_In the Lions’ Lair_
[Sidenote: A Beggar’s Signals]
The violence of the beggar’s anguish, and the strong probabilities of his
story, engrossed me so much that I at first regretted the extraordinary
flight which put it out of my power to offer him any assistance. I
returned with a feeling of disappointment to the spot where I had left
my horse, and was riding toward the higher country, to avoid the enemy’s
straggling parties, when I heard a loud outcry. On a crag so distant that
I thought human speed could scarcely have reached it in the time, I saw
this strange being making all kinds of signals, sometimes pointing to me,
then to some object below him, and uttering a cry which might easily be
mistaken for the howl of a wild beast.
[Sidenote: A Secluded Spot]
I reined up; it was impossible for me to ascertain whether he were
warning me of danger or apprising others of my approach. Great stakes
make man suspicious, and the prince of Naphtali, speeding to the
capture of the principal armory of the legions, might be an object well
worth a little treachery. I rapidly forgot the beggar’s sorrows in the
consideration of his habits; decided that his harangue was a piece of
professional dexterity, probably played off every week of his life, and
that if I would not be in Roman hands before night, I must ride in the
precisely opposite direction to that which his signals so laboriously
recommended. Nothing grows with more vigor than the doubt of human
honesty. I satisfied myself in a few moments that I was a dupe, and
dashed through thicket, over rock, forded torrent, and from the top
of an acclivity, at which even my high-mettled steed had looked with
repugnance, saw with the triumph of him who deceives the deceiver, the
increased violence of the impostor’s attitudes. He leaped from crag to
crag with the activity of a goat, and when he could do nothing else,
gave the last evidence of Oriental vexation by tearing his robes. I waved
my hand to him in contemptuous farewell, and dismounting, for the side
of the hill was almost precipitous, led my panting Arab through beds of
wild myrtle, and every lovely and sweet-smelling bloom, to the edge of a
valley that seemed made to shut out every disturbance of man.
A circle of low hills, covered to the crown with foliage, surrounded a
deep space of velvet turf, kept green as the emerald by the moisture of
a pellucid lake in its center, tinged with every color of heaven. The
beauty of this sylvan spot was enhanced by the luxuriant profusion of
almond, orange, and other trees that in every stage of production, from
the bud to the fruit, covered the little knolls below and formed a broad
belt round the lake.
Parched as I was by the intolerable heat, this secluded haunt of the very
spirit of freshness looked doubly lovely. My eyes, half-blinded by the
glare of the sands, and even my mind, exhausted by the perplexities of
the day, found delicious relaxation in the verdure and dewy breath of the
silent valley. My barb, with the quick sense of animals accustomed to the
travel of the wilderness, showed her delight by playful boundings, the
prouder arching of her neck, and the brighter glancing of her eye.
“Here,” thought I, as I led her slowly toward the steep descent, “would
be the very spot for the innocence that had not tried the world, or the
philosophy that had tried it and found all vanity. Who could dream that
within the borders of this distracted land, in the very hearing, almost
within the very sight, of the last miseries that man can inflict on man,
there was a retreat which the foot of man perhaps never yet defiled, and
in which the calamities that afflict society might be as little felt as
if it were among the stars!”
A violent plunge of the barb put an end to my speculation. She exhibited
the wildest signs of terror, snorted and strove to break from me; then
fixing her glance keenly on the thickets below, shook in every limb.
Yet the scene was tranquillity itself; the chameleon lay basking in the
sun, and the only sound was that of the wild doves, murmuring under the
broad leaves of the palm-trees. But my mare still resisted every effort
to lead her downward; her ears were fluttering convulsively; her eyes
were starting from their sockets. I grew peevish at the animal’s unusual
obstinacy, and was about to let her suffer thirst for the day, when I was
startled by a tremendous roar.
A lion stood on the summit which I had but just quitted. He was not a
dozen yards above my head, and his first spring must have carried me to
the bottom of the precipice. The barb burst away at once. I drew the only
weapon I had—a dagger—and hopeless as escape was, grasping the tangled
weeds to sustain my footing, awaited the plunge. But the lordly savage
probably disdained so ignoble a prey, and remained on the summit, lashing
his sides with his tail and tearing up the ground. He at length stopped
suddenly, listened, as to some approaching foot, and then with a hideous
yell, sprang over me, and was in the thicket below at a single bound.
[Sidenote: The Forest Kings]
The whole jungle was instantly alive; the shade which I had fixed on for
the seat of unearthly tranquillity had been an old haunt of lions, and
the mighty herd were now roused from their noonday slumbers. Nothing
could be grander or more terrible than this disturbed majesty of the
forest kings. In every variety of savage passion, from terror to fury,
they plunged, tore, and yelled; dashed through the lake, burst through
the thicket, rushed up the hills, or stood baying and roaring in
defiance, as if against a coming invader; their numbers were immense, for
the rareness of shade and water had gathered them from every quarter of
the desert.
[Sidenote: A Savage Conflict]
While I stood clinging to my perilous hold, and fearful of attracting
their gaze by the slightest movement, the source of the commotion
appeared, in the shape of a Roman soldier issuing, spear in hand, through
a ravine at the farther side of the valley. He was palpably unconscious
of the formidable place into which he was entering, and the gallant
clamor of voices through the hills showed that he was followed by others
as bold and as unconscious of their danger as himself. But his career
was soon closed; his horse’s feet had scarcely touched the turf, when
a lion was fixed with fang and claw on the creature’s loins. The rider
uttered a cry of horror, and for an instant sat helplessly gazing at the
open jaws behind him. I saw the lion gathering up his flanks for a second
bound, but the soldier, a figure of gigantic strength, grasping the
nostrils of the monster with one hand, and with the other shortening his
spear, drove the steel at one resistless thrust into the lion’s forehead.
Horse, lion, and rider fell, and continued struggling together.
In the next moment a mass of cavalry came thundering down the ravine.
They had broken off from their march, through the accident of rousing a
straggling lion, and followed him in the giddy ardor of the chase. But
the sight now before them was enough to appal the boldest intrepidity.
The valley was filled with the vast herd; retreat was impossible, for
the troopers came still pouring in by the only pass, and from the sudden
descent of the glen, horse and man were rolled head foremost among the
lions; neither man nor monster could retreat.
The conflict was horrible; the heavy spears of the legionaries plunged
through bone and brain; the lions, made more furious by wounds, sprang
upon the powerful horses and tore them to the ground, or flew at the
troopers’ throats, and crushed and dragged away cuirass and buckler.
The valley was a struggling heap of human and savage battle; man, lion,
and charger writhing and rolling in agonies until their forms were
undistinguishable. The groans and cries of the legionaries, the screams
of the mangled horses, and the roars and howlings of the lions, bleeding
with sword and spear, tearing the dead, darting up the sides of the hills
in terror, and rushing down again with the fresh thirst of gore, baffled
all conception of fury and horror. But man was the conqueror at last; the
savages, scared by the spear, and thinned in their numbers, made a rush
in one body toward the ravine, overthrew everything in their way, and
burst from the valley, awaking the desert for many a league with their
roar.
[Illustration: “The lions, made more furious by wounds, sprang upon the
powerful horses.”
[_see page 208._
Copyright, 1901, by Funk & Wagnalls Company, N. Y. and London.]
The troopers, bitterly repenting their rash exploit, gathered up the
remnants of their dead on litters of boughs, and leaving many a gallant
steed to feast the vultures, slowly retired from the place of carnage.
The spot to which I clung made ascent or descent equally difficult, and
during their extraordinary contest I continued embedded in the foliage,
and glad to escape the eye of man and brute alike. But the troop were now
gone; beneath me lay nothing but a scene of blood, and I began to wind my
way to the summit. A menace from below stopped me. A solitary horseman
had galloped back to give a last look to this valley of death; he saw me
climbing the hill, saw that I was not a Roman, and in the irritation of
the hour, made no scruple of sacrificing a native to the manes of his
comrades. The spear followed his words and plowed the ground at my side.
His outcry brought back a dozen of his squadron; I found myself about to
be assailed by a general discharge. Escape on foot was impossible, and I
had no resource but to be speared, or to descend and give myself up to
the soldiery.
[Sidenote: Salathiel Captured]
It was to warn me of this hazard that the signals of my strange companion
were made. He saw the advance of the Roman column along the plain. My
suspicions of his honesty drove me directly into their road, and the
chance of turning down the valley scarcely retarded the capture. On
my first emerging from the hills, I must have been taken. However, my
captors were in unusual ill-temper. As an Arab, too poor to be worth
plundering or being made prisoner, I should have met only a sneer or
an execration and been turned loose; but the late disaster made the
turban and haik odious, and I was treated with the wrath due to a fellow
conspirator of the lions. To my request that I should be suffered to
depart in peace on my business, the most prompt denial was given; the
story that I told to account for my travel in the track of the column
was treated with the simplest scorn; I was pronounced a spy, and fairly
told that my head was my own only till I gave the procurator whatever
information it contained.
Yet I found one friend, in this evil state of my expedition. My barb,
which I had given up for lost in the desert, or torn by the wild beasts,
appeared on the heights overhanging our march, and by snuffing the
wind, and bounding backward and forward through the thickets, attracted
general attention. I claimed her, and the idea that the way-sore and
rough-clothed prisoner could be the master of so noble an animal, raised
scorn to its most peremptory pitch. In turn I demanded permission to
prove my right, and called the barb. The creature heard the voice with
the most obvious delight, bounded toward me, rubbed her head against me,
and by every movement of dumb joy showed that she had found her master.
[Sidenote: A Jovial Captain]
Still my requests for dismissal were idle; I talked to the winds; the
rear squadrons of the column were in sight; there was no time to be
lost. I was suffered to mount the barb, but her bridle was thrown across
the neck of one of the troopers’ horses, and I was marched along to
death, or a tedious captivity. My blood boiled when I thought of what
was to be done before the dawn. How miserable a proof had I given of the
vigilance and vigor that were to claim the command of armies! I writhed
in every nerve. My agitation at length caught the eye of a corpulent old
captain, whose good-humored visage was colored by the deepest infusion
of the grape. His strong Thracian charger was a movable magazine of
the choicest Falernian; out of every crevice of his pack-saddle and
accouterments peeped the head of a flask; and to judge by his frequent
recourse to his stores, no man was less inclined to carry his baggage for
nothing. Popularity, too, attended upon the captain, and a group of young
patricians attached to the procurator’s court were content to abate of
their rank, and ride along with the old soldier, in consideration of his
better knowledge of the grand military science, providing for the road.
In the midst of some camp story, which the majority received with peals
of applause, the captain glanced upon me, and asking “whether I was not
ill,” held out his flask. I took it, and never did I taste draught so
delicious. Thirst and hunger are the true secrets of luxury. I absolutely
felt new life rushing into me with the wine.
[Sidenote: The Haughtiness of a Tribune]
“There,” said the old man, “see how the fellow’s eye sparkles. Falernian
is the doctor, after all. I have had no other those forty years. For
hard knocks, hard watches, and hard weather, there is nothing like the
true juice of the vine. Try it again, Arab.”
I declined the offer in civil terms.
“There,” said he, “it has made the man eloquent. By Hercules, it would
make his mare speak. And now that I look at her, she is as prettily made
a creature as I have seen in Syria; her nose would fit in a drinking-cup.
What is her price, at a word?”
I answered that “she was not to be sold.”
“Well, well, say no more about it,” replied the jovial old man; “I know
you Arabs make as much of a mare as of a child, and I never meddle in
family affairs.”
A haughty-looking tribune, covered with embroidery and the other
coxcombry of the court soldier, spurred his charger between us and
uttered with a sneer:
“What, captain, by Venus and all the Graces! giving this beggar a lecture
in philosophy or a lesson in politeness? If you will not have the mare, I
will. Dismount, slave!”
The officers gathered to the front, to see the progress of the affair. I
sat silent.
“Slave! do you hear? Dismount! You will lose nothing, for you will steal
another in the first field you come to.”
“I know but one race of robbers in Judea,” replied I.
The old captain reined up beside me, and said in a whisper: “Friend, let
him have the mare. He will pay you handsomely, and besides, he is the
nephew of the procurator. It will not be wise in you to put him in a
passion.”
“That fellow never shall have her, tho he were to coin these sands into
gold,” replied I.
“Do you mean to call us robbers?” said the tribune, with a lowering eye.
“Do you mean to stop me on the high-road and take my property from me,
yet expect that I shall call you anything else?” was the answer.
“Sententious rogues, those Arabs! Every soul of them has a point, or a
proverb, on his tongue,” murmured the captain to the group of young men,
who were evidently amused at seeing their unpopular companion entangled
with me.
[Sidenote: The Tribune’s Rage]
“Slave!” said the tribune fiercely, “we must have no more of this. You
have been found lurking about the camp. Will you be hanged for a spy?”
“A spy!” said I—and the insult probably colored my cheek; “a spy has no
business among the Romans.”
“So,” observed the captain, “the Arab seems to think that our proceedings
are in general pretty palpable: slay, strip, and burn.” He turned to the
patrician tribune. “The fellow is not worth our trouble. Shall I let him
go about his business?”
“Sir,” said the tribune angrily, “it is your business to command your
troop and be silent.”
The old man bit his lip, and fell back to the line of his men. My taunter
reined up beside me again.
“Do you know, robber, that I can order you to be speared on the spot for
your lies?”
“No, for I have told you nothing but the truth of both of us. Such an
order, too, would only prove that men will often bid others do what they
dare not touch with a finger of their own.”
The officers, offended at the treatment of their old favorite, burst into
a laugh. The coxcomb grew doubly indignant.
“Strip the hound!” exclaimed he to the soldiers; “it is money that makes
him insolent.”
“Nature has done it, at least for one of us, without the expense of a
mite,” replied I calmly.
“Off with his turban! Those fellows carry coin in every fold of it.”
The officers looked at each other in surprise; the captain hardly
suppressed a contemptuous execration between his lips. The very troopers
hesitated.
“Soldiers!” said I, in the same unaltered tone, “I have no gold in my
turban. An Arab is seldom one of those—the outside of whose head is
better worth than the inside.”
The perfumed and curled locks of the tribune, surmounted by a helmet,
sculptured and plumed in the most extravagant style, caught every eye;
and the shaft, slight as it was, went home.
[Sidenote: The Tribune’s Defeat]
“I’ll pluck the robber off his horse by the beard!” exclaimed the
tribune, spurring his horse upon me and advancing his hand.
I threw open my robe, grasped my dagger, and sternly pronounced: “There
is an oath in our line that the man who touches the beard of an Arab
dies.”
He was not prepared for the action, hesitated, and finally wheeled from
me. The old captain burst out into an involuntary huzza.
“Take the beggar to the camp,” said the tribune, as he rode away, “I hate
all scoundrels”; and he glanced round the spectators.
“Then,” exclaimed I, after him, as a parting blow, “you have at least one
virtue, for you can never be charged with self-love.”
This woman-war made me popular on the spot. The tribune had no sooner
turned his horse’s head than the officers clustered together in laughter.
Even the iron visages of the troopers relaxed into grim smiles. The old
jocular captain was the only one still grave.
[Sidenote: An Unpleasant Interview]
“There rides not this day under the canopy of heaven,” murmured he, “a
greater puppy than Caius Sempronius Catulus, tribune of the thirteenth
legion by his mother’s morals and the Emperor’s taste. Why did not the
coxcomb stay at home, and show off his trappings among the supper-eaters
of the Palatine? He might have powdered his ringlets with gold-dust,
washed his hands in rose-water, and perfumed his handkerchief with myrrh
as well there as here, for he does nothing else—except,” and he clenched
the heavy hilt of his falchion, “insult men who have seen more battles
than he has seen years, who knew better service than bowing in courts,
and the least drop of whose blood is worth all that will ever run in his
veins. But I have not done with him yet. As for you, friend,” said he, “I
am sorry to stop you on your way; but as this affair will be magnified by
that fool’s tongue, you must be brought to the procurator. However, the
camp is only a few miles off; you will be asked a few questions, and then
left to follow your will.”
He little dreamed how I recoiled from that interview.
To shorten the time of my delay, the good-natured old man ordered
the squadron to mend their pace, and in half an hour we saw the noon
encampment of my sworn enemy, lifting its white tops and scarlet flags
among the umbrage of a forest, deep in the valley at our feet.