_A Man of Mystery_
The movement of the Roman mission through the plain was marked by loud
shouts. As it approached the gates, our little council descended from
the temple porch to meet it, where one of the open places in the center
of the city was appointed for the conference. The applauding roar of the
people followed the troops through the streets, and when the tribunes
and senators entered the square, and gave us the right hand of amity,
universal acclamation shook the air. A gleam of joy revisited my heart,
and I was on the point of ascending an elevation in the center, to
announce the terms of this fortunate armistice, when to my astonishment I
saw the spot preoccupied.
[Sidenote: An Intruder]
Whence came the intruder no one could tell, but there he stood, a
figure that fixed the universal eye. He was of gigantic stature, brown
as an Indian, and thin as one worn to the last extremity by disease or
famine. Conjecture was busy. He seemed alternately the fugitive from a
dungeon—one of the half-savage recluses that sometimes came from their
dens in the wilderness, to exhibit among us the last humiliation of
mind and body—a dealer in forbidden arts, attempting to impose on the
credulity of the populace, and a prophet armed with the fearful knowledge
of our approaching fall. To me there was an expression in his countenance
that partook of all; yet there was a something different from all in
the glaring eye, the livid scorn of the lip, and the wild and yet grand
outline of features which appeared alike overflowing with malignity and
majesty.
[Sidenote: The Tempest of a Soul]
No man thought of interrupting him. A powerful interest hushed every
voice of the multitude, and the only impulse was eagerness to hear the
lofty wisdom or the fatal tidings that must be deposited with such a
being. He himself seemed to be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the
thoughts that he was commissioned to disclose. He stood for a while with
the look of one oppressed by a fearful dream, his bosom heaving, his
teeth gnashing, every muscle of his meager frame swelling and quivering.
He clasped his bony arms across his breast, as if to repress the
agitation that impeded his words; he stamped on the ground, in apparent
wrath at the faculties which thus sank under him at the important moment;
at last the tempest of his soul broke forth:
“Judah! thou wert as a lion—thou wert as the king of the forest, when he
went up to the mountains to slay, and from the mountains came down to
devour. Thou wert as the garden of Eden; every precious stone was thy
covering; the sardine, the topaz, and the beryl were thy pavements; thy
fountains were of silver, and thy daughters who walked in thy groves were
as the cherubim and the seraphim.
“Judah! thy temple was glorious as the sun-rising, and thy priests were
the wise of the earth. Kings came against thee, and their bones were an
offering; the fowls of the air devoured them; the foxes brought their
young, and feasted them upon the mighty.
“Judah! thou wert as a fire in the midst of the nations—a fire upon an
altar; who shall quench thee? A sword over the neck of the heathen; who
shall say unto thee, Smite no more! Thou wert as the thunder and the
lightning; thou camest from thy place, and the earth was dark. Thou didst
thunder, and the nations shook, and the fire of thy indignation consumed
them.”
The voice in which this extraordinary being uttered those words was like
the thunder. The multitude listened with breathless awe. The appeal was
to them a renewal of the times of inspiration, and they awaited with
outstretched hands and quivering countenances the sentence that their
passions interpreted into the will of Heaven.
The figure lifted up his glance, which had hitherto been fixed on the
ground; and whether it was the work of fancy or reality, I thought that
the glance threw an actual beam of fire across the upturned visages of
the myriads that filled every spot on which a foot could rest—roof, wall,
and ground.
Bowing his head, and raising his hands in the most solemn adoration
toward the Temple, he pursued, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, yet
indescribably impressive:
“Sons of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob! people elect and holy! will you
suffer that house of holiness to be the scoff of the idolater? Will you
see the polluted sacrifice laid upon its altars? Will you be slaves in
the presence of the house of David?”
[Sidenote: The Outcry of the Multitude]
A rising outcry of the multitude showed how deeply they felt his words. A
fierce smile lightened across his features at the sound. He erected his
colossal form, and cried out like the roar of a whirlwind:
“Then, men of Judah! be strong, and follow the hand that led you through
the sea and through the desert. Is that hand shortened that it cannot
save? Break off this accursed league with the sons of Belial. Fly every
man to arms, for the glory of the mighty people. Go, and let the sword
that smote the Canaanite smite the Roman.”
He was answered with furious exultation. Swords and poniards were
brandished in the air. The safety of the Roman officers became
endangered, and I, with some of the elders, dreading a result which
must throw fatal obstacles in the way of pacification, attempted to
control the popular violence by reason and entreaty. But the spirit of
the Romans, haughty with conquest and long contempt of the multitude,
disdained to take precautions with a mob, and they awaited with palpable
contempt the subsiding of this city effervescence. This silent scorn,
which probably stung the deeper for its silence, was retorted to by
clamors of unequivocal rage. The mysterious disturber saw the storm
coming, and flinging a furious gesture toward the Roman camps, which lay
glittering in the sunshine along the hills, he rushed into the loftiest
language of malediction.
“Take up a lament for the Roman,” he shouted. “He comes like a leviathan;
he troubleth the waters with his presence, and the rivers behold him and
are afraid.
[Sidenote: The Prophecy of Doom]
“Thus saith the king, He who holdeth Israel in the hollow of His hand:
I will spread My net over thee, and My people shall drag thee upon the
shore; I will leave thee to rot upon the land; I will fill the beasts of
the earth with thee, until they shall come and find thee, dry bones and
dust—even thy glory turned into a taint and a scorn.
“Lift up a cry over Rome and say, Thou art the leopard; thy jaws are
red with blood, and thy claws are heavy because of the multitude of the
slain; thy spots are glorious, and thy feet are like wings for swiftness.
But thy time is at hand. My arrow shall smite through thee; My sword
shall go through thee; I will lay thy flesh upon the hills; thy blood
shall be red in the rivers; the pits shall be full of thee.
“For thus saith the king: I have not forsaken My children. For My
pleasure I have given them over for a while to the hands of the
oppressor; but they have loved Me—they have come before Me, and offered
up sacrifices; and shall I desert the land of the chosen, the sons of the
glorious, My people Israel!”
A universal outcry of wrath and triumph followed this allusion to the
national vengeance.
“Ho!” exclaimed the figure. “Men of Israel, hear the words of wisdom. The
burden of Rome. By the swords of the mighty will I cause her multitude to
fall; the terrible and the strong shall be on thee, city of the idolater;
they shall hew off thy cuirasses as the hewer of wood, and of thy shields
they shall make vessels of water. There shall be fire in thy palaces,
and the sword. Thy sons and thy daughters shall they consume, and thy
precious things shall be a spoil when the king shall give the sign from
the sanctuary.”
He paused, and, lifting up his fleshless arm, stood like a giant bronze
pointing to the Temple.
To the utter astonishment of all, a vapor was seen to ascend from the
summit of Mount Moriah, wreathing and white like the smoke that used to
mark the daily sacrifice. Our first conception was that this great rite
was resumed, and the shout of joy was on our lips. But the vapor had
scarcely parted from the crown of the hill when it blackened and began
to whirl with extraordinary rapidity; it thenceforth less ascended than
shot up, perpetually darkening and distending. The horizon grew dim; the
cloudy canopy above continued to spread and revolve; lightning began to
quiver through, and we heard, at intervals, low peals of thunder. But
no rain fell, and the wind was lifeless. Nothing could be more complete
than the calm; not a hair of our heads was moved, yet the heart of the
countless multitude was penetrated with the dread of some impending
catastrophe that restrained every voice, and the silence itself was awful.
In the climate of Judea we were accustomed to the rapid rise and violent
devastations of tempests. But the rising of this storm, so closely
connected with the appearance of the strange summoner that it almost
followed his command, invested a phenomenon, at all times fearful,
with a character that might have struck firmer minds than those of the
enthusiasts round him. To heighten the wonder, the progress of the storm
still seemed faithful to the command. Wherever this man of mystery waved
his arm, there rushed a sheet of cloud. The bluest tract of heaven was as
black as night, at the moment when he turned his ominous presence toward
it, until there was no more sky to be obliterated, and but for the fiery
streaks that tore through, we should have stood under a canopy of solid
gloom.
At length the whirlwind, that we had seen driving and rolling the clouds
like billows, burst upon us, scattering fragments of the buildings far
and wide, and cutting a broad way through the overthrown multitude.
Then superstition and terror were loud-mouthed. The populace, crushed
and dashed down, exclaimed that a volcano was throwing up flame from
the mount of the Temple; that sulfurous smokes were rising through the
crevices of the ground; that the rocking of an earthquake was felt; and
still more terrible, that beings, not to be looked on, nor even to be
named, were hovering round them in the storm.
[Sidenote: A Wild Panic]
The general rush of the people, in which hundreds were trampled and in
which nothing but the most violent efforts could keep any on their feet,
bore me away for a while. The struggle was sufficient to absorb all my
senses, for nothing could be more perilous. The darkness was intense,
the peals of the storm were deafening, and the howlings and fury of
the crowd, trampling and being trampled on, and fighting for life in
blindness and despair, with hand, foot, and dagger, made an uproar louder
than that of the storm. In this conflict, rather of demons than of men, I
was whirled away in eddy after eddy, until chance brought me again to the
foot of the elevation.
There I beheld a new wonder. A column of livid fire stood upon it,
reaching to the clouds. I could discern the outline of a human form
within. But while I expected to see it drop dead or blasted to a cinder,
the flame spread over the ground, and I saw its strange inhabitant making
signs like those of incantation. He drew a circle upon the burning soil,
poured out some unguent which diffused a powerful and rich odor, razed
the skin of his arm with a dagger, and let fall some drops of blood into
the blaze.
I shuddered at the sight of those palpable appeals to the power of Evil,
but I was pressed upon by thousands, and retreat was impossible. The
strange being then, with a ghastly smile of triumph, waved the weapon
toward the Roman camps.
[Sidenote: The Beginnings of Vengeance]
“Behold,” he cried, “the beginnings of vengeance!”
A thunder-roll that almost split the ear echoed round the hills. The
darkness passed away with it. Above Jerusalem the sky cleared, and
cleared into a translucence and blue splendor unrivaled by the brightest
sunshine. The people, wrought up to the highest expectancy, shouted at
this promise of a prouder deliverance, and exclaiming, “Goshen! Goshen!”
looked breathlessly for the completion of the plague upon the more than
Egyptian oppressor. They were not held long in suspense.
[Sidenote: The Bursting of the Storm]
The storm had cleared away above our heads, only to gather in deeper
terrors round the circle of hills on which we could see the enemy in
the most overwhelming state of alarm. The clouds rushed on, ridge over
ridge, until the whole horizon seemed shut in by a wall of night towering
to the skies. I heard the deep voice of the orator; at the utterance
of some strange words, a gleam played round his dagger’s point, and the
wall of darkness was instantly a wall of fire. The storm was let loose in
its rage. While we stood in daylight and in perfect calm, the lightning
poured like sheets of rain or gushes of burning metal from a furnace
upon the enemy. The vast circuit of the camps was instantly one blaze.
The wind tore everything before it with irresistible violence. We saw
the tents swept off the ground and driven far over the hills in flames
like meteors; the piles of arms and banners blown away; the soldiery
clinging to the rocks, flying together in helpless crowds, or scattering,
like maniacs, with hair and garments on fire; the baggage and military
machines, the turrets and ramparts, sinking in flames; the beasts of
burden plunging and rushing through the lines, or lying in smoldering
heaps where the lightning first smote them. All was conflagration!