity once neglected was refused even to my prayers. I was thenceforth in perils, in civil war, in domestic sedition. I am but now come from a dungeon. But in my bonds it pleased Him, in whose hand are the heavens, to visit me. I knelt and prayed, acknowledging my sin, and beseeching Him that before I died I might proclaim His truth before Israel. In that hour came a voice, bidding me go forth; and lo! my chains fell from my hands and I went forth. And when I came to the gates of the dungeon, I willed to go forward to the city of David. But I was forbidden, and my steps were turned here, to awake my brethren to knowledge before they perish.”

The trumpets rang again as a new crowd were drained off to execution. My heart sank at the melancholy sound, but among the converts there was not a murmur.

“Kneel,” said the preacher; “the hour is come!”

They knelt and he poured out his spirit aloud in prayer

“Now go forth,” he said, rising alone, “go forth, redeemed of the Lord. This night have ye known that He is gracious. Those things that God before hath shown by the mouth of all His prophets that Christ should suffer, He hath fulfilled. But ye have heard, but ye have been converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come. But ye have been called—but ye have been justified—but ye shall be glorified. Our hope of you is stedfast—knowing that as you have been partakers of His cross, so shall ye be of His kingdom. Now be grace unto you, and peace from the King of Kings!”

He laid his hands upon the kneeling converts and went slowly round, blessing them. His face had been hitherto turned from me, and I was too much impressed by his words and the awful circumstances in which he stood even to conjecture who he was. At length in moving round he came before me. To my inexpressible surprise and sorrow the teacher was Eleazar! I had lost every trace of him since we parted in the fortress, and with sorrow of heart had concluded him a sacrifice to the common atrocities of our ferocious war. His long absence was now explained, but no explanation could account for the extraordinary change that had been wrought upon his countenance. Always generous and manly, yet the softness of a nature made for domestic life had concealed the vigor of his understanding. He was the general reconciler in the disputes of the neighboring districts, the impartial judge, the unwearied friend, and his features had borne the stamp of this quiet career.

But the man before me bore uncontrollable energy in every tone and feature. The failing flame of the torch that burned over his head was enough to show the transformation of his countenance into grandeur; his glance was a living fire; the hair that floated over it, changed by captivity to the whiteness of snow, shaded a forehead that seemed to have suddenly expanded into majesty. If I had met such a man in a desert, I should have augured in him the founder or the subverter of a throne.

While I stood absolutely awed by his presence, a cohort of spearmen poured in to gather up the gleanings of the hall. Then was renewed the scene of misery. Wretches whom I had thought dead started from the ground and flung themselves at their feet, or rushed against the ranks, tore the weapons out of their hands, and broke them in fury through the hall. Others dashed their foreheads against the walls and floor and died upon the spot. Others sprang up the projections of the sculpture and climbed with the agility of leopards to the roof, to force the casements. But additional troops poured in, and the crowd were overwhelmed and driven out to undergo their destiny.

During this long tumult, the Christian converts continued kneeling and evidently absorbed by thoughts that extinguished fear. Even the sounds from without, that terribly told what was going on, and every tone of which pierced me to the heart, produced only a deeper supplication that light would be given to the souls of the sufferers. This patience probably induced the soldiery to leave them to the last, while they drove out the more untractable at the point of the spear, like cattle to the slaughter. I still stood aloof. The sacredness of the moments that came before death were not to be interrupted. The transformed Eleazar had already passed away from the things of this world. I would not force them on him again, nor vainly and cruelly disturb the holy serenity of one at peace alike with man and Heaven.

At length the order came.

“Now, my beloved brothers, beloved in the Lord, go forth,” said Eleazar, with a noble exultation glowing in his countenance, “quit ye like men; be strong; fear not them who can kill only the body. Even this night saw you still in your sins—the wisdom that was before all worlds, hidden from you. But He that calleth light out of darkness hath wrought in you. He hath poured upon you that Spirit which is an earnest of your inheritance, holy, incorruptible, eternal in the heavens. Now, sons of Abraham, redeemed of Christ, kings and priests of God forever, go where He is gone to prepare a place for you—go to the house of many mansions—go to the kingdom of glory!”

With tears and blessings Eleazar took water and baptized the converts. They sang a hymn, and then rising, moved toward the gate, the soldiers standing at a distance and looking on at this more than heroic resignation with eyes of respect and wonder.

I could restrain myself no longer. I grasped Eleazar; he instantly recognized me, and the color that shot through his cheek showed that with me came a tide of memory. I was speechless; I embraced him; tears of old friendship dimmed my eyes. He was overpowered like myself, and could only exclaim:

“Salathiel, my brother! What misfortune has brought you here? Where is Miriam? Where are your children? You can not be a prisoner? Fly from this dreadful place!”

“Never, my brother, unless I can save you. The tyrants shall have the curse of both upon their heads.”

“This is madness, Salathiel—impiety! Oh, that you were this moment even as I am—in all but death! It is your duty to live; you have many ties to the world.”

He paused, and with a look upward said in a tone of prayer:

“Oh, that you were at this moment awake to the truths, the holy and imperishable consolations, that make the cross to me more triumphant than a throne!”

The theme was a painful one. He instantly saw my perturbation and forebore to urge me; but fixing his humid eyes on heaven, and with uplifted hands, he gave me his parting benediction.

“May the time come,” said he, “when the veil shall be taken away from the face of my unhappy kindred and of my undone country! When the days of the desolation of Israel come to be accomplished, let her kneel before the altar!—let her weep in sackcloth and repent of her iniquities; so shall the sun of glory arise upon her once more.”

Then, as if a flash of knowledge had darted into his soul, he fixed his solemn gaze on me.

“Salathiel, you are not fit to die; pray that you may not now sink into the grave. You have fierce impulses, of whose power you have yet no conception. Supplicate for length of years; rather endure all the miseries of exile; be alone upon the earth—weary, wild, and desolate; but pray that you may not die until you know the truths that Israel yet shall know. Let it be for me to die, and seal my faith by my blood. Let it be for you to live, and seal it by your penitence. But live in hope. Even on earth, a day bright beyond earthly splendor, lovely beyond all the visions of beauty, magnificent and powerful beyond the loftiest thought of human nature, shall come, and we, even we, my brother, shall on earth meet again.”

CHAPTER LIX
The Clemency of Titus

There was a thrilling influence in the words of Eleazar that left me without reply, and for a while I stood absorbed. When I raised my eyes again, I saw him following the melancholy train down the valley of slaughter. I rushed after him. He would not listen to my entreaties; he would suffer no ransom to be offered for his life. I supplicated the tribune of the escort for a moment’s delay until I could solicit mercy from Titus. The officer, himself deeply pained by the service on which he was ordered, had no authority, but sent a centurion with me to the general commanding.

I hurried my guide through the immense force drawn up to witness the offering to the shades of the Roman senators and soldiers. The morning was stormy, and clouds covering the ridges of the hills darkened the feeble dawn so much that torches were necessary to direct the movement of the troops. The wind came howling through the spears and standards, but with it came the fiercer sounds of human agony. As we reached the entrance of the valley, the centurion pointed to a height where the general stood in the midst of a group of mounted officers, wrapped in their cloaks against the snows that came furiously whirling from the hills. I darted up the steep with a rapidity that left my companion far below, and implored the Roman humanity for my countrymen and for my noble and innocent brother.

On my knee, that I had never before bowed to man, I besought the muffled form, whom I took for the illustrious son of Vespasian, to spare men “whose only crime was that of having defended their country.” I adjured the heir of the empire “to rescue from an ignominious fate, subjects driven into revolt only by violences which he would be the first to disown.”

“If,” exclaimed I, “you demand money for the lives of my countrymen, it shall be given even to our last ounce of silver; if you would have territory, we will give up our lands and go forth exiles. If you must have life for life, take mine, and let my brother go free!”

The form slowly removed the cloak and Cestius was before me.

“So,” said he, with a malignant smile, “you can kneel, Jew, and play the rhetorician; however, as you are here, your having escaped me once is no reason why you should laugh at justice a second time. Here, Torquatus,” he beckoned to a centurion, “take this rebel to the crosses and bring me an account of the way in which he behaves. You see, Jew, that I have some care of your reputation. A fellow careless as you are would probably have died like a slave in a skirmish; but you shall now figure before your countrymen as a patriot should, and die with the honors of a native rebel.”

I disdained to answer. The officer came up, attended by his spearmen, and I was led down to the valley. A storm of extraordinary violence, long gathering on the sky, broke forth as I descended, and it was only by grasping the rocks and shrubs on the side of the declivity that we could avoid being blown away. We staggered along, blinded, and half frozen. The storm fell heavily upon the legions, and the heights were quickly abandoned for the shelter of the valley. The valley itself was a sheet of snow, torn up by blasts that drifted it hazardously upon the troops and threw everything into confusion. But the sight that opened on me as I passed the first gorge effaced storm and soldiery, and might have effaced the world, from my mind. Through the whole extent of the naked and rocky hollow were planted crosses. The ravine, dark even in sunshine, was now black as midnight, and its only light was from the scattered torches and the fires into which the bodies of the victims were flung as they died, to make room for others. On those crosses hung hundreds, writhing in miseries made only to show the hideous capability of suffering that exists in our frame. I was instantly recognized, and many a hand was stretched out to me imploring that I should mercifully hasten death. I heard my name called on as their prince, their leader, their countryman; I heard voices calling on me to remember and revenge! Horror-struck, I raved at the legionaries and their tyrant master until I sank upon the ground in exhaustion, covering my head with my mantle that I might exclude alike sight and sound.

A voice at my side aroused me; a cross had just been fixed on the spot, and at its foot stood, preparing for death, the man who had spoken. I looked upon his face and gave an involuntary cry. For seven-and-thirty years I had not seen that face; but I had seen it on a NIGHT never to be erased from my remembrance or my soul! I knew every feature of it through all the changes of years!

Manhood had passed into age; the bold and sanguine countenance was furrowed with cares and crimes. But I knew at once the man who had on that night been foremost at my call; the daring rabble-leader who had first shouted at my fatal summons, and maddened the multitude, as I had maddened myself and him. He turned his glance upon me at the cry. His pale visage grew black as death. The past flashed upon his soul. He shook from head to foot with keen convulsion. He gasped and tried to speak, but no words came. He beat his breast wildly and pointed to the cross with dreadful meaning. The executioner, a brutal slave, scoffed at him as a dastard. He heard nothing, but with his pallid eyes staring on me and his hand pointed upward, stood stiffening. Life departed as he stood! The executioner, impatient, laid his grasp upon him, but he was beyond the power of man. He fell backward like a pillar of stone!

I started from the corpse, and utterly unnerved, looked wildly round for some way of escape from this scene of despair. As I tried to penetrate the dusk toward the bottom of the valley, Eleazar was seen at the head of his little band, standing at the foot of a cross, surrounded by soldiers. I thought no more of safety, and plunging into the valley, forced my way through the rocks and snowdrifts until I reached the foot of the declivity on which this true hero was about to die. But there an impenetrable fence of spears stopped me. I implored, execrated, struggled; Eleazar’s look fell on me, and the smile on his uplifted countenance showed at once how much he thanked me and how calmly he was prepared to bid the world farewell. My struggles were useless, and I had but one resource more. I flew with a swiftness that baffled pursuit to the camp; passed the entrenchments by the breaches left since the battle, and before I could be stopped or questioned, entered the tent of Titus.

The supper-lamps were burning, and three stately-looking men still lingered over the table, one of the few unpopular luxuries of the general. A large packet of letters was being distributed by a page, and while I stood in the shade of the tent-curtain a moment, until I should ascertain whether Titus was among the three, I was made the unwilling sharer of the secrets of Rome.

“All is going on well,” said one of the readers; “here, that truest of courtiers, my showy friend, Statilius, sends, compiled by his own hand, an endless list of the pomps and processions, games and congratulations, in the Emperor’s progress through Italy. The intelligence is not the newest in the world, but it would break my courtly friend’s heart to think that he had not the happiness of giving it first. So let him think, and so let him worship the rising sun, until another dynasty comes, and he discovers that if this sun has risen in the East, a much finer one may rise in the West. Thus runs the world.”

“War with the Britons,” read another; “they have marched a hundred of their naked clans from the hills. The remnant of the Druids are busy again with their incantations, and it is more than suspected that the whole is stirred up by our incomparable governor of western Gaul, who affects the diadem, like all the ridiculous governors of the age.”

“Well then, he shall have his wish,” said a third, “the Emperor will give him, of course, a court fit for a rebel: his council, lictors; and his palace, the Mamertine. But as to the Britons, I doubt if they care one of their own leather pence whether he wears the diadem or the halter. The savages have probably been vexed by some new attempt to squeeze money from them—the quickest way to try the national sensibilities. They have the spirit of trade in them already, and are as keen in the barter of their wolf-skins and bulls’-hides as if they supplied the world with Tyrian canopies and Indian pearls.”

“A letter from Sempronius!” was the next topic; “its exquisite intaglio and elaborate perfumes would betray it all the world over; full of scandals, as usual, and full of discontent. He seems quite dismantled, and complains that—the sex is growing ugly, the seasons comfortless, and mankind dull; a certain sign that my emptiest of friends and the best dresser in Italy is growing old.”

“So much the better for his circle,” said another, sipping his goblet. “As for himself, while he can flourish in curls and calumny, he will be happy, the true man of high life, a prey to tailors, a figure for actors to burlesque, and an inveterate weariness to the world.”

“But here is a private despatch from the Emperor, and, unfortunately for human eyes, written in his own most unreadable hand.”

The speaker stood up to the lamp and gave me an opportunity of observing him. His countenance and figure struck me as what no other word could express than—princely.[53] The features were handsome and strongly marked Italian, and the form, tho tending to breadth and rather under the usual stature, was eminently dignified. His voice, too, was remarkable. I never heard one that more completely united softness and majesty. Here I could have but the shadow of a doubt that I had found Titus; yet I had that shadow. Our meeting in the field, where we had fought hand to hand, gave me no recollection of the man before me. Titus might not even be among the three, and nothing but seizure and ruin could be the consequence of discovering myself to subordinates.

“Good news, it is to be hoped,” said both the listeners together as they deferentially watched his perusal.

“None whatever; a mere private chronicle in the Emperor’s usual style; all kinds of oddities together. He laughs at me for complaining of the want of intelligence from Rome, and says that unless we send him some, the politicians of the city will die of emptiness or raise a rebellion; and that he is the most ill-used personage in the empire in being obliged to supply brains for so many blockheads and keep up the reputation of an honest man in the midst of so many knaves. But he mentions, and for that I am deeply grateful, that he has just erected the golden statue, which I vowed so long ago to the memory of my unfortunate friend Britannicus, and is about to dedicate a bronze equestrian one to me, to be placed in the Circus. He concludes the epistle by saying that unless the British insurrection speedily blows over, he shall be a beggar, and must turn tribune for a livelihood; defends his impracticable manuscript, which, he says, I am imitating as fast as I can, and repeats his old jest, that if I were not born to be a prince and an idler, I might have made my bread by my talents for forgery.”

His hearers repaid the imperial merriment by its full tribute of loyal laughter.

Doubt was now at an end, and I advanced. My step roused the party, and they started up, drawing their swords. But the quick eye of Titus recognized me, and satisfying his companions by a gesture, I heard him pronounce to them: “My antagonist, the prince of Naphtali.”

There was no time for ceremony, and I addressed him at once.

“Son of Vespasian, you are a soldier, and know what is due to the brave. I come to solicit your mercy; it is the first time that I ever stooped to solicit man. My brother, a chieftain of Israel, is in your hands, condemned to the horrid death of the cross; he is virtuous, brave, and noble; save him, and you will do an act of justice more honorable to your name than the bloodiest victory.”

Titus looked at me in silence, and was evidently perplexed; then he returned to his chair, and having consulted with his companions, hesitatingly said:

“Prince, you know not what you have asked. I am bound, like others, by the Emperor’s commands, and they strictly are, that none of your countrymen, taken after the offer of peace, must live.”

“Hear this, God of Israel!” I cried; “King of Vengeance, hear and remember!”

“You are rash, prince,” said Titus gravely; “yet I can forgive your national temper. With others, even your venturing here might bring you into hazard. But the perfidy of your people makes truce and treaty impossible. They leave me no alternative. I lament the necessity. It is the desire of the illustrious Vespasian to reign in peace. But this is now at an end.”

He paused, and advancing toward me, offered his hand with the words: “I know that there are brave and high-minded men among your nation. I have been astonished at the valor, nay, I will call it the daring and heroic contempt of suffering and death, that this siege has already shown. I have been witness, too,” and he smiled, “of the prince of Naphtali’s prowess in the field, and I would most willingly have such among my friends.”

I waited for the conclusion.

“Why not come among us,” he said; “give up a resistance that must end in ruin; abandon a cause that all the world sees to be desperate; save yourself from popular caprice, the violence of your rancorous factions, and the final fall of your city? Be Cæsar’s friend, and name what possession, power, or rank you will.”

The thought of deserting the cause of Jerusalem was profanation. I drew back and looked at the majestic Roman as if I saw the original tempter before me.

“Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man; I may in the next be an exile or a slave. I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of man; I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning, the cause of the City of Holiness.”

The picture of her ruin rose before my eyes, and tears forced their way; my strength was dissolved; my voice was choked. The Romans fixed their looks on the ground, affected by the sincerity of a soldier’s sorrow. I took the hand that was again offered.

“Titus! in the name of that Being to whom the wisdom of the earth is folly, I adjure you to beware. Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought her misery—often has she been trampled by the armies of the stranger. But she is still the City of the Omnipotent, and never was blow inflicted on her by man that was not terribly repaid. Hear me a moment.”

Titus stood at this, and I continued:

“The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the world; he plundered her Temple and led her people into captivity. How long was it before his empire was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and an enemy on his throne? The Persian came; from her protector he turned into her oppressor, and his empire was swept away like the dust of the desert! The Syrian smote her; the smiter died in agonies of remorse, and where is his kingdom now? The Egyptian smote her, and who now sits on the throne of the Ptolemies? Pompey came—the invincible conqueror of a thousand cities, the light of Rome, the lord of Asia riding on the very wings of victory. But he profaned her Temple, and from that hour he went down—down, like a millstone plunged into the ocean! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish fears were upon the great statesman and warrior of Rome. Where does he sleep? What sands were colored with his blood? The universal conqueror died a slave by the hands of a slave! Crassus came at the head of the legions; he plundered the sacred vessels of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him, and he was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the bones of the robber, and his host? Go tear them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of Parthia—their fitting tomb!

“You, too, son of Vespasian, may be commissioned for the punishment of a stiff-necked and rebellious people. You may scourge our naked vice by the force of arms; and then you may return to your own land, exulting in the conquest of the fiercest enemy of Rome. But shall you escape the common fate of the instrument of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface the memory of your virtues, and make Rome in bitterness of soul curse the Flavian name?”

Titus grew pale, and shuddering, covered his eyes with his mantle. His companions stood gazing on me with the aspect of men gazing on the messenger of fate.

“Spare Eleazar,” was all that I could utter.

Titus made a sign to a tribune, who flew to bear, if not too late, the command of mercy.

While we continued in a silence that none of us felt inclined to break, a door opened behind me and an officer entered. It was Septimius. I seized him by the throat.

“Villain!” I cried, “give me back my child; base hypocrite! give up my innocent daughter. Where have you taken her? Lead me to her, or die!”

Titus rose, in evident surprise and indignation.

“What do I hear, Septimius? Have you been guilty of this offense? Prince, let him loose until his general shall hear what he has to say for himself.”

Septimius affected the most extreme and easy ignorance.

“Most noble Titus, I have to thank you for having saved my neck from the grasp of this hasty personage; but beyond that I have nothing to say for myself or any one else. I never saw this man before. I know no more of his daughter than of the queen of Abyssinia, or the three-formed Diana; and by the goddess, I swear that I believe him to be perfectly under her influence, and either a lunatic or a most excellent actor. Be honest, Jew, if you can, and acknowledge that you never saw me before in your life.”

I stood in astonishment; his effrontery struck me dumb.

“You perceive, most noble Titus,” he went on, “how a plain question puts an end to this public accuser’s charges. But in his present state, whether affected or real, he should not be suffered to go at large; suffer me to send him to my quarters, where he shall be guarded, until we at least find out what brought him here.”

“Ingrate,” I exclaimed, “you make me hate human nature! Better that I had left you to be trampled like the viper that you are.”

The dark eye of the general, again turned on Septimius, seemed to require a graver explanation.

“Ingrate!” retorted he. “By Jupiter, the fellow’s insolence is superb. For what should I be grateful? but for my escape from his detestable hands. Very probably he figured among the rabble that would have murdered me as they did the rest of us; grateful, yes, I ought to be for the lesson never to venture within his walls on the faith of the traitors that hold them. But let me be allowed to say, most noble Titus, that you condescend too much in listening to any of this rabble; nay, that you hazard the safety of the state in hazarding your person within the reach of one of a race of assassins.”

Titus smiled, and waved back his companions, who, on the surmise, were approaching him.

“Let me be honored with your commands,” urged Septimius, “to take this person in charge; felon or insane, I shall speedily put him in the way of cure.”

A tribune, breathless with haste, came in at the moment with a letter, which he gave to Titus, and retired to a distant part of the tent to await the answer. The color rose to the Roman’s cheek as he looked over the paper; he showed it to his companions, and then put it into my hand. I read the words:

“An assassin, hired by the chiefs of Jerusalem, yesterday passed the gates. His object is the life of the Roman general. He goes under the pretense of recovering one of his family, supposed to be carried off from the city, but who has never left his house. He has communications with the camp, by which he can enter at pleasure, and the noble Titus can not be too much on his guard.”

The note was in an enclosure from Cestius, stating that it had just been transmitted to him from a high authority in Jerusalem. I flung it on the ground with the scorn due to such an accusation, declaring that it was unnecessary for “my enemy Cestius to have put his name to a document which so easily revealed its writer.”

“You, of course, Septimius,” said the general, fixing his penetrating gaze on him, “could know nothing of this letter.”

Septimius entered on his defense with seriousness, and showed that from the time and circumstances no share in it could be attached to him. Titus retired a few steps, and having consulted with the officers, who I perceived were unanimous for my being instantly put to death, addressed me in that grave and silver-toned voice which characterized the singular composure of his nature.

“We have exchanged blows and pledges of honor, prince, and I will not suffer myself to believe that a man of your rank and soldiership could stoop to the crime charged here. In truth, were none but personal considerations in question, I should instantly set you free. But there are weighty interests connected with my life, which make it seem fitting to my friends and advisers that in all cases precautions should be taken which otherwise I should disdain. To satisfy their minds, and the spirit of the Emperor’s orders, I must detain you for a few days. Your treatment shall be honorable.”

Septimius advanced again to demand my custody, but a look repelled the request, and I was directed to follow one of the secretaries of Titus.

CHAPTER LX
The Treatment of a Prisoner

A troop of cavalry were at the tent door. We set off through the storm, and a few miles from the camp reached a large building peopled with a crowd of high functionaries attached to Titus as governor of Judea.

“You must be a prodigious favorite with the general,” said my companion, as we passed through a range of magnificent rooms furnished with Italian luxury, “or he would never have sent you here. He had these chambers prepared for his own residence, but your countrymen have kept him too busy, and for the last month he is indebted to them for sleeping under canvas.”

I observed that “peace was the first wish of my heart, but that no people could be reproached with contending too boldly for freedom.”

“The sentiment is Roman,” was the reply. “But let us come to the fact. Titus, once fixed in the government, would be worth all the fantasies that ever fed the declaimers on independence. His character is peace, and if he ever comes to the empire, he will make the first of monarchs. You should try him and reap the first fruits of his talent for making people happy. There, look round this room; you see every panel hung with a picture, a lyre, or a volume; what does that tell?”

“Certainly not the habits of a camp; yet he is distinguished in the field.”

“No man more. There is not a rider in the legions who can sit a horse or throw a lance better. He has the talents of a general besides; and more than all, he has the most iron perseverance that ever dwelt in man. If the two armies were to slaughter each other until there was but half a dozen spearmen left between them, Titus would head his remnant and fight until he died. But whether it is nature or the poison that he drank along with Britannicus, he wants the eternal vividness of his father. Aye, there was the soldier for the legions. Look, prince, at this picture,[54] and tell me what you think of the countenance.”

He drew aside a curtain that covered a superb portrait of the Emperor. I saw a countenance of incomparable shrewdness, eccentricity, and self-enjoyment. Every feature told the same tale, from the rounded and dimpled chin to the broad and deeply veined forehead, overhung with its rough mat of hair. The hooked nose, the deep wrinkles about the lips, the thick dark eyebrows, obliquely raised as if some new jest was gathering, showed the perpetual humorist. But the eye beneath that brow—an orb black as charcoal, with a spot of intense brightness in the center, as if a breath could turn that coal into flame—belonged to the supreme sagacity and determination that had raised Vespasian from a tent to the throne.

The secretary, whose jovial character strongly resembled that of the object of his panegyric, could not restrain his admiration.

“There,” said he, “is the man who has fought more battles, said more good things, and taken less physic than any emperor that ever wore the diadem. I served with him from decurion up to tribune, and he was always the same—active, brave, and laughing from morn to night. Old as he is, day never finds him in his bed. He rides, swims, runs, outjests everybody, and frowns at nothing on earth but an old woman and a physician. He loves money, ’tis true; yet what he squeezes from the overgrown, he scatters like a prince. But his mirth is inexhaustible; a little rough, so much for his camp education; but the most curious mixture of justice, spleen, and pleasantry in the world.”

My companion’s memory teemed with examples.

“An Alexandrian governor was ordered to Rome to account for a long course of extortion; immediately on his arrival he pretended to be taken violently ill, which, of course, put off the inquiry. The Emperor heard of this, expressed the greatest interest in so meritorious a public servant, paid him a visit the next day, disguised as a physician, ordered him a variety of medicines, which the unfortunate governor was compelled to take, renewed his visit regularly every day, and every day charged him an enormous fee! Beggary stared the governor in the face, and never was a complication of disorders so rapidly cured!

“I was riding out in his attendance one day a few miles from Rome when we saw a fellow beating his mule cruelly, and on being called to, insisted on his right to torture the animal. I was indignant and would have fought the mule’s quarrel. But the Emperor laughed at my zeal, and after some jesting with the brutal owner, bought the mule, only annexing the condition that the fellow should lead it to the stable; he actually sent him with the mule two hundred and fifty miles on foot, to one of his palaces in Gaul, and with a lictor after him to see that the contract was fairly performed.

“One of his chamberlains had been soliciting a place about court, for, as he said, his brother. The Emperor found out the fact that it was for a stranger, who was to lay down a large sum. He sent for the stranger, ratified the bargain, gave him the place, and put the money in his own pocket. The chamberlain was in great alarm on meeting the Emperor some days after. ‘Your dejection is natural enough,’ said Vespasian, ‘as you have so lately lost your brother; but, then, you should wish me joy, for he has become mine!’

“By the altar of Momus and the brass beard of the god Ridiculous, I could tell you a hundred things of the same kind,” continued the jovial and inexhaustible secretary; “take but one more.

“One of our great patricians, an Æmilian, and as vain and insolent a beast as lives, had ordered a quantity of a particular striped cloth, which it cost the merchant infinite pains to procure. But the great man’s taste had altered in the mean time, and he returned the cloth without ceremony, threatening, besides, that if the merchant made any clamors on the subject, his payment should be six months’ work in the slave-mill. The man, on the verge of ruin, came, tearing his hair and bursting with rage, to lay his complaint before the Emperor, who, however, plainly told him that there was no remedy, but desired him to send a dress of the same cloth to the palace. Within the week the patrician was honored with a message that the Emperor would dine with him, and the message was accompanied with the dress and an intimation that Vespasian wished to make it popular. Rome was instantly ransacked for the cloth, but not a yard of it was to be found but in the merchant’s hands. The patrician’s household must be equipped in it, cost what it would. The dealer, in pleasant revenge, charged ten times the value, and his fortune was made in a day.

“Now Titus, with many a noble quality, is altogether another man. He abhors the Emperor’s rough-hewn jocularity; he speaks Greek better than the Emperor does his own tongue; is a poet, and a clever one besides, in both languages; extemporizes verse with elegance; is no mean performer on the lyre; sings; is a picture-lover, and so forth. I believe from my soul that, with all his talents for war and government, he would rather spend his day over books and his evenings among poets and philosophers, or telling Italian tales to the ears of some of your brilliant orientals, than ride over the world at the head of legions. And now,” said my open-hearted guide, “having betrayed court secrets enough for one day, I must leave you and return to the camp. Here you will spend your time as you please until some decision is come to. The household is at your service, and the officer in command will attend your orders. Farewell!”

Captivity is wretchedness, even if the captive trod on cloth of gold. My treatment was imperial; a banquet that might have feasted a Roman epicure was laid before me; a crowd of attendants, sumptuously habited, waited round the table; music played, perfumes burned, and the whole ceremonial of princely luxury was gone through, as if Titus were present instead of his heart-broken prisoner. But to that prisoner bread and water with freedom would have been the truer luxury.

I wandered through the spacious apartments, dazzled by their splendor and often ready to ask: “Can man be unhappy in the midst of these things?” yet answering the question in the pang of heart which they were so powerless to soothe. I took down the richly blazoned volumes of the Western poets, and while at every line that I unrolled, I felt how much richer were their contents than the gold and gems that encased them, still I felt the inadequacy of even their beauty and vigor to console the spirit stricken by real calamity. I strayed to the crystal casements, through which the sunset had begun to pour in a tide of glory. The landscape was beautiful—a peaceful valley, shut in with lofty eminences, on whose marble foreheads the sunbeams wrought coronets as colored and glittering as ever were set with chrysolite and ruby. The snow was gone as rapidly as it had come, and the green earth, in the freshness of the bright hour, might almost be said “to laugh and sing.” The air came, laden with the fragrance of flowers. There was a light and joyous beauty in even the waving of the shrubs as they shook off the moisture in sparkles at every wave; birds innumerable broke out into song, and fluttered their little wet wings with delight in the sunshine; and the rivulet, still swelled with the snows, ran dimpling and gurgling along with a music of its own.

But the true sadness of the soul is not to be scattered even by the loveliness of external things. I turned from the sun and nature to fling myself on my couch and feel that where a man’s treasure is, there his heart is also.

“What might not in those hours be doing in Jerusalem?” mused I; “what fanatic violence, personal revenge, or public license might not be let loose while I was lingering among the costly vanities of the pagan? My enemy at least was there in the possession of unbridled authority”; and the thought was in itself a history of evil. “And where was Esther, my beloved, the child of my soul, the glowing and magnificent-minded being whose beauty and whose thoughts were scarcely mortal? Might she not be in the last extremity of suffering, upbraiding me for having forgotten my child; or in the hands of robbers, dragging her delicate form through rocks and sands; or dying, without a hand to succor, or a voice to cheer her in the hour of agony?”

Thought annihilates time, and I had lain one day thus sinking from depth to depth, I know not how long, until I was roused by the entrance of the usual endless train of attendants; and the chief steward, a venerable man of my country, whom Titus had generously continued in the office where he found him, came to acquaint me that the banquet awaited my pleasure. The old man wept at the sight of a chieftain of Israel in captivity; his heart was full, and when I had dismissed the attendants with their untasted banquet, he gave way to his recollections.