_Concerning Septimius_
I was spared the ungraciousness of urging the young soldier’s departure,
for when I met him on the next morning his first topic was escape. He had
been since daybreak examining from my turrets the accessible passages of
the fortifications, and had even, by the help of a peasant, despatched a
letter to his friends, requesting either a formal demand of his person
from the Jews, or some private effort to extricate him.
But this glow of society was transient. In the fall of his charger he had
been violently bruised. He now complained of inward suffering, and his
pallid face and feeble words gave painful proof that he had much still to
undergo, tho, even if he was perfectly recovered, the crowded battlements
and the popular rage showed the impossibility of immediate return.
[Sidenote: Vexed and Suspicious]
Three days passed thus drearily. At home I was surrounded by sickness or
vexed by suspicion—the worst sickness of the mind. Septimius lay in his
chamber, struggling to laugh, talk, and read away the heavy hours, and
finally, like all such strugglers, giving up the task in despair. His
thoughts were in the Roman camp. He professed gratitude of the deepest
nature for the service that I had done him now for the second time, if
saving so unimportant a life was a service either to him or any one else.
Yet he almost wished that he had been left where he was found.
At such times his voice sank, and he was evidently thinking of subjects
near to his heart.
Then his soldiership would come again—a man could not finish his course
better than among his gallant comrades; and with all his anxiety to
return, he felt no trivial concern as to the view which Titus might
take of the whole unfortunate affair. Of justice he was secure; but to
be questioned for his military conduct was in itself a degradation. The
loss of Sempronius, too, the most confidential friend and counselor of
the Emperor, would weigh heavily—while there was nothing but his own
testimony to sustain his honor against the crowd of secret enemies that
every man of military rank was certain to have.
“In short,” said he, “on my sleepless couch I have turned true penitent
for the foolish curiosity which prompted me to solicit the command of an
escort, which would have been by right put under the care of some mere
tribune.”
I tried to cheer him by saying that his had been only the natural desire
of an active mind to see so singular a scene as our city offered, or the
honorable wish of a soldier to be foremost wherever there was anything to
be done.
[Sidenote: Watched by a Slave]
“It was more than either,” said he; “there was actual illusion in
the case. I now feel that I was practised upon. You know the strange
concourse of all kinds of people that follow a camp for all kinds of
purposes—plunderers, traders, and jugglers, crowding on our movements
as regularly as the vultures, and with nearly the same objects. For a
week past I had found myself beset by an old gibbering slave of this
class. Wherever I rode, the fellow was before my eyes; he contrived to
mingle with my servants, and became a sort of favorite by selling them
counterfeit rings and gems at ten times their value. The wretch was
clever, too, and as my tent-hours began to be disturbed by the unusual
gaiety of the listeners to his lies, I ordered him to be flogged out of
the lines. But twelve hours had not passed before I found him gamboling
again, and was about to order the instant infliction of the discipline,
when he threw himself on the ground and implored ‘a moment of my secret
ear.’ Conceive who the fellow was?”
“The impostor who harangued in the square!”
“The very man. He told me that there were certain contrivances on foot
to bring me into disfavor with the general, which I knew to be the fact.
He gave me the names of the parties, which I felt to be sufficiently
probable, and finished by saying that, having so long eaten of my bread
(a week), and enjoyed my liberality (the scourge), he longed to show his
gratitude by giving me an opportunity of putting my enemies to silence
on the spot. This opportunity was to solicit the command of the escort
required for the mission. How he gained his wisdom I know not, but I took
the advice, went at once to Titus, found that an armistice was being
debated in council, that there was some difficulty in the choice of an
officer for the service (by no means likely to be a sinecure in point
of either judgment or hazard), stepped forward, and, to the surprise of
everybody, disclaimed the privileges of my rank and insisted on marching
at the head of this handful, this outpost-guard, into the formidable city
of Jerusalem.”
“His object, of course,” said I, “was your destruction. I now see the
cause of the harangue that roused the people; he was in the pay of the
conspirators against you. Yet his appearance was striking; there was
a vigor about his look and language, a fierce consciousness of power
somewhere, that distinguished him from his race. He came, too, and has
disappeared, without my being able to discover whence or whither.”
[Sidenote: Duped by a Juggler]
“Oh, the commonest contrivance of his trade,” was the reply. “Those
fellows always come and go in cloud, if they can. He was probably beside
you half the day before and after. You saw how little he thought of the
lance, that I sent to bring out his hidden secrets. He doubtless wore
armor; otherwise there would have been one juggler the less in the world.
The truth is, I have been duped, but I have made up my mind to think
nothing about the dupery. The slave is certainly clever, perhaps to an
extraordinary degree—a villain undoubtedly, and of the first magnitude.
But he has the secret of the cabal against me, and that secret makes him
at once fit to be employed, and dangerous to be provoked. The blow of the
lance yesterday showed him that I am not always to be trifled with. In
fact, prince, you might find it advantageous to employ him occasionally
yourself. It was he who conveyed my letter to the camp this morning!”
My look probably expressed my dislike of this species of envoy.
“You may rely on my honor,” said the Roman, “not to involve you in any of
the fellow’s inventions. Slippery as he is, I have a hold on him, too,
that he will not venture to shake off. And now, to let you into full
confidence, I expect him back this very night, when he will relieve your
city of an inhabitant unworthy of remaining among so polished a people;
and your house, my prince, of an inmate than whom none on earth can be
more grateful for your hospitality.”
He concluded this mixture of levity, address, and frankness with a
smile, and in a tone of elegance, that compelled me to take it all on
the more favorable side. But against suffering the step of his strange
emissary to pollute the threshold in which I lived, I expressed my plain
determination.
[Sidenote: Secret Preparations for Departure]
“For that, too, I have provided,” said he. “My intercourse with the
reprobate is to take place at another quarter of the city, as far as
possible from this dwelling,” and he laughed, “for reasons equally of
mine and yours. I have managed matters so as not to compromise any of my
friends; and to make my arrangements on that point still more secure,
may I express a wish that neither Constantius nor any other person of
your house may be acquainted with my intention of leaving them, and
I may sincerely say, leaving everything that could gratify my best
feelings—this very evening.”
This was an easy and graceful avoidance of the difficulties which
his longer residence threatened. I gave him the promise of secrecy,
cautioning him against reposing any dangerous confidence in his emissary,
of whom I had an irrepressible abhorrence, and was about to leave the
chamber when he caught my hand and said in unusual emotion:
“Prince of Naphtali, I have but one word more to say. You are a man of
the world and can make allowance for the giddiness of human passions.
Some of them are uncontrollable, or at least I have never learned to
control them, and in me perhaps they belong to inferiority of mind. But
if on my departure you should hear calumnies against me——”
“Impossible, my young friend; or if I should, you may rely on my giving
the calumniators a very brief answer.”
“Or if even yourself should be disposed to think severely of me, you know
the circumstances under which a man of birth and fortune must be placed
in our profession.”
“Fully, and am much more disposed to regret than to wonder at the
consequences.”
“If you should hear that I had been assailed in an evil hour by an
unexpected temptation which I had long labored to resist, assailed by
it under the most powerful circumstances that ever yet tasked the human
mind, circumstances to which, from the beginning of the world, wisdom
has been proverbially folly, and resolution weakness; if it should have
mastered my whole being, soul and body; if I were willing to give up the
brightest prospects for its possession—to hazard life, hope, honors——”
The thought of Esther smote me. I started from him where he stood, with
his fine head drooping like the Antinous and his figure the very emblem
of passionate dejection.
“Roman, you are here as my guest, and as such I have listened to you
with patience until now. But if any member of my family is concerned in
what you say, I demand in the most distinct terms that the subject shall
be mentioned no more. The daughters of Israel are sacred. Never shall a
child of mine wed with those who now lord it over my unhappy country.”
He spread his hands and eyes in the broadest astonishment.
[Sidenote: Septimius Misunderstood]
“Prince, can it be possible that you have so totally mistaken me? My
perplexities are of an entirely different nature. The chain with which I
am bound is not of roses, but of iron; a chain of invisible, yet stern
influences, that haunt my night, and even my day.”
His voice faltered, and he turned away with a shudder, as from a
visionary tormentor.
“What? Has that man of desperate arts, if he be man, involved you, too,
in his net? Dares the impostor soar so high?”
He clasped his hands.
“You saw how he defied, how he mocked me, how he spurned me when my
abhorrence rose to the madness of attempting to strike him. I might
as well have flung the weapon at the clouds. You saw the instinctive
terror of my charger. That animal was celebrated in our whole cavalry
for its bold, nay, fierce courage. Yet before the eye of that man of
power and evil, it cowered like a hare and died of his glance. By him the
temptation has been offered; of its nature I dare not speak; but it is
dazzling, fearful, and must—I feel it—finally be fatal.”
[Sidenote: “Be a Man—a Hero”]
“Then cast it from you at once. Be a man—a hero.”
“It is hopeless—I must be the victim; I am bound irretrievably. Farewell,
prince; we shall see each other no more.”
He flung himself upon the couch. I offered him assistance, advice,
consolation in vain. The spirit of the soldier was extinguished. The
victim of fantastic illusion lay before me. I left him to the care of the
old domestics, and when I closed the door, thought that I had closed the
door of the grave.