A VEILED HEART
[Initial F]
For three whole days Mariamne had not set eyes on the Briton, so she felt
listless and dispirited. Not that she acknowledged, even to herself, the
necessity of Esca’s presence, nor that she was indeed aware how much it
had influenced her thoughts and actions ever since she had known him—a
period that seemed now of indefinite length. She found herself perpetually
recalling the origin and growth of their acquaintance; she dwelt with a
strange pleasure on the gross insult offered her by Spado, which scarce
seemed an agreeable subject of contemplation; nor, be sure, did she forget
its prompt and satisfactory redress. She remembered every step of her
subsequent walk home, and every syllable of their conversation in that
hasty and agitated progress; nay, every look and gesture of her
companion’s and of her own. It pleased her to think of the favourable
impression made on her father and his brother by their guest; and the
earthen pitcher, from which she gave the latter to drink, assumed a new
and unaccountable value in her eyes. Also she strolled to Tiber‐side,
whenever she had a spare half‐hour, and sat her down under the shadow of a
broken column, with a strange persistency, and a vague expectation of
something, she knew not what. For the first day this dreamy imaginative
existence was delightful. Then came a feeling of want; a consciousness
that there was a void, which it would be a great happiness to fill. Soon
this grew to a thirst—a craving for a repetition of those hours which had
glided by so sweetly and so fast. At rare intervals arose the startling
thought, “suppose she should never see him again,” and her heart stopped
beating, and her cheek paled with the bare possibility; yet was there
something not wholly painful in a consciousness of the sorrow such a
privation would create.
Though young, Mariamne was no foolish and inexperienced girl. Her life had
been calculated to elicit and bring to perfection some of woman’s loftiest
qualities. She had early learned the nobility of self‐sacrifice, the
necessity of self‐reliance and self‐denial. Like the generality of her
nation she possessed considerable pride of race; suppressed, indeed, and
kept down by the exigencies in which the Jews had so often found
themselves, but none the weaker nor the less cherished on that account.
Notwithstanding his many chastisements and reverses,—from his pilgrimage
through the wilderness to his different captivities by the great Oriental
powers, and final subjection under Rome,—the Jew never forgot that he
sprang from a stem more especially planted by the hand of the Almighty;
that he could trace his lineage back, unbroken and unstained, to those who
held converse with Moses under the shadow of Mount Sinai; nay, to the
Patriarch himself, who held his authority direct from Heaven, and who was
thought worthy to entertain angels at his tent door on the plains of
Mamre. Such a conviction imparted a secret pride to every one of his
descendants. Man, woman, and child, were persuaded that to them belonged
of right the dominion of the earth.
It may be supposed that one of Eleazar’s disposition was not likely to
bring up his family in any humble notions of their privileges and their
importance. Mariamne had been early taught to consider her nationality as
the first and dearest of her advantages; and, womanlike, she clung to it
all the closer that her people had been forced to submit to the Roman
yoke. Habits of patience, of reflection and endurance, had been engendered
by the everyday life of the Jewish maiden, witnessing her father’s
continued impatience of the existing state of things, and his energetic,
though secret, efforts to change the destinies of his countrymen; whilst
all that such an education might have created of hard, cunning, and
unfeminine in his daughter’s mind, the society and counsels of Calchas
were eminently qualified to counteract. Losing no opportunity of sowing
the good seed; of teaching, both by precept and example, the lessons he
had learned from those who had them direct from the Fountain‐head; it was
impossible to remain long uninfluenced by the constant kindliness and
gentle bearing of one who understood Christianity to signify, not only
faith, and purity, and devotion even to the death, but also that peace and
goodwill amongst men, which its first teachers inculcated as its
fundamental principle and essential element. Calchas, indeed, lacked not
the fiery energy and the tameless instincts of his race. His nature,
perhaps, was originally fierce and warlike as his brother’s, but it had
been subdued, softened, exalted by his religion; and, while his heart was
pitiful and kindly, nothing remained of the warrior but his loyalty, his
courage, and his zeal.
Cherishing a true attachment for that brother, it was doubtless a cause of
daily sorrow to observe how totally Eleazar’s principles and conduct were
opposed to the meek and holy precepts of the new faith. It seemed to human
reasoning impossible to convert the Jew from his grand and simple creed,
to modify or to explain it, to add to it, or to take away from it, in the
slightest degree to alter his belief in that direct thearchy, to which he
was bound by the ties of gratitude, of tradition, of national isolation
and characteristic pride of race. A religion which accepts the first great
principles of truth, the omnipotence and eternity of the Deity, the
immortality of souls, and the rewards and punishments of a life to come,
stands already upon a solid basis from which it has little inclination to
be removed; and in all ages, the Jew, as in a somewhat less degree the
Mahometan, has been most unwilling to add to his own stern tenets the mild
and loving doctrines of our revealed religion. Eleazar’s was a character
to which the outward and tangible ceremonials of his worship were
essentially acceptable. To him the law, in its severest and most literal
sense, was the only true guide for political measures as for private
conduct; and where its burdens were multiplied or its severities enhanced
by tradition, he upheld the latter gladly and inflexibly. To offer the
sacrifices ordained by Divine command; to exact and rigidly fulfil the
minutest points of observance which the priests enjoined; to keep the
Sabbath inviolate by word and deed; also, when opportunity offered, to
smite the heathen hip‐and‐thigh with the edge of the sword; these were the
points of faith and practice on which Eleazar took his stand, and from
which no consideration of affection, no temptation of ambition, no
exigency of the times, would have induced him to waver one hair’s‐breadth.
The fiercest soldier, the wildest barbarian, the most frivolous and
dissolute patrician of the Imperial Court, would have been a more
promising convert than such a man as this. Yet did not Calchas despair:
well he knew that there is a season of seed‐time and a season of harvest,
that the soil once choked with weeds, or sown with tares, may thereafter
produce a good crop; that waters have been known to flow freely from the
bare rock, and that nothing is impossible under heaven. So he loved his
brother and prayed for him, and took that brother’s daughter to his heart
as though she had been his own child.
It must have required no small patience, no small amount of self‐control
and humility, to engraft in Mariamne the good fruit, which her father held
in such hatred and disdain. These, too, were difficulties with which the
early Christians had to contend, and of which we now make small account.
We read of their privations, their persecutions, their imprisonments, and
their martyrdoms, with a thrill of mingled horror and indignation—we pity
and admire, we even glorify them as the heroic leaders of that forlorn
hope which was destined to head the armies of the only true conqueror, but
we never consider the daily and harassing warfare in which they must have
been engaged, the domestic dissensions, the insults of equals, the
alienation of friends; above all, the cold looks and estranged affections
of those whom they loved best on earth; whom they must give up here, and
whom, with the new light that had broken in on them, they could scarce
hope to see hereafter. So‐called heroic deeds are not always deserving of
that superiority which they claim over mortal weakness, when emblazoned on
the glowing page of history. Many a man is capable, so to speak, of
winding himself up for one great effort, even though it be to perish on
the scaffold or the breach; but day after day, and year after year, to
wage unceasing war against our nearest and dearest, our own comforts, our
own prosperity, nay, our own weaknesses and inclinations, requires the aid
of a sustaining power that is neither without nor within, nor anywhere
below on earth, but must reach the suppliant directly and continuously
from above.
Nevertheless the example of a true Christian, in the real acceptation of
the word, is never without its effect on those who live under its constant
influence. Even Eleazar loved and respected his brother more than anything
on earth, save his ambition and his creed; while Mariamne, whose trusting
and gentle disposition rendered her a willing recipient of those truths
which Calchas lost no opportunity of imparting, gradually, and almost
insensibly, imbibed the opinions and the belief of one whose everyday
practice was so pure, so elevated, and so kindly; to whom, moreover, she
was accustomed to look as her counsellor in difficulty, and her refuge in
distress.
It was Calchas, then, whose studies she interrupted as he sat with the
scroll before him, that was seldom out of his hand, perusing those Syriac
characters again and again, as a mariner consults his chart, never weary
of storing information for his future course, and verifying the progress
he has already made. It was to Calchas she had determined to apply for
comfort because Esca came not, and for assistance to see him again—not
that she admitted, even to herself, that this was her intention or her
wish. Nevertheless, she hovered about the old man’s seat, more caressingly
than usual, and finding his attention still riveted on his employment, she
laid one hand lightly on his shoulder, and with the other parted the thin
grey hair that strayed across his forehead. He looked up with a pleasant
smile.
“What is it, little one?” said he, with the endearing diminutive he had
used in addressing her from her childhood. “You seem unusually busy with
your household affairs to‐day. Is this room to be decorated for a guest?
My brother makes no acquaintances here in Rome; and we have given no
stranger so much as a mouthful of food since we arrived, save that goodly
barbarian you brought home with you the other evening. Is he coming again
to‐night?”
A bright blush swept over her face, yet when it faded, Calchas could not
but remark that she was paler than her wont; and her manner, usually so
gentle and composed, was now restless, anxious, and ill at ease.
“Nay,” she replied, “what should I know of the barbarian’s movements? It
was but a chance meeting that led him to our quiet dwelling in the first
instance; and save by the merest accident we are never likely to see him
more.”
She turned away while she spoke, trying to steady her voice and give it a
tone of cold indifference, but failing utterly in the attempt.
“There is no such power as chance,” said Calchas, looking her keenly in
the face.
“I know it,” replied Mariamne, smiling sadly; “and I know, too, that
whatever befalls us is for the best. Yet some things are hard to bear,
nevertheless. Not that I have aught to complain of,” she added, shrinking
instinctively from the very topic she wanted to bring on, “save my
constant anxiety for my father in these tumultuous times.”
“He is in God’s hand,” said Calchas, “who will bring him safe through all
his perils, though they seem now to environ him as the breakers boil round
a stranded galley, when the wild Adriatic is leaping and dashing for its
prey. Take comfort, little one; I cannot bear to see your step so listless
and your cheek so pale.”
“How can they be otherwise?” returned the girl, not very candidly. “It is
a weary lot to be a soldier’s daughter. I could even find it in my heart
to wish we had never left Judæa; never come to Rome.”
He tried his best to soothe and comfort her—his best such as it was, for
the good old man knew but little of a woman’s heart—its wild hopes, its
indefinite aims, its wayward feelings, and its inexplicable tendency to
self‐torture. He thought in his simplicity the real grievance was that
which she avowed, and he strove to remove it in his own kind hopeful way.
“My child,” said he, “the evils that are raging in Italy, the horrors that
we hear of every day, cannot but make Eleazar’s position more important
and less hazardous, as they increase the difficulties of the imperial
councils. It is, indeed, no child’s play to bridle such a nation as ours
with one hand, and to grasp at the imperial diadem with the other. It
takes a bold heart to draw the sword against Judah, and a long arm to
buffet Cæsar across the seas. Vespasian will have little leisure to
persecute our race; and the Emperor, sore beset as he is, will surely lend
a favourable ear to my brother’s proposals for peace. Even now the legions
are declaring, far and wide, against Vitellius; and civil war, the most
dreadful of all scourges, is desolating the provinces and entering Italy
herself. It was but yesterday that news reached Rome of the revolt of the
whole fleet at Ravenna—and ere this Cremona has perhaps fallen into the
power of Antonius, that soldier‐orator, with the iron arm and the silver
tongue. Well we know, for we have been told by One whose words shall never
be forgotten, that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and is
this a time, think you, my child, for the worn‐out sensualist who wears
the purple here, to make conditions with such a man as your father? It is
all in God’s hand, as I never cease to insist; yet I cannot but feel that
a better day must at last be dawning upon Judæa, that her enemies will be
confounded, her armies victorious, and her chiefs—but what have we to do
with the sword?” he broke off abruptly, while his kindling eye and
animated gestures bore witness to the ardent spirit that would flash out
here and there even now. “Our weapon is the Cross, our warfare is not of
this world, our triumph is in our humility, and when most we are brought
low, then are we most exalted. Oh, that the time were come, as come it
surely will, when Cæsar shall be content to take only that which is
Cæsar’s, and men shall be gathered under one banner, and in one
brotherhood, from all corners of the world!”
It was no exaggerated account Calchas thus gave of the dilemma in which
the empire was placed at this juncture. Vespasian, with great political
talents, with coolness, patience, and audacity, was playing a game against
which the besotted brains of Vitellius were powerless to compete. The
former, adored by the army, who saw in him a successful general, an
intrepid soldier, and a man of simple virtuous habits, contrasting nobly
with the luxurious gluttony and sensuality of his rival, lost none of his
influence by the moderation he displayed, and the modesty, real or
affected, with which he declined the purple. Not afraid to wait till
advantage ripened into opportunity, he could seize it when the time came
with a bold and tenacious grasp, could turn it deftly to his own profit
and guide those circumstances of which he seemed to be the mere puppet,
with a master‐hand. Though at a distance from the scene of warfare, and to
all appearance little more than an unwilling observer of the disturbances
carried on in his name, he directed as it were from behind a curtain the
operations of his generals, and pulled the strings that set in motion his
numerous partisans with a clear head, a delicate touch, and that tenacity
of purpose which is the essential element of success. Vitellius, on the
other hand, whose natural abilities had been weakened, nay destroyed, by
an unceasing course of sensual gratification, wavered in council and
hesitated in action; now determined to abdicate the diadem and retire into
obscurity; anon persuaded to fight for dominion to the death; and ever
paralysing the energies of his warmest partisans by the distrust he
entertained for honest advisers, and the reliance he placed on the
counsels of those traitors who surrounded him.
The empire was, perhaps, at this period in a more disheartening position
than even under the ferocious sway of Nero. Monster as the latter was, he
at least held the reins with a firm hand; and tyranny, however oppressive,
is doubtless one degree better than anarchy and confusion. Now, the mighty
fabric, of which Romulus laid the first stone and Augustus completed the
pinnacle—the work of seven centuries, to which every generation had added
its labours and its enterprise, till it embraced the confines of the known
world—was beginning perceptibly to sink and crumble from its own enormous
size and weight. The legions (and it must never be forgotten that the
dominion of Rome was essentially that of the sword) were now recruited
from natives of her distant colonies. The Syrian and the Ethiop guarded
the eagles as well as the tall turbulent sons of Germany, and the ever‐
changing, ever‐faithless Gaul. Armies thus gathered under one standard
from such various climates could have but little in common save a certain
professional ferocity, and an ardent liking for plunder, no less than pay.
Mercenaries have in all ages been easily bought by the one and seduced by
the other. Each legion gradually came to consider itself a separate and
independent power, to be sold to the highest bidder. Perhaps the fairest
vision of all was a march upon Rome, and a ten hours’ sack of the city
they were sworn to defend. A great and good man, backed by the glory of
name, race, and illustrious actions, could alone have ruled such
discordant elements, and united these conflicting interests for the common
good; but fate ordained that the weak, worn‐out, besotted Vitellius should
be seated on the throne of the Cæsars, and that the cool, unflinching, and
far‐seeing Vespasian should be watching with sleepless eye and ready hand
to snatch the diadem from his bewildered predecessor, and place it firmly
on his own head.
While the destinies of the world were thus trembling in the balance, while
her own nation was fighting for its very existence, and the storm
gathering all around, obviously to burst in its greatest fury on the
Imperial City, the care that weighed heaviest at Mariamne’s heart was that
she had that day noticed a barbarian slave walk into the training‐school
of a Roman gladiator.
“Is it true, then,” asked the girl, “that civil war is indeed raging here,
as we have seen it at home? That we shall have an enemy ere long at the
very gates of the city?”
“Too true, my child,” replied Calchas; “and the Roman people seem, as
usual, to make light of the emergency, to eat, drink, buy, sell, and feast
their eyes on bloodshed in the circus, as though their idolatrous temple,
where Janus overlooks the usurers and money‐changers of the city, were
shut up once for all, never to be opened again.”
She turned pale and shuddered at the mention of the circus.
“Are they making no preparations?” she asked timidly. “Did I not hear my
father say they were collecting the gladiators, and—and—some of the nobles
had enrolled their German and British slaves, and were arming them against
an attack?”
“It may be so,” answered Calchas; “but a slave can scarcely be expected to
fight very stoutly for a cause which only serves to rivet his chains. As
for the gladiators, those tigers in human form, it were surely better for
them to perish in open warfare, than to tear one another to pieces in the
arena, like the very beasts against which I have seen them pitted. Yet
these, too, have souls to be saved.”
“Surely have they,” exclaimed Mariamne, with kindling eyes, “and none to
help them; none to show them so much as a glimpse of the true light. These
men go out to die as the citizen goes to his business or his bath; and who
is answerable to man for their blood? who is answerable to God for their
souls?”
His eye brightened while she spoke, and he raised his head like a soldier
who hears the trumpet summoning him to the front.
“If I have a well in my court,” said he, “and a man fall down and die of
thirst at my gate, who is answerable? Surely I am guilty of my brother’s
blood, that I never so much as reached him the pitcher to drink. Shall
these men go down daily to death, and shall I not stretch out a finger
lest they perish everlastingly? Mariamne, it seems there is a task set to
my hand, and I must accomplish it.”
She was far from wishing to hinder him. Actuated as human nature too often
is by mixed motives, she could yet respond, in her womanly generosity of
heart, to that noble self‐sacrifice which was so distinguishing a
characteristic of the new religion; and could appreciate the devotion of
Calchas, while she hoped through his intervention to obtain some
alleviation of her anxiety on Esca’s behalf. She had caught a glimpse of
the slave’s figure that very day as it entered the portals of the
training‐school; and this rapid glance had not served to quiet her
misgivings on his account.
If Calchas should now think it right to interest himself about a class of
men the most reckless and desperate of the whole Roman population, it was
probable that he would at the same time learn something of Esca’s
movements; perhaps be able to dissuade him from joining the fierce band in
which she now feared he was about to be enrolled. “It may be that he has
some wild hope of thus obtaining his liberty,” thought the girl; and her
heart throbbed while she reflected that it was for her sake liberty had
now become so dear to the barbarian. “It may be that he has extorted some
vague promise from his lord, and, in his pride of strength and courage, he
never dreams of danger or defeat; but oh! if he should come to harm for my
sake, what will become of me? I would rather die a thousand times than
that his white skin should be disfigured with a scratch!”
“They are practising for their deadly pastime in the next street,” said
she; “I can hear the blows as I go down to draw water. Blows dealt, as it
were, in sport; what must they be in earnest?”
“There is no time to be lost,” said Calchas. “The games of Ceres are to be
soon celebrated, and the Roman crowd will think it but a poor show if some
hundreds of gladiators are not slaughtered at the least. Child, I will
visit these men to‐morrow; they will revile me, but after a time they will
listen. If I can even gain over one, be he the lowest and most degraded of
the band, it will be a triumph greater than a thousand victories; a gain
infinitely more precious than all the treasures of Rome.”
“To‐morrow may be too late,” she returned, moving across the room at the
same time so as to hide her face. “The school is full to‐day. I—I think I
saw that barbarian who was here lately go into it an hour or two ago.”
“The Briton!” exclaimed Calchas, starting from his seat. “Why did you not
tell me so before? Quick, girl, fetch me my gown and sandals. I will go
there without delay.”
She helped him, nothing loth. In a few minutes Calchas was ready to go
forth, and as she watched him from the door, and saw him turn the corner
of the street, Mariamne clasped her hands and muttered a thanksgiving for
the success of her well‐meant artifice; while the old man strode boldly to
his destination, confident in the integrity of his purpose, and rejoicing
in the breastplate of proof which covers a good heart bound on a pious
mission. “It is no business of mine,” was a maxim unknown to the early
Christian. Fresh in his memory was the parable of the Good Samaritan; and
it never occurred to him that, like the Pharisee, he might pass by on the
other side. The world is some centuries older, yet is that tale of the
friendless wounded wayfarer less suggestive now than it was then?