_The Fury of a Tempest_
At length the past returned to my mind. Dim recollections, shadows
that alternately advanced and eluded me, sketches of forms and events,
like pictures unfinished by the pencil, lay before me, colorless and
undefined. But day by day the outlines grew more complete, the figures
assumed a body, they lived—they moved—they uttered sounds; and while to
other eyes I was a solitary and hopeless fugitive from human converse,
to my own I was surrounded by a circle of all that I loved, yet with a
continued sense of privation, a mysterious feeling of something imperfect
in the indulgence that dashed my cup with bitterness.
[Sidenote: Salathiel Further Wanders]
With the increase of my strength, I became a wanderer to great distances
among the mountains. No persuasion of my kinsmen could restrain me from
those excursions. The mildness of a climate in which the population
sleep in the open air, and the abundance of fruits, met the two chief
difficulties of traveling. I felt an irresistible impulse to penetrate
the mountain ranges that rose in chains of purple and azure before me.
With the artifice of the diseased mind, I made my few preparations in
secret, and with but scrip and staff, marched forth to tread hill and
valley, city and desert, were it to the last limit of the globe.
Through what diversities of scene or impediments of road I passed no
recollection remains with me. The same instinct which guides the bird
led me to the fruit-tree and the stream, taught me where to shelter for
the night, and gave me sagacity enough for the avoidance of the habitual
dangers of a route seldom tried but by the wolf and the robber.
My frame, gradually invigorated by exercise, bore me through all,
and I scaled the chain of Libanus with an unwearied foot. There I
reached the skirts of a region where the snow scarcely melts, even in
the burning summer of Syria. The falling of the leaf and the furious
blasts that burst through the ravines told me that I had spent months
in my pilgrimage, and that I must brave winter on its throne. Still I
persevered. I felt a new excitement in the new difficulty of the season;
I longed to try my power of endurance against the storm, to wrestle with
the whirlwind, to baffle the torrent. The very sight of the snow, as it
began to sheet the sides of the lower hills, gave me a vague idea of a
brighter realm of existence; it united the pinnacles with the clouds; the
noble promontories and forest-covered eminences no longer rose in stern
contrast with the sky; they were dipped in celestial blue; they wore
the silvery and sparkling luster of the morning skies; they blushed in
the effulgence of the sunset, with as rich a crimson as the cloud that
crowned them.
[Sidenote: In Sight of the Groves of Lebanon]
But all was not fantastic vision. From the summit of one of those hills
I saw what was then worth a pilgrimage through half the world to see,
the cedar grove of Lebanon.[21] After a day of unusual fatigue and
perplexity, I had found my path blocked up by a perpendicular pile of
rock. To all but myself the difficulty might have been impracticable;
but my habits had given me the spring and sinew of a panther; I bounded
against the marble, and after long effort, by the help of weeds and
scattered roots of the wild vines, climbed my perilous way to the summit.
An endless range of Syria lay beneath; the sea and the wilderness gleamed
on my left and right; and a rich succession of dells, crowded with the
date, the olive, and the grape, in their autumnal dyes, spread out before
me, as far as the eye could reach, in a land whose air is pure as crystal.
A sound of trumpets and wild harmonies arose, and I discovered, at an
almost viewless depth below, a concourse of people moving through the
hollows of the mountains. The tendency of man to man is irresistible;
and that unexpected sight, where but the wild beast and the eagle were
to have been my companions, gave me the first sensation of pleasure that
I had long experienced. Bounding from rock to rock with a hazardous
rapidity which arrested the crowd in astonishment and alarm, I joined
them, just in time to see the shafts and slings laid down, which they had
prepared for my coming, in the uncertainty whether I were a wolf or the
leader of a troop of mountain robbers!
[Sidenote: On Scriptural Ground]
They formed one of the many caravans which annually gathered from the
shores of the Mediterranean to worship at Lebanon. Their homage to
sacred groves had been transmitted from the earliest antiquity, and was
universal in the realms of paganism. To the Jew, worship on the hill and
under the tree was prohibited; but the forest that Solomon had chosen,
the trees of which the first Temple was built, the foliage which shaded
the first planters of the earth, must to the descendant of Abraham be
full of reverent interest. The ground was Scriptural; the fiery string
of the prophet Ezekiel had been struck in its praise; the noblest
raptures of our poets celebrated the glory of Lebanon; the names of the
surrounding landscape recalled lofty and lovely memories; the vale of
EDEN led to the mountain of the Cedars!
To my fellow-travelers, traditions tinged by the fervid coloring of the
Oriental fancy heightened the native power of the spot. On the summits
of the trees were said to descend at appointed times those ministering
spirits whose purpose is to rectify the ways of man. There stooped on the
wing the bearers of the sword against the evil monarchs; there brooded
the angel of the tempest; there the invisible ruler of the pestilence
blew with his breath and nations sickened; there, in night and in the
interval of storms, was heard the trumpet that, before kings dreamed
of quarrel, announced the collision of guilty empires for their common
ruin. The violation of the grove was supposed to be visited with the most
inexorable calamity; the hand that cut down a tree for any ordinary use
withered from the body; all misfortunes fell upon the man; his wealth
disappeared, his children died in their prime; if life was suffered
to linger in himself, it was only to perpetuate the warning of his
punishment. Yet, there were gentler distinctions mingled with those stern
attributes. Above the hill was the pagan entrance to the skies. Once in
the year, the celestial gate rolled back on its golden hinges to sounds
surpassing mortal music; the heavens dropped balm; the prayer offered on
that night reached at once the supreme throne; the tear was treasured in
the volume of light, and the worshiper who died before the envious coming
of the morn ascended to a felicity, earned by others only through the
tardy trial of the grave! Even the river, which ran round the mountain’s
foot, bore its share of virtue; its water, unpolluted by the decays of
autumn or the turbidness of winter, showed the preservative power of a
superior spell; it was entitled the Holy Stream, and sealed vessels of
its water were sent even to India and Italy as presents of health and
sanctity to kings, gifts worthy of kings.
[Sidenote: A Caravan of Worshipers]
When we entered the last defile, the minstrels and singers of the caravan
commenced a pæan. Altars fumed from various points of the chasm above and
the Syrian priests were seen in their robes performing the empty rites of
idolatry. I turned away from this perversion of human reason, and pressed
forward through the lingering multitude until the forest rose in its
majesty before me.
[Sidenote: The Woodland Temple]
My step was now checked in solemn admiration. I saw the earliest products
of the earth—the patriarchs of the vegetable world. The first generation
of the reviving globe had sat beneath these green and lovely arches;
the final generation was to sit beneath them. No roof so noble ever
rose above the heads of monarchs, tho it were covered with gold and
diamonds! The forest had been greatly impaired in its extent and beauty
by the sacrilegious hand of war. The perpetual conflicts of the Syrian
and Egyptian dynasties had laid the ax to it with remorseless violation.
It once spread over the whole range of the mountains; its diminished
strength now, like the relics of a mighty army, made its stand among the
central fortresses of its native region; and there majestically bade
defiance to the further assault of steel and fire. The forms of the
trees seemed made for duration; the trunks were of prodigious thickness,
smooth and round as pillars of marble; some rising to a great height,
and throwing out a vast level roof of foliage; some dividing into a
cluster of trunks, and with their various heights of branch and leaf
making a succession of verdurous caves; some propagating themselves by
circles of young cedars, risen where the fruit had dropped upon the
ground; the whole bearing the aspect of a colossal temple of nature—the
shafted column, the deep arch, the solid buttresses, branching off into
the richest caprices of Oriental architecture, the solemn roof, high
above, pale, yet painted by the strong sunlight through the leaves with
transparent and tesselated dyes, various as the colors of the Indian loom.
In the momentary feeling of awe and of wonder, I could comprehend why
paganism loved to worship under the shade of forests and why the poets
of paganism filled that shade with the presence of deities. The airy
whisperings, the deep loneliness, the rich twilight, were the very food
of mystery. Even the forms that towered before the eye, those ancient
trees, the survivors of the general law of mortality, gigantic, hoary,
covered with their weedy robes, bowing their aged heads in the blast,
and uttering strange sounds and groanings in the struggle, gave to the
high-wrought superstition of the time the images of things unearthly; the
oracle, and the God! Or, was this impression but the obscure revival of
one of those lovely truths that shone upon the days of Paradise when man
drew knowledge from its fount in nature, and all but his own passions
were disclosed to the first-born of creation?
The caravan encamped in the depth of the valley, and the grove was soon
crowded with worshipers, in whose homage I could take no share. Fires
were lighted on the large stones, which had for ages served the purpose
of altars; and the names of the Syrian idols were shouted and sung in the
fierce exultation of a worship but slightly purified from its original
barbarism. As the night fell, I withdrew to the entrance of the defile
and gave a last glance at Lebanon. In the grove, filled with fires, and
echoing with wild music and dances of riot, I saw the emblem of my fallen
country; the holiness, old as the memory of nations, profaned; yet the
existence preserved, and still to be preserved; Israel, once throned upon
its mountains, now diminished of its beauty, to be yet more diminished,
but to live when all else perished; to be restored, and to cover its
native hills again with glory. I buried my face in my robe, and throwing
myself down by the skirt of one of the tents, gave way to meditations,
sweet and bitter. They passed into my sleep and I was once more in the
bosom of my family.
[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Demand]
I heard my name pronounced! I listened; the name of my wife followed. I
looked to the sky, to the forest, to convince me that this was no mockery
of the diseased mind. I was fully awake. I lifted up the corner of the
tent. Savage figures were sitting over their cups, inflamed into quarrel;
and, in the midst of high words and execrations, I heard their story.
They were robbers from Mount Amanus,[22] come equally to purify their
hands by offering sacrifice at Lebanon, and to recompense themselves
for their lost time by robbing on the way home. The quarrel had arisen
from the proposal of one of them to extend their expedition into Judea,
a proposal which he sustained by mentioning the success of his previous
enterprises. My name was again sent from mouth to mouth, and I found that
it was inscribed on some jewel which formed a part of his plunder. The
thought struck me that this might afford a clue. I burst into the tent
and demanded tidings of my wife and children. The ruffians started, as if
in the presence of a specter.
“Where,” I repeated, “are my family? I am Salathiel!”
“Safe enough,” said the foremost.
“Are they alive?” I cried; “lead me where they are, and you shall have
whatever ransom you desire.”
The ruffian laughed. “Why, as for ransom, all the money has been made
by them that is likely to be made for some time, unless the Greek that
bought them repents of his bargain.”
The speech was received with loud laughter. I grew furious.
“Villains, you have murdered them. Tell me the whole—show me where they
lie, or I will deliver you up to the chief of the caravan as robbers and
murderers.”
They were appalled; with a single stride I was at the throat of the
leading ruffian, and seized the jewel; it was my bridal present to
Miriam! My hand trembled, my eyes grew dim at the glance. But in the next
moment I found myself pinioned, a gag forced into my mouth, a cloak flung
over me, and I heard the discussion—whether I was to be stabbed on the
spot, left to die of famine, or have my tongue cut out, and thus unfitted
for telling secrets, be turned to gain and sold for a slave.
[Sidenote: In Search of a Family]
But this was not to be my lot. The quarrel of the banditti increased with
their wine; blows were given; the solitary lamp was thrown down in the
conflict; it caught some combustible matter, and the tent was in a blaze.
By a violent exertion I loosened the cords from my arms, and in the
confusion fled unseen. The fire spread, and my last glance at the valley
showed the encampment turned into a sheet of fire. Alone, and exhausted
with deadly fatigue, I yet had but one thought, that of seeking my family
through the world. I wandered on through the vast range of wild country
that guards Syria on the side of the desert. I was parched by the burning
noon, I was frozen by the keen winds of night; I hungered and thirsted,
yet the determination was strong as death, and I persevered. I at length
reached the foot of Mount Amanus, traversed the chain, saw from it the
interminable plains of Asia Minor, the desert of Aleppo, the shores
of Tripoli, and was then left only to choose in which I should again
commence my hopeless pilgrimage.
There is something in great distress of mind that throws a strange
protection round the sufferer. I passed the Roman guards unquestioned—the
robber left me without inquiring whether I was worth his dagger. The
wolves, driven down by famine, and devouring all else that had life,
neglected the banquet that I might have supplied. Yet I shrank from
nothing, and marched on through city, cave and forest. But one evening
the sky was loaded with a tempest that drove even me to seek for shelter.
I found it in one of the caverns, that so often scare the mariner’s eye,
on the iron-bound shore of Cilicia.
Fatigue soon threw me into a heavy slumber. The weight of the tempest
toward midnight roused me, and from the mouth of the cavern I gazed
on the lightning that disclosed at every explosion the sea rolling in
foaming ridges before the gale. In the intervals of the gusts I heard,
to my surprise, the murmur of many voices, apparently in prayer, close
beside me. But all my interest was suddenly fixed on the sea by the sight
of a large war-galley running before the wind. She had neither sail nor
oar. Her masts were gone and but for the crowd of people on her deck,
whose distracted attitudes I could clearly see by the flashes, she looked
a floating tomb.
[Sidenote: The Rescue in a Tempest]
To warn the galley of the nearness of the shore, I gathered the brushwood
beside me, and set it on fire. A shout from the crew told that my signal
was understood, and I rushed down the bed of a stream that fretted its
way through the precipice. Before I reached the shore, I saw various
fires blazing above, and many figures hurrying down on a purpose like my
own. We had not arrived too soon. The galley, after desperate efforts to
keep the sea, had run for an inlet of the rocks and was embayed; surge
on surge, each higher than the one before, now rolled over the ill-fated
vessel, and each swept some portion of her crew into the deep. We rushed
into the waves and had succeeded in drawing many to shore when a broader
burst, the concentrated force of the tempest, thundered on the galley;
she was broken into splinters. Stunned and half-suffocated with the
surge, I grasped, in the mere instinct of self-preservation, at whatever
was nearest and, through infinite hazard, reached the shore with a body
in my arms. Need I tell my terror, anxiety, hope, and joy when I found
that this being, whom I saw at length breathing, moving, pronouncing my
name, falling on my neck, was Miriam!
[Sidenote: Among Robbers]
My daughters, too, were rescued. The nearness of the shore saved the
crew, who, until they saw the fire on the rocks, had given themselves up
to despair. The chance of help led them to steer close inland, and I was
congratulated as the general preserver. Miriam’s story was brief. Our
dwelling had been surrounded by a troop of robbers. The household were
surprised in their sleep. Resistance was vain; the rest was plunder
and captivity. The robbers, fearful of pursuit, took the road to the
mountains at full speed. My wife and daughters were treated with unusual
care, lest their beauty should be injured, and thus their value in the
slave-market of Tripoli impaired. As the robber told me, they had been
purchased by a merchant of Cyprus, and by him conveyed to his island to
be sold to some more opulent master. There they were redeemed by an act
of equal generosity and valor, and were returning to Judea when they were
overtaken by the storm.