He remembered when it was so different. He remembered how, even when first

he knew her, his arrival used to call a smile of pleasure to her lips, a

glance of welcome to her eye. It might be only on the surface, but still

it was there; and he felt for his own part, that as far as he had ever

cared for any woman, he had cared for her. It was galling, truly, this

indifference, this contempt. He was hurt, and his fierce undisciplined

nature urged him to strike again.

He emptied the cup, and flung it from him with an angry jerk. The golden

vessel rolled out from under the hangings of the tent; she made no offer

to pick it up and fetch it back. He glared fiercely into her eyes, and

they met his own with the steady scornful gaze he almost feared; for that

cold look chilled him to the very heart. The man was hardened, depraved,

steeped to the lips in cruelty and crime; but there was a defenceless

place in him still that she could stab when she liked, for he would have

loved her if she had let him.

“I am very weary of the siege,” said he, stretching his limbs on the couch

with affected indifference, “weary of the daily drudgery, the endless

consultations, the scorching climate, above all, this suffocating

atmosphere, where a man can hardly breathe. Would that I had never seen

this accursed tent, or aught that it contains!”

“You cannot be more weary of it than I am,” she replied, in the same

contemptuous quiet tone that maddened him.

“Why did you come?” he retorted, with a bitter laugh. “Nobody wanted such

a delicate dainty lady in a soldier’s tent—and certainly nobody ever asked

you to share it with him!”

She gave a little gasp, as though something touched her to the quick, but

recovered herself on the instant, and answered calmly and scornfully, “It

is kindly said, and generously, considering all things. Just what I might

have expected from a gladiator!”

“There was a time you liked the Family well enough!” he exclaimed angrily;

and then, softened by his own recollections of that time, added in a

milder tone, “Valeria, why will you thus quarrel with me? It used not to

be so when I brought the foils and dumbbells to your portico, and spared

no pains to make you the deadliest fencer, as you were the fairest, in

Rome. Those were happy days enough, and so might these be, if you had but

a grain of common sense. Can you not see, when you and I fall out, who

must necessarily be the loser? What have you to depend on now but me?”

He should have stopped at his tender recollections. Argument, especially

if it has any show of reason in it, is to an angry woman but as the

_bandillero’s_ goad to the Iberian bull. Its flutter serves to irritate

rather than to scare, and the deeper its pointed steel sinks in, the more

actively indeed does the recipient swerve aside, but returns the more

rapidly and the more obstinately to the charge. Of all considerations,

that which most maddened Valeria, and rendered her utterly reckless, was

that she should be dependent on a gladiator. The cold eyes flashed fire;

but she would not give him the advantage over her of acknowledging that he

could put her in a passion, so she restrained herself, though her heart

was ready to burst. Had she cared for him she might have stabbed him to

death in such a mood.

“I thank you for reminding me,” she answered bitterly. “It is not strange

that one of the Mutian line should occasionally forget her duty to

Hippias, the retired prize‐fighter. A patrician, perhaps, would have

brought it more delicately to her remembrance; but I have no right to

blame the fencing‐master for his plebeian birth and bringing up.”

“Now, by the body of Hercules, this is too much!” he exclaimed, springing

erect on the couch, and grinding his teeth with rage. “What! you tax me

with my birth! You scout me for my want of mincing manners and white

hands, and syllables that drop like slobbered wine from the close‐shaven

lip! You, the dainty lady, the celebrated beauty, the admired, forsooth,

of all admirers, whose porch was choked with gilded chariots, whose litter

was thronged with every curly‐headed, white‐shouldered, crimson‐cloaked,

young Narcissus in Rome, and yet who sought her chosen lovers in the

amphitheatre—who scanned with judicious eye the points and the vigour and

the promise of naked athletes, and could find at last none to serve her

turn, but war‐worn old Hippias, the roughest and the rudest, and the

worst‐favoured, but the strongest, nevertheless, amongst them all!”

The storm was gathering apace, but she still tried hard to keep it down.

An experienced mariner might have known by the short‐coming breath, the

white cheek, and the dilated nostril, that it was high time to shorten

sail, and run for shelter before the squall.

“It was indeed a strange taste,” she retorted. “None can marvel at it more

than myself.”

“Not so strange as you think,” he burst out, somewhat inconsistently. “Do

not fancy you were the only lady in Rome who was proud to be admired by

Hippias the gladiator. I tell you I had my choice amongst a hundred maids

and matrons, nobler born, fairer, ay, and of better repute than yourself!

any one of whom would have been glad to be here to‐day in your place. I

was a fool for my pains; but I thought you were the fittest to bear the

toil of campaigning, and the least able to do without me, so I took you,

more out of pity than of love!”

“Coward!” she hissed between her clenched teeth. “Traitor and fool, too!

Must you know the truth at last? Must you know what I have spared you this

long time? what alone has kept me from sinking under the weight of these

weary days with their hourly degradation? what has been disease and

remedy, wound and balm, bitterest punishment, and yet dearest consolation?

Take it then, since have it you will! Can you think that such as I could

ever love such as you? Can you believe you could be more to Valeria than

the handle of the blade, the shaft of the javelin, the cord of the bow, by

which she could inflict a grievous wound in another’s bosom? Listen! When

you wooed me, I was a scorned, an insulted, a desperate woman. I loved one

who was nobler, handsomer, better. Ay, you pride yourself on your fierce

courage and your brutal strength. I tell you who was twice as strong, and

a thousand times as brave as the best of you. I loved him, do you hear? as

men like you never can be loved—with an utter and entire devotion, that

asked but to sacrifice itself without hope of a return, and he scorned me,

not as you would have done, with a rough brutal frankness that had taken

away half the pain, but so kindly, so delicately, so generously, that even

while I clung to him, and he turned away from me, I felt he was dearer

than ever to my heart. Ay, you may sit there and look at me with your eyes

glaring and your beard bristling like some savage beast of prey; but you

brought it on yourself, and if you killed me I would not spare you now. I

had never _looked_ at you but for your hired skill, which you imparted to

the man I loved. I took you because he scorned me, as I would have taken

one of my Liburnians, had I thought it would have wounded him deeper, or

made him hate me more. You are a fencer, I believe—one who prides himself

on his skill in feints and parries, in giving and taking, in judging

accurately of the adversary’s strength and weakness at a glance. Have I

foiled you to some purpose? You thought you were the darling of the high‐

born lady, the favourite of her fancy, the minion to whom she could refuse

nothing, not even her fair fame, and she was using you all the time as a

mere rod with which to smite a slave! A _slave_, do you hear? Yes, the man

I preferred, not only to you, but to a host of your betters, the man I

loved so dearly, and love so madly still, is but your pupil Esca, a

barbarian, and a slave!”

Her anger had supported her till now, but with Esca’s name came a flood of

tears, and, thoroughly unstrung, she sat down on the ground and wept

passionately, covering her face with her hands. He could have almost found

it in his heart to strike her, but for her defenceless attitude, so

exasperated was he, so maddened by the torrent of her words. He could

think of nothing, however, more bitter than to taunt her with her

helplessness, whilst under his charge.

“Your minion,” said he, “is within the walls at this moment. From that

tent door, you might almost see him on the rampart, if he be not skulking

from his duty like a slave as he is. Think, proud lady, you who are so

ready, asked or unasked, for slave or gladiator, you need but walk five

hundred paces to be in his arms. Surely, if they knew your mission, Roman

guards and Jewish sentries would lower their spears to you as you passed!

Enough of this! Remember who and what you are. Above all, remember _where_

you are, and how you came here. I have forborne too long, my patience is

exhausted at last. You are in a soldier’s tent, and you must learn a

soldier’s duty—unquestioning obedience. Go! pick up that goblet I let fall

just now. Fill it, and bring it me here, without a word!”

Somewhat to his surprise, she rose at once to do his bidding, leaving the

tent with a perfectly composed step and air. He might have remarked,

though, that when she returned with his wine, the red drops fell profusely

over her white trembling fingers, though she looked in his face as proudly

and steadily as ever. The hand might, indeed, shake, but the heart was

fixed and resolute. In the veins of none of her ancestors did the Mutian

blood, so strong for good and evil, ebb and flow with a fuller, more

resistless tide, than in hers. Valeria had made up her mind in the space

of time it took to lift a goblet from the ground.

CHAPTER VII

THE ATTAINDER

John of Gischala would never have obtained the ascendency he enjoyed in

Jerusalem, had he not been as well versed in the sinuous arts of intrigue,

as in the simpler stratagems of war. After confronting his rival in the

Council, and sustaining in public opinion the worst of the encounter, he

was more than ever impressed with the necessity of ruining Eleazar at any

price; therefore, keeping a wary eye upon all the movements of the

Zealots, he held himself ready at every moment to take advantage of the

first false step on the part of his adversary.

Eleazar, with the promptitude natural to his character, had commenced a

repair of the defences, almost before his emissary was admitted to the

Roman camp, thinking it needless to await the decision of Titus, either

for or against his proposal. Labouring heart and soul at the works, with

all the available force he could muster, he left John and his party in

charge of the Great Gate, and it happened that his rival was present there

in person, when Calchas was brought back to the city by the Roman guard of

honour Titus had ordered for his safe‐conduct—a compliment his brother

never expected, and far less desired. Eleazar made sure his messenger

would be permitted to return the way he came, and that his own

communications with the enemy would remain a secret from the besieged.

John saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it on the instant. No

sooner had Calchas placed his foot once more within the town, than his

head was covered, so that he might not be recognised; and he was carried

off by a guard of John’s adherents, and placed in secure ward, their chief

adroitly arresting him by a false name, for the information of the

populace, lest the rumour should reach Eleazar’s ears. He knew his rival’s

readiness of resource, and determined to take him by surprise. Then he

rent his garment, and ran bareheaded through the streets towards the

Temple, calling with a great voice, “Treason! Treason!” and sending round

the fragments of his gown amongst the senators, to convoke them in haste

upon a matter of life and death, in their usual place of deliberation. So

rapidly did he take his measures that the Outer Court was already filled

and the Council assembled, ere Eleazar, busied with his labours at the

wall far off, opposite the Tower of Antonia, knew that they had been

summoned. Covered with sweat and dust, he obeyed at once the behest of the

Levite who came breathlessly to require his presence, as an elder of

Israel; but it was not without foreboding of evil that he observed the

glances of suspicion and mistrust shot at him by his colleagues when he

joined them. John of Gischala, with an affectation of extreme fairness,

had declined to enter upon the business of the State, until this, the

latest of her councillors, had arrived; but he had taken good care, by

means of his creatures, to scatter rumours amongst the Senate, and even

amongst the Zealots themselves, deeply affecting the loyalty of their

chief.

No sooner had Eleazar, still covered with the signs of his toil, taken his

accustomed station, than John stood forth in the hall and spoke out in a

loud, clear voice.

“Before the late troublous times,” said he, “and when every man in Judæa

ate of his own figs from his own fig‐tree, and trod out his own grapes in

his own vineyard; when we digged our wells unmolested, and our women drew

water unveiled, and drank it peacefully at sundown; when our children

played about our knees at the door, and ate butter and honey, and cakes

baked in oil; when the cruse was never empty, and the milk mantled in the

milking‐vessels, and the kid seethed in the pot—yea, in the pleasant time,

in the days of old, it chanced that I was taking a prey in the mountain by

the hunter’s craft, in the green mountain, even the mountain of Lebanon.

Then at noon I was wearied and athirst, and I laid me down under a goodly

cedar and slept, and dreamed a dream. Behold, I will discover to the

elders my dream and the interpretation thereof.

“Now the cedar under which I lay was a goodly cedar, but in my dream it

seemed that it reached far into the heavens, and spread its roots abroad

to the springs of many waters, and sheltered the birds of the air in its

branches, and comforted the beasts of the field with its shade. Then there

came a beast out of the mountain—a huge beast with a serpent between its

eyes and horns upon its jaws—and leaned against the cedar, but the tree

neither bent nor broke. So there came a great wind against the cedar—a

mighty wind that rushed and roared through its branches, till it rocked to

and fro, bending and swaying to the blast—but the storm passed away, and

the goodly tree stood firm and upright as before. Again the face of heaven

was darkened, and the thunder roared above, and the lightning leaped from

the cloud, and smote upon the cedar, and rent off one of its limbs with a

great and terrible crash; but when the sky cleared once more, the tree was

a fair tree yet. So I said in my dream, ‘Blessed is the cedar among the

trees of the forest, for destruction shall not prevail against it.’

“Then I looked, and behold, the cedar was already rotting, and its arms

were withered up, and its head was no longer black, for a little worm, and

another, and yet another were creeping from within the bark, where they

had been eating at its heart. Then one drew near bearing fagots on his

shoulders, and he builded the fagots round the tree, and set a light to

them, and burned them with fire, and the worms fell out by myriads from

the tree, and perished in the smoke.

“Then said he unto me, ‘John of Gischala, arise! The cedar is the Holy

City, and the beast is the might of the Roman Empire, and the storm and

the tempest are the famine and the pestilence, and none of these shall

prevail against it, save by the aid of the enemies from within. Purge them

therefore with fire, and smite them with the sword, and crush them, even

as the worm is crushed beneath thy heel into the earth!’

“And the interpretation of the dream hath remained with me to this day,

for is it not thus even now when the Roman is at the gate, as it hath ever

been with the Holy City in the times of old? When the Assyrian came up

against her, was not his host greater in number than the sands of the

seashore? But he retired in discomfiture from before her, because she was

true to herself. Would Nebuzaradan have put his chains on our people’s

neck, and Gedaliah scorned to accept honour from the conqueror, and to pay

him tribute? When Pompey pitched his camp at Jericho and surrounded the

Holy City with his legions, did not Aristobulus play the traitor and offer

to open the gate? and when the soldiers mutinied, and prevented so black a

treason, did not Hyrcanus, who was afterwards high‐priest, assist the

besiegers from within, and enable them to gain possession of the town? In

later days, Herod, indeed, who was surnamed the Great, fortified Jerusalem

like a soldier and a patriot; but even Herod, our warrior king, soiled his

hands with Roman gold, and bowed his head to the Roman yoke. Will you tell

me of Agrippa’s wall, reared by the namesake and successor of the mighty

monarch? Why was it never finished? Can you answer me that? I trow ye know

too well; there was fear of displeasing Cæsar, there was the old shameful

truckling to Rome. This is the leaven that leaveneth all our leaders; this

is the palsy that withereth all our efforts. Is not the chief who defended

Jotapata now a guest in the tent of Titus? Is not Agrippa the younger a

staunch adherent of Vespasian? Is he not a mere procurator of the Empire,

for the province, forsooth, of Judæa? And shall we learn nothing from our

history? Nothing from the events of our own times, from the scenes we

ourselves witness day by day? Must the cedar fall because we fail to

destroy the worms that are eating at its core? Shall Jerusalem be

desecrated because we fear to denounce the hand that would deliver her to

the foe? We have a plague‐spot in the nation. We have an enemy in the

town. We have a traitor in the Council, Eleazar Ben‐Manahem! I bid thee

stand forth!”

There is an instinct of danger which seems to warn the statesman like the

mariner of coming storms, giving him time to trim his sail, while they are

yet below the horizon. When the assembled Senate turned their startled

looks on Eleazar, they beheld a countenance unmoved by the suddenness and

gravity of the accusation, a bearing that denoted, if not conscious

innocence, at least a fixed resolution to wear its semblance without a

shadow of weakness or fear. Pointing to his dusty garments, and the stains

of toil upon his hands and person, he looked round frankly among the

elders, rather, as it seemed, appealing to the Senate than answering his

accuser, in his reply.

“These should be sufficient proofs,” said he, “if any were wanting, that

Eleazar Ben‐Manahem hath not been an instant absent from his post. I have

but to strip the gown from my breast, and I can show yet deeper marks to

attest my loyalty and patriotism. I have not grudged my own blood, nor the

blood of my kindred, and of my father’s house, to defend the walls of

Jerusalem. John of Gischala hath dealt with you in parables, but I speak

to you in the plain language of truth. This right hand of mine is hardened

with grasping sword and spear against the enemies of Judah; and I would

cut it off with its own fellow, ere I stretched it forth in amity to the

Roman or the heathen. Talk not to me of thy worms and thy cedars! John of

Gischala, man of blood and rapine—speak out thine accusation plainly, that

I may answer it!”

John was stepping angrily forward, when he was arrested by the voice of a

venerable long‐bearded senator.

“It is not meet,” said the sage, “that accuser and accused should bandy

words in the presence of the Council. John of Gischala, we summon thee to

lay the matter at once before the Senate, warning thee that an accusation

without proofs will but recoil upon the head of him who brings it

forward.”

John smiled in grim triumph.

“Elders of Israel,” said he, “I accuse Eleazar Ben‐Manahem of offering

terms to the enemy.”

Eleazar started, but recovered himself instantaneously. It was war to the

knife, as well he knew, between him and John. He must not seem to hesitate

now when his ascendency amongst the people was at such a crisis. He took

the plunge at once.

“And I reply,” he exclaimed indignantly, “that rather than make terms with

the Roman, I would plunge the sword into my own body.”

A murmur of applause ran through the assembly at this spirited

declaration. The accused had great weight amongst the nobility and the

national party in Jerusalem, of which the Council chiefly consisted. Could

Eleazar but persevere in his denial of communication with Titus, he must

triumph signally over his adversary; and, to do him justice, there was now

but little personal ambition mingled with his desire for supremacy. He was

a fanatic, but he was a patriot as well. He believed all things were

lawful in the cause of Jerusalem, and trusting to the secret way by which

Calchas had left the city for the Roman camp, and by which he felt assured

he must have returned, as, thanks to John’s precautions, nothing had been

heard of his arrival at the Great Gate and subsequent arrest, he resolved

to persevere in his denial, and trust to his personal influence to carry

things with a high hand.

“There hath been a communication made from his own house, and by one of

his own family, to the Roman commander,” urged John, but with a certain

air of deference and hesitation, for he perceived the favourable

impression made on the Council by his adversary, and he was crafty enough

to know the advantage of reserving his convincing proofs for the last, and

taking the tide of opinion at the turn.

“I deny it,” said Eleazar firmly. “The children of Ben‐Manahem have no

dealings with the heathen!”

“It is one of the seed of Ben‐Manahem whom I accuse,” replied John, still

addressing himself to the elders. “I can prove he hath been seen going to

and fro, between the camp and the city.”

“His blood be on his own head!” answered Eleazar solemnly.

He had a vague hope that after all they might but have intercepted some

poor half‐starved wretch whom the pangs of hunger had driven to the enemy.

John looked back amongst his adherents crowding in the gate that led

towards the Temple.

“I speak not without proofs,” said he; “bring forward the prisoner!”

There was a slight scuffle amongst the throng, and a murmur which subsided

almost immediately as two young men appeared in the court, leading between

them a figure, having its hands tied, and a mantle thrown over its head.

“Eleazar Ben‐Manahem!” said John, in a loud, clear voice that seemed to

ring amongst the porticoes and pinnacles of the overhanging Temple, “stand

forth, and speak the truth! Is not this man thy brother?”

At the same moment, the mantle was drawn from the prisoner’s head,

revealing the mild and placid features of Calchas, who looked round upon

the Council, neither intimidated nor surprised. The Senate gazed in each

other’s faces with concern and astonishment: John seemed, indeed, in a

fair way of substantiating his accusation against the man they most

trusted in all Jerusalem. The accuser continued, with an affectation of

calm unprejudiced judgment, in a cool and dispassionate voice—

“This man was brought to the Great Gate to‐day, under a guard of honour,

direct from the Roman camp. I happened to be present, and the captain of

the gate handed him over at once to me. I appeal to the Council whether I

exceeded my duty in arresting him on the spot, permitting him no

communication with anyone in the town until I had brought him before them

in this court. I soon learned that he was the brother of Eleazar, one of

our most distinguished leaders, to whom more than to any other the defence

of the city has been entrusted, who knows better than anyone our weakness

and the extremity of our need. By my orders he was searched, and on his

person was found a scroll, purporting to be from no less a person than the

commander of the Tenth Legion, an officer second only in authority to

Titus himself, and addressed to one Esca, a Gentile, living in the very

house, and I am informed a member of the very family, of Eleazar Ben‐

Manahem, this elder in Judah, this chief of the Zealots, this member of

the Senate, this adviser in Council, this man whose right hand is hardened

with sword and spear, but who would cut it off with his left, rather than

that it should traffic with the enemy! I demand from the Council an order

for the arrest of Esca, that he too may be brought before it, and

confronted with him whose bread he eats. From the mouth of three

offenders, our wise men may peradventure elicit the truth. If I have erred

in my zeal let the Senate reprove me. If Eleazar can purge himself from my

accusation, let him defile my father’s grave, and call me liar and villain

to my very beard!”

The Senate, powerfully affected by John’s appeal, and yet unable to

believe in the treachery of one who had earned their entire confidence,

seemed at a loss how to act. The conduct of the accused, too, afforded no

clue whereby to judge of his probable guilt or innocence. His cheek was

very pale, and once he stepped forward a pace, as if to place himself at

his brother’s side. Then he halted and repeated his former words, “His

blood be on his own head,” in a loud and broken voice, turning away the

while, and glaring round upon the senators like some fierce animal taken

in the toils. Calchas, too, kept his eyes fixed on the ground; and more

than one observer remarked that the brothers studiously abstained from

looking each other in the face. There was a dead silence for several

seconds. Then the senator who had before spoken, raised his hand to

command attention, and thus addressed the Council—

“This is a grave matter, involving as it does not only the life and death

of a son of Judah, but the honour of one of our noblest houses, and the

safety, nay, the very existence of the Holy City. A grave matter, and one

which may not be dealt with, save by the highest tribunal in the nation.

It must be tried before our Sanhedrim, which will assemble for the purpose

without delay. Those of us here present who are members of that august

body, will divest their minds of all they have heard in this place to‐day,

and proceed to a clear and unbiassed judgment of the matters that shall be

then brought before them. Nothing has been yet proved against Eleazar Ben‐

Manahem, though his brother, and the Gentile who has to answer the same

accusation, must be kept in secure ward. I move that the Council,

therefore, be now dissolved, holding itself ready, nevertheless, seeing

the imminent peril of the times, to reassemble at an hour’s notice, for

the welfare of Judah, and the salvation of the Holy City.”

Even while he ceased speaking, and ere the grave senators broke up,

preparing to depart, a wail was heard outside the court that chilled the

very heart of each, as it rose and fell like a voice from the other world,

repeating ever and again, in wild unearthly tones, in solemn warning—

“Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin, and sorrow, and desolation!

Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”

CHAPTER VIII

THE SANHEDRIM

The highest tribunal acknowledged by the Jewish law, taking cognisance of

matters especially affecting the religious and political welfare of the

nation, essentially impartial in its decisions, and admitting of no appeal

from its sentence, was that assembly of Seventy, or rather of Seventy‐

three members, which was called the Sanhedrim. This court of justice was

supposed to express and embody the opinions of the whole nation,

consisting as it did of a number which subdivided would have given six

representatives for each tribe, besides a president to rule the

proceedings of the whole. The latter, who was termed the _Nasi_ or Prince

of the Sanhedrim, was necessarily of illustrious birth, venerable years,

and profound experience in all matters connected with the law—not only the

actual law as laid down by inspiration for the guidance of the Chosen

People, but also the traditional law, with its infinite variety of

customs, precedents, and ceremonious observances, which had been added to,

and as it were overlaid on the other, much to the detriment of that

simpler code, which came direct from heaven. The members themselves of

this supreme council were of noble blood. In no nation, perhaps, was the

pride of birth more cherished than amongst the Jews; and in such an

assemblage as the Sanhedrim, untainted lineage was the first indispensable

qualification. The majority, indeed, consisted of priests and Levites; but

other families of secular distinction who could count their ancestors step

by step, from generation to generation, through the Great Captivity, and

all the vicissitudes of their history, back to the magnificence of Solomon

and the glories of David’s warlike reign, had their representatives in

this solemn conclave.

Not only was nobility a requirement, but also maturity of years, a

handsome person, and a dignified bearing; nor were mental attainments held

in less regard than the adventitious advantages of appearance and station.

Every elder of the Sanhedrim was obliged to study physic, to become an

adept in the science of divination in all its branches, comprising

astrology, the casting of nativities and horoscopes, the prediction of

future events, and those mysteries of White Magic, as it was called, which

bordered so narrowly on the forbidden limits of the Black Art. He was also

required to be an excellent linguist; and was indeed supposed to be

proficient in the seventy languages, believed to comprise all the tongues

of the habitable earth. No eunuch nor deformed person could aspire to hold

a place in this august body, no usurer, no Sabbath‐breaker, none who were

in the practice of any unlawful business or overt sin. Those who sat in

the highest place of the Jewish nation, who ruled her councils and held

the right of life and death over her children, must be prudent, learned,

blameless men, decked with the patent of true nobility both in body and

mind.

The Sanhedrim, in its original constitution, was the only Court which had

the right of judging capital cases; and this right, involving so grave a

responsibility, it was careful to preserve during all the calamities of

the nation, until it fell under the Roman yoke. The Empire, however,

reserved to itself the power of condemning its criminals to death; but no

sooner had the Jews broken out once more in open resistance to their

conquerors, than the Sanhedrim resumed all its former privileges and sat

again in judgment upon its countrymen.

In a large circular chamber, half within and half without the Temple, this

awful Court held its deliberations, the members, ranged in order by

seniority, occupying the outer semicircle, as it was not lawful to sit

down in the sacred precincts. That chamber was now the theatre of a solemn

and imposing scene. The hall itself, which, though wide and lofty,

appeared of yet larger proportions from its circular form, was hung round

with cloth of a dark crimson colour, that added much to the prevailing

sentiments of gloom which its appearance called forth. Over its entrance

was suspended a curtain of the same hue; and the accused who underwent

examination in this dreaded locality, found themselves encircled by an

unbroken wall the colour of blood. A black carpet was spread on the floor,

bordered with a wide yellow margin, on which were written in black Hebrew

characters certain texts of the law, inculcating punishment rather than

pardon, inflexible justice rather than a leaning towards mercy and

forbearance. The heart of the guilty died within him as he looked uneasily

around; and even the innocent might well quail at these preparations for a

trial over which an exacting severity was so obviously to hold sway.

The Sanhedrim were accustomed to assemble in an outer chamber, and march

in grave procession to the court of trial. The crimson curtain, drawn by

an unseen hand, rolled slowly from the door, and the members, dressed in

black, came in by pairs and took their places in order. As they entered,

their names were called over by an official concealed behind the hangings;

and each man notified his arrival as he passed on to his seat, by the

solemn answer: “Here! In the presence of the Lord!” Last of all, the

president made his appearance, and assumed a higher chair, set apart a

little from the rest. Then the youngest member offered up a short prayer,

to which the whole assembly responded with a deep and fervent Amen! The

Court was now considered to be opened, and qualified for the trial of all

causes that should be brought before it during its sitting.

On the present occasion the junior member was a Levite, nearly threescore

years of age, of a stately presence, which he had preserved

notwithstanding the hardships of the siege, and who retained much of his

youthful comeliness with the flowing beard and grave countenance of

maturer years. Phineas Ben‐Ezra possessed the exterior qualities by which

men are prone to be influenced, with a ready tongue, a scheming brain, and

an unscrupulous heart. He was attached to John’s faction, and a bitter

enemy of the Zealots, by whom he had himself been formerly accused of

treasonable correspondence with Vespasian; an accusation that he refuted

to his own exultation and the utter confusion of his enemies, but which

those who had the best means of judging believed to be true nevertheless.

He took his seat now with an expression of cold triumph on his handsome

features, and exchanged looks with one or two of the colleagues who seemed

deepest in his confidence, that the latter knew too well boded

considerable danger to the accused whom they were about to try.

The Prince of the Sanhedrim, Matthias the son of Boethus, who had already

filled the office of high‐priest, was a stern and conscientious man of the

old Jewish party, whose opinions indeed were in accordance with those of

Eleazar, and who entertained, besides, a personal friendship for that

determined enthusiast, but whose inflexible obstinacy was to be moved by

no earthly consideration from the narrow path of duty which he believed

his sacred character compelled him to observe. His great age and austere

bearing commanded considerable influence among his countrymen, enhanced by

the high office he had previously filled; nor was he the less esteemed

that his severe and even morose disposition, while it gained him few

friends, yielded no confidences and afforded no opportunity for the

display of those human weaknesses by which a man wins their affections,

while he loses the command over his fellow‐creatures. His face was very

pale and grave now, as he moved haughtily to the seat reserved for him;

and his dark flowing robes, decorated, in right of his former priesthood,

with certain mystic symbols, seemed well‐fitted to the character of a

stern and inflexible judge. The other members of the assembly, though

varying in form and feature, were distinguished one and all by a family

likeness, originating probably in similarity of habits and opinions, no

less than in a common nationality and the sharing of a common danger,

growing daily to its worst. The dark flashing eye, the deep sallow tint,

the curving nostril and the waving beard, were no more distinguishing

marks of any one individual in the assembly, than were his long black gown

and his expression of severe and inscrutable gravity; but even these

universal characteristics were not so remarkable as a certain ominous

shadow that cast its gloom upon the face of each. It was the shadow of

that foe against whom sword and spear and shield and javelin, bodily

strength, dauntless courage, and skill in the art of war, were all

powerless to make head—the foe who was irresistible because he lay at the

very heart of the fortress. The weary, anxious, longing look of hunger was

on the faces even of these, the noblest and the most powerful behind the

wall. They had stores of gold and silver, rich silks, sparkling jewels,

costly wines within their houses; but there was a want of bread, and gaunt

uneasy famine had set his seal, if not as deeply at least as surely, upon

these faces in the Sanhedrim as on that of the meanest soldier, who girded

his sword‐belt tighter to stay his pangs, as he stood pale and wasted in

his armour on the ramparts, over against the foe.

There was a hush for several seconds after the Prince of the Sanhedrim had

taken his seat, and the general prayer had been offered up. It was broken

at length by Matthias, who rose with slow impressive gestures, drew his

robe around him so as to display the sacred symbols and cabalistic figures

with which its hem was garnished, and spoke in stern and measured tones—

“Princes of the House of Judah,” said he, “elders and nobles, and priests

and Levites of the nation, we are met once more to‐day, in accordance with

our ancient prerogative, for the sifting of a grave and serious matter. In

this, the highest Council of our country, we adhere to the same forms that

have been handed down to us by our fathers from the earliest times, even

from their sojourn in the wilderness, that have been preserved through the

Great Captivity of our nation, that may have been prohibited by our

conquerors, but that we have resumed with that independence which we have

recently asserted, and which the Ruler to whom alone we owe allegiance

will assuredly enable us to attain. We will not part with one iota of our

privileges, and least of all with our jurisdiction in matters involving

life and death; a jurisdiction as inseparable from our very existence as

the Tabernacle itself, which we have accompanied through so many

vicissitudes, and with which we are so closely allied. That inferior

assemblage from which our chosen body is selected has already considered

the heavy accusation which has collected us here. They have decided that

the matter is of too grave a character to be dealt with by their own

experience—that it involves the condemnation to death of one if not two

members of the illustrious family of Ben‐Manahem—that it may deprive us of

a leader who claims to be among the staunchest of our patriots, who has

proved himself the bravest of our defenders. But what then, princes of the

House of Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and Levites of the nation?

Shall I spare the pruning‐hook, because it is the heaviest branch in my

vineyard that is rotting from its stem? Shall I not rather lop it off with

mine own hand, and cast it from me into the consuming fire? If my brother

be guilty shall I screen him, brother though he be? Shall I not rather

hand him over to the Avenger, and deliver my own soul? We are all

assembled in our places, ready to hear attentively, and to try

impartially, whatsoever accusations may be brought before us. Phineas Ben‐

Ezra, youngest member of the Sanhedrim, I call on thee to count over thy

colleagues, and proclaim aloud the sum thereof.”

In compliance with established usage, Phineas, thus adjured, rose from his

seat, and walking gravely through the hall, told off its inmates one by

one, in a loud and solemn voice, then finding the tale to be correct,

stopped before the high chair of the Nasi, and proclaimed thrice—

“Prince of the Sanhedrim, the mystic number is complete!”

The president addressed him again in the prescribed formula—

“Phineas Ben‐Ezra, are we prepared to try each cause according to the

traditions of our nation, and the strict letter of the law? Do we abide by

the decisions of wisdom without favour, and justice without mercy?”

Then the whole Sanhedrim repeated as with one voice, “Wisdom without

favour, and justice without mercy!”

The president now seated himself, and looked once more to Phineas, who, as

the youngest member present, was entitled to give his opinion first. The

latter, answering his glance, rose at once and addressed his fellows in a

tone of diffidence which would have seemed misplaced in one of his

venerable appearance, had he not been surrounded by men of far greater age

than himself.

“I am but as a disciple,” said he, “at the feet of a master, in presence

of Matthias the son of Boethus, and my honoured colleagues. Submitting to

their experience, I do but venture to ask a question, without presuming to

offer my own opinion on its merits. Supposing that the Sanhedrim should be

required to try one of its own number, is it lawful that he should remain

and sit, as it were, in judgment upon himself?”

Eleazar, who was present in his place as a member of the august body, felt

that this attack was specially directed against his own safety. He knew

the virulence of the speaker, and his rancorous enmity to the Zealots, and

recognised the danger to himself of exclusion from the coming

deliberations. He was in the act of rising in indignant protest against

such an assumption, when he was forestalled by Matthias, who replied in

tones of stern displeasure—

“He must indeed be a mere disciple, and it will be long ere he is worthy

of the name of master in the Sanhedrim, who has yet to learn, that our

deliberations are uninfluenced by aught we have heard or seen outside the

chamber—that we recognise in our august office no evidence but the proofs

that are actually brought before us here. Phineas Ben‐Ezra, the Court is

assembled; admit accusers and accused. Must I tell thee that we are still

ignorant of the cause we are here to try?”

The decision of the Nasi, which was in accordance with traditional

observance and established custom, afforded Eleazar a moment’s respite, in

which to resolve on the course he should adopt; but though his mind was

working busily, he sat perfectly unmoved, and to all outward appearance

calm and confident; whilst the hangings were again drawn back, and the

tread of feet announced the approach of accuser and accused. The latter

were now two in number: for by John’s orders a strong guard had already

proceeded to Eleazar’s house, and laid violent hands on Esca, who,

confident in his own innocence and in the influence of his host,

accompanied them without apprehension of danger into the presence of the

awful assembly. The Briton’s surprise was, however, great, when he found

himself confronted with Calchas, of whose arrest, so skilfully had John

managed it, he was as unconscious as the rest of the besieged. The two

prisoners were not permitted to communicate with each other; and it was

only from a warning glance shot at him by his fellow‐sufferer, that Esca

gathered they were both in a situation of extreme peril.

It was not without considerable anxiety that Eleazar remarked, when the

curtains were drawn back, how a large body of armed men filled the

adjoining cloister of the Temple: like the guard who watched the

prisoners, these were partisans of John; and so well aware were the

Sanhedrim of that fierce soldier’s lawless disposition, that they looked

uneasily from one to the other, with the painful reflection that he was

quite capable of massacring the whole conclave then and there, and taking

the supreme government of the city into his own hands.

It was the influence, however, of no deliberative assembly that was feared

by a man like John of Gischala. Fierce and reckless to the extreme, he

dreaded only the violence of a character bold and unscrupulous as his own.

Could he but pull Eleazar from the pinnacle on which he had hitherto

stood, he apprehended no other rival. The chief of the Zealots was the

only man who could equal him in craft as well as in courage, whose

stratagems were as deep, whose strokes were even bolder, than his own. The

opportunity he had desired so long was come, he believed, at last. In that

circular chamber, thought John, before that council of stern and cruel

dotards, he was about to throw the winning cast of his game. It behoved

him to play it warily, though courageously. If he could enlist the

majority of the Sanhedrim on his own side, his rival’s downfall was

certain. When he had assumed supreme power in Jerusalem—and he made no

doubt that would be his next step—it would be time enough to consider

whether he too might not ensure his own safety, and make terms with Titus

by delivering up the town to the enemy.

Standing apart from the prisoners, and affecting an air of extreme

deference to his audience, John addressed the Nasi, in the tones rather of

an inferior who excused himself for an excess of zeal in the performance

of his duty, than of an equal denouncing a traitor and demanding justice

for an offence.

“I leave my case,” said he, “in the hands of the Sanhedrim, appealing to

them whether I have exceeded my authority, or accused any man falsely of a

crime which I am unable to prove. I only ask for the indulgence due to a

mere soldier, who is charged with the defence of the city, and is jealous

of everything that can endanger her safety. From each member here present

without a single exception, from Matthias the son of Boethus to Phineas

Ben‐Ezra of the family of Nehemiah, I implore a favourable hearing. There

stands the man whom I secured at noon this day, coming direct from Titus,

with a written scroll upon his person, of which the superscription was to

a certain Gentile dwelling in the house of Eleazar, who is also present

before you, and purporting to be in the writing of that warrior of the

heathen who commands the Tenth Legion. Was it not my duty to bring such a

matter at once before the Council? and was it not expedient that the

Council should refer so grave a question to the Sanhedrim?”

Matthias bent his brows sternly upon the speaker, and thus addressed him—

“Thou art concealing thy thoughts from those to whose favour thou makest

appeal. John of Gischala, thou art no unpractised soldier to draw a bow at

a venture, and heed not where the shaft may strike. Speak out thine

accusation, honestly, boldly, without fear of man, before the assembly, or

for ever hold thy peace!”

Thus adjured, John of Gischala cast an anxious glance at the surrounding

faces turned towards him, with varying expressions of expectation, anger,

encouragement, and mistrust. Then he looked boldly at the president, and

made his accusation before the Sanhedrim as he had already made it before

the Council—

“I charge Eleazar Ben‐Manahem,” said he, “with treason, and I charge these

two men as his instruments. Let them clear themselves if they can!”

CHAPTER IX

THE PAVED HALL

[Initial A]

All eyes were now turned on Eleazar, who sat unmoved in his place,

affecting a composure which he was far from feeling. His mind, indeed, was

tortured to agony, by the conflict that went on within. Should he stand

boldly forward and confess that he had sent his own brother into the Roman

camp, with proposals for surrender? Well he knew that such a confession

would be tantamount to placing his neck at once under John of Gischala’s

foot. Who amongst his most devoted partisans would have courage to profess

a belief in his patriotic motives, or allow that he was satisfied with the

explanation offered for such a flagrant act of treason? The condemnation

of the Sanhedrim would be the signal for his downfall and his death. When

he was gone who would be left to save Jerusalem? This was the

consideration that affected him, far more than any personal apprehensions

of danger or disgrace. On the other hand, should he altogether renounce

his brother, and disavow the authority he had given him? It has already

been said, that as far as he loved any living being, he loved Calchas;

perhaps had it not been so, he might have shrunk from the disgrace of

abandoning one who had acted under his own immediate orders, and risked so

much in obeying them; but in the depths of his fierce heart, something

whispered that self‐sacrifice was essentially akin to duty, and that

_because_ he loved him, therefore he must offer up his brother, as a man

offers up a victim at the altar.

Nevertheless, he ran his eye hastily over his seventy‐two colleagues, as

they sat in grave deliberation, and summed up rapidly the score of friends

and foes. It was nearly balanced, yet he knew there were many who would

take their opinions from the Nasi; and from that stern old man he could

expect nothing but the severity of impartial justice. He dared not look at

Calchas, he dared not cover his face with his hand to gain a brief respite

from the cold grave eyes that were fixed upon him. It was a bitter moment,

but he reflected that, in the cause of Jerusalem, shame and suffering and

sorrow, and even sin, became sacred, and he resolved to sacrifice all,

even his own flesh and blood, to his ascendency in the town.

He was spared the pain, however, of striking the fatal blow with his own

hand. Matthias, scrupulous in all matters of justice, had decided that

until the accusation against him was supported by some direct evidence, no

member of the Sanhedrim could be placed in the position of a culprit. He

therefore determined to interrogate the prisoners himself, and ascertain

whether anything would be elicited of so grave a nature as to cause

Eleazar’s suspension from his present office, and the consequent

reassembling of the whole Sanhedrim; a delay that in the present critical

state of matters it was desirable to avoid, the more so that the day was

already far advanced, and the morrow was the Sabbath. He therefore ordered

the two prisoners to be placed in the centre of the hall; and, looking

sternly towards the accused, began his interrogations in the severe

accents of one who is an avenger rather than a judge.

The mild eye and placid demeanour of Calchas afforded a strong contrast to

the frowning brows and flashing glances of the Nasi.

“Your name, old man,” said the latter abruptly. “Your name, lineage, and

generation?”

“Calchas the son of Simeon,” was the reply, “the son of Manahem, of the

house of Manahem, and of the tribe of Judah.”

“Art thou not the brother of Eleazar Ben‐Manahem, who is sitting yonder in

his place as a member of the Sanhedrim, before whom thou hast to plead?”

Ere he replied, Calchas stole a look at Eleazar, who forced himself to

return it. There was something in the elder brother’s face that caused the

younger to turn his eyes away, and bend them on the ground. The fierce old

president, impatient of that momentary delay, broke out angrily—

“Nay, look up, man! no subterfuges will avail thee here. Remember the fate

of those who dare to lie in the presence of the Sanhedrim!”

Calchas fixed his eye on the president’s in mild rebuke.

“I am in a higher presence than thine, Matthias son of Boethus,” said he;

“neither need the children of Manahem be adjured to speak truth before God

and man!”

“Hast thou heard the accusation brought against thee by John of Gischala?”

proceeded the Nasi. “Canst thou answer it with an open brow and a clean

heart?”

“I heard the charge,” replied Calchas, “and I am ready to answer it for

myself, and for him who is in bonds by my side. Have I permission to clear

myself before the Sanhedrim?”

“Thou wilt have enough to do to slip thine own neck out of the yoke,”

answered Matthias sternly. “Colleagues,” he added, looking round, “ye have

heard the accuser—will ye now listen to the accused?”

Then Phineas, speaking for the rest, answered: “We will hear him, Nasi,

without favour, we will judge him without mercy.”

Thus encouraged, Calchas shook the white hair from his brow, and entered

boldly on his defence.

“It is true,” said he, “that I have been outside the walls. It is true

that I have been in the Roman camp, nay, that I have been in the very

presence of Titus himself. Shall I tell the assembly of the strength of

Rome, of the discipline of her armies, of the late reinforcement of her

legions? Shall I tell them that I saw the very auxiliaries eating wheaten

bread and the flesh of kids and sheep, whilst my countrymen are starving

behind the walls? Shall I tell them that we are outnumbered by our foes,

and are ourselves weakened by dissensions, and wasting our strength and

courage day by day? Shall I tell them that I read on the face of Titus

confidence in himself and reliance on his army, and, even with a

conviction that he should prevail, a wish to show pity and clemency to the

vanquished? All this they already know, all this must make it needless for

me to enter into any defence beyond a simple statement of my motives. Nay,

I have gathered intelligence from the Roman camp,” he added, now fixing

his eyes on his brother, to whom he had no other means of imparting the

answer, which the prince had confided to him through Licinius by word of

mouth,—“intelligence, the importance of which should well bear me

harmless, even had I committed a greater offence than escaping from a

beleaguered town to hold converse with the enemy. Titus,” he spoke now in

a loud clear voice, of which every syllable rang through the

building—“Titus bade me be assured that his determination was unalterable,

to grant no further delay, but, surrender or no surrender, to enter

Jerusalem the day after the Sabbath, and if he encountered resistance, to

lay waste the Holy City with fire and sword!”

Eleazar started to his feet, but recollected himself, and resumed his seat

instantaneously. The action might well be interpreted as the mere outbreak

of a soldier’s energy, called, as it were, by the sound of the trumpet to

the wall. This, then, was what he had gained, a respite, a reprieve of one

day, and that one day he had purchased at the dear price of his brother’s

life. Yet even now the fierce warrior reflected with a grim delight, how

judiciously he had used the time accorded him, and how, when the proud

Roman did make his threatened assault, he would meet with a reception

worthy of the warlike fame so long enjoyed by the Jewish nation.

The rest of the Sanhedrim seemed scared and stupefied. Every man looked in

his neighbour’s face, and read there only dismay and blank despair. The

crisis had been long threatening, and now it was at hand. Resistance was

hopeless, escape impossible, and captivity insupportable. The prevailing

feeling in the assembly was, nevertheless, one of indignation against the

bearer of such unwelcome tidings. The Nasi was the first to recover

himself, yet even he seemed disturbed.

“By whose authority,” said he—and every eye was turned on Eleazar while he

spoke—“by whose authority didst thou dare to enter the camp of the enemy,

and traffic with the Gentile who encompasseth the Holy City with bow and

spear?”

The chief of the Zealots knew well that he was the observed of all his

colleagues, many of whom would triumph at his downfall, whilst even his

own partisans would detach themselves from it, each to the best of his

abilities, when his faction ceased to be in the ascendant. He knew, too,

that on his brother’s answer hung not only his life—which indeed he had

risked too often to rate at a high value—but the stability of the whole

fabric he had been building for months—the authority by which he hoped to

save Jerusalem and Judæa, for which he grudged not to peril his immortal

soul; and knowing all this, he forced his features into a sedate and

solemn composure. He kept his eye away from the accused indeed, but fixed

sternly on the president, and sat in his place the only man in the whole

of that panic‐stricken assembly who appeared master of the situation, and

confident in himself. Calchas paused before he answered, waiting till the

stir was hushed, and the attention which had been diverted to his brother

settled once more on his own case. Then he addressed the Nasi in bold

sonorous accents, his form dilating, his face brightening as he spoke—

“By the authority of Him who came to bring peace on earth—by the authority

that is as far greater than that of Sanhedrim, or priest, or conqueror, as

the heavens are higher than the sordid speck of dust on which, but for

that authority, we should only swarm and grovel and live one little hour,

like the insects dancing in the sunbeams, to die at the close of day—I am

a man of peace! Could I bear to see my country wasted by the armed hand,

and torn by the trampling hoof? I love my neighbour as myself. Could I

bear to know that his grasp was day by day on his brother’s throat? I have

learned from my Master that all are brethren, besieger and besieged, Roman

and barbarian, Jew and Gentile, bond and free. Are they at variance, and

shall I not set them at one? Are their swords at each other’s breasts, and

shall I not step between and bid them be at peace? By whose authority,

dost thou ask me, Matthias son of Boethus? By His authority who came to

you, and ye knew Him not. Who preached to you, and ye heeded Him not. Who

would have saved you in His own good time from the great desolation, and

ye reviled Him, and judged Him, and put Him to death on yonder hill!”

Even the Prince of the Sanhedrim was staggered at the old man’s boldness.

Like other influential men of his nation, he could not ignore the

existence of a well‐known sect, which had already exchanged its title of

Nazarenes for that of Christians, the name in which it was hereafter to

spread itself over the whole earth; but the very mention of these self‐

devoted men was an abomination in his ears, and the last house in which he

could have expected to find a votary of the cross, was that of Eleazar

Ben‐Manahem, chief of such a party as the Zealots, and grounding his

influence on his exclusive nationality and strict adhesion to the very

bigotry of the Jewish law. He looked on Calchas for a space, as if

scarcely believing his eyes. Then there came over his features, always

stern and harsh, an expression of pitiless severity, and he addressed his

colleagues, rather than the accused.

“This is even a graver matter than I had thought for,” said he, in a low

yet distinct voice, that made itself heard in the farthest corner of the

Court. “Princes of the house of Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and

Levites of the nation, I am but the instrument of your will, the weapon

wielded by your collective might. Is it not the duty of mine office that I

smite and spare not?”

“Smite and spare not!” repeated Phineas; and the whole assembly echoed the

merciless verdict.

There was not one dissentient, not even Eleazar, sitting gloomy and

resolved in his place. Then Matthias turned once more to Calchas, and

said, still in the same suppressed tones—

“Thou speakest in parables, and men may not address the Sanhedrim save in

the brief language of fact. Art thou then one of those accursed Nazarenes

who have called themselves Christians of late?”

“I am indeed a Christian,” answered Calchas, “and I glory in the name.

Would that thou, Matthias son of Boethus, and these the elders of Judah,

were partakers with me in all that name affords.”

Then he looked kindly and joyfully in Eleazar’s face, for he knew that he

had saved his brother. The corselet of the latter rattled beneath his long

black robe with the shiver that ran through his whole frame. The tension

was taken off his nerves at last, and the relief was great, but it was

purchased at too dear a price. Now that it was doomed, he felt the value

of his brother’s life. He was totally unmanned, and shifted uneasily in

his seat, not knowing what to do or say. They seemed to have changed

places at last—Calchas to have assumed the bold unyielding nature, and

Eleazar the loving tender heart. He recovered himself, however, before

long. The ruling passion triumphed once more, as he anticipated the

discomfiture of his rival, and the speedy renewal of his own ascendency

amongst his countrymen.

The Prince of the Sanhedrim reflected for a few moments ere he turned his

severe frown on Esca, and said—

“What doth this Gentile here in the Court of the Sanhedrim? Let him speak

what he knoweth in this matter, ere he answer his own crime. Thy testimony

at least may be valid,” he added scornfully, “for thou surely art not a

Christian?”

The Briton raised his head proudly to reply. If there was less of holy

meekness in his demeanour than in that of Calchas, there was the same bold

air of triumph, the same obvious defiance of consequences, usually

displayed by those who sealed their testimony with their blood.

“I _am_ a Christian,” said he. “I confess it, and I too, like my teacher

there, glory in the name! I will not deny the banner under which I serve.

I will fight under that banner, even to the death.”

The Nasi’s very beard bristled with indignation; he caught up the skirt of

his mantle, and tore it asunder to the hem. Then, raising the pieces thus

rent above his head, he cried out in a loud voice, “It is enough! They

have spoken blasphemy before the Sanhedrim. There is nothing more but to

pronounce immediate sentence of death. Phineas Ben‐Ezra, bid thy

colleagues adjourn to the Stone‐paved Hall!”

Then the assembly rose in silence, and, marching gravely two by two,

passed out into an adjoining chamber, which was paved, and roofed, and

faced with stone. Here alone was it lawful to pass sentence of death on

those whom the Sanhedrim had condemned; and here, while their judges stood

round them in a circle, the prisoners with their guard fronting the Nasi

took their position in the midst. The latter stooping to the ground went

through the form of collecting a handful of dust and throwing it into the

air.

“Thus,” said he, “your lives are scattered to the winds, and your blood

recoils on your own heads. You, Calchas the son of Simeon, the son of

Manahem, of the house of Manahem, and you, Gentile, called Esca on the

scroll which has been delivered into my hand, shall be kept in secure ward

till to‐morrow be past, seeing that it is the Sabbath, and at morning’s

dawn on the first day of the week ye shall be stoned with stones in the

Outer Court adjoining the Temple until ye die; and thus shall be done, and

more also, to those who are found guilty of blasphemy in the presence of

the Sanhedrim!”

Then turning to Eleazar, who still retained his forced composure

throughout the hideous scene, he added—

“For thee, Eleazar Ben‐Manahem, thy name is still untarnished in the

nation, and thy place still knows thee amongst thy brethren. The testimony

of a Nazarene is invalid; and no accusation hath yet been brought against

thee supported by any witness save these two condemned and accursed men.

That thou hast no portion, my brother, with blasphemers scarcely needs

thine own unsupported word in the ears of the Sanhedrim!”

Eleazar, with the same fixed white face, looked wildly round him on the

assembled elders, turning up the sleeves of his gown the while, and moving

his hands over each other as though he were washing them.

“Their blood be on their own head,” said he. “I renounce them from my

family and my household—I abjure them, I wash my hands of them—their blood

be on their own head!”

And while he spoke, the warning voice was heard again outside the Temple,

causing even the bold heart of the Nasi to thrill with a wild and

unaccustomed fear—the voice of the wailing prophet crying, “Woe to

Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin and sorrow and desolation! Woe to the

Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”

CHAPTER X

A ZEALOT OF THE ZEALOTS

The man who has resolved that he will shake himself free from those human

affections and human weaknesses which, like the corporeal necessities of

hunger and thirst, seem to have been given us for our enjoyment rather

than our discomfort, will find he undertakes a task too hard for mortal

courage and for mortal strength. Without those pleasant accessories, like

water and sunshine, the simple and universal luxuries of mankind,

existence may indeed drag on, but it can scarcely be called life. The

Great Dispenser of all knows best. His children are not meant to stand

alone, independent of each other and of Him. While they help their

fellows, and trust in His strength, they are strong indeed; but no sooner

do they lean on the staff themselves have fashioned, than they stumble and

fall. It wounds the hand that grasps it, and breaks too surely when it is

most needed at the last.

Eleazar believed, when he quitted the Paved Hall in which the Sanhedrim

pronounced their sentence, that the bitterest drop was drained in the cup

he had forced himself to quaff. He had not anticipated the remorseful

misery that awaited him in his own home—the empty seats, where _they_ were

not—the tacit reproach of every familiar object—worst of all, the meeting

with Mariamne, the daughter of his affections, the only child of his

house. All that dreary Sabbath morning the Zealot sat in his desolate

home, fearing—yes, he who seemed to fear nothing; to whom the battle‐cry

of shouting thousands on the wall was but as heart‐stirring and inspiring

music—fearing the glance of a girl’s dark eye, the tone of her gentle

voice—and that girl his own daughter. There was no daily sacrifice in the

Temple now; that last cherished prerogative of the Jewish religion had

been suspended. His creed forbade him to busy himself in any further

measures of defence which would involve labour on the Sacred Day. He might

not work with lever and crowbar at the breach. All that could be done in

so short a space of time had been done by his directions yesterday. He

must sit idle in his stately dwelling, brooding darkly over his brother’s

fate, or traverse his marble floor in restless strides, with clenched

hands, and gnashing teeth, and a wild despair raging at his heart. Yet he

never yielded nor wavered in his fanatical resolve. Had it all to be done

once more, he would do the same again.

One memory there was that he could not shake off—a vague and dreary memory

that sometimes seemed to soothe, and sometimes to madden him. The image of

Mariamne would come up before his eyes, not as now in her fair and perfect

womanhood, but as a helpless loving little child, running to him with

outstretched arms, and round cheeks wet with tears, asking him for the

precious favourite that had gone with the rest of the flock to one of

those great sacrifices with which the Jews kept their sacred festivals—the

kid that was his child’s playfellow—that he would have ransomed, had he

but known it in time, with whole hecatombs of sheep and oxen, ere it

should have been destroyed. The child had no mother even then; and he

remembered, with a strange clearness, how he had taken the weeping little

girl on his knee and soothed her with unaccustomed tenderness, while she

put her arms round his neck, and laid her soft cheek against his own,

accepting consolation, and sobbing herself to sleep upon his breast.

After this there seemed to grow up a tacit confidence—a strong though

unspoken affection—between father and daughter. They seldom exchanged many

words in a day, sometimes scarcely more than a look. No two human beings

could be much less alike, or have less in common. There was but this one

slender link between them, and yet how strong it had been! After a while

it angered him to find this memory softening, while it oppressed him,

whether he would or no. He resolved he would see Mariamne at once and face

the worst. She knew he had avoided her, and held him in too great awe to

risk giving offence by forcing herself upon him. Ignorant of Esca’s

arrest, the instinctive apprehension of a woman for the man she loves had

yet caused her to suspect some threatened danger from his prolonged

absence. She watched her opportunity, therefore, to enter her father’s

presence and gain tidings, if possible, of his brother and the Briton.

The hours sped on, and the fierce Syrian noon was already glaring down

upon the white porches and dazzling streets of the Holy City. The hush of

the Sabbath was over all; but it seemed more like the brooding, unnatural

hush that precedes earthquake or tempest, than the quiet of a day devoted

to peaceful enjoyment and repose. Her father was accustomed to drink a cup

of wine at this hour, and Mariamne brought it him, trembling the while to

learn the certainty of that which she could not yet bear to leave in

doubt. She entered the room in which he sat with faltering steps, and

stood before him with a certain graceful timidity that seemed to deprecate

his resentment. His punishment had begun already. She reminded him of her

mother, standing there pale and beautiful in her distress.

“Father,” she said softly, as he took the cup from her hand and set it

down untasted, without speaking, “where is our kinsman, Calchas? and—and

Esca, the Briton? Father! tell me the worst at once. I am your own

daughter, and I can bear it.”

The worst, had she allowed herself to embody her vague fears, would have

applied to the younger of the absent ones. It would have assumed that he

was gravely wounded, even dangerously. Not killed—surely not killed! He

turned his eyes upon her sternly, nay, angrily; but even then he could not

tell her till he had lifted the cup and drained it every drop. His lip was

steady now, and his face was harder, gloomier, than before, while he

spoke—

“Daughter of Ben‐Manahem!” said he, “henceforth thou hast no portion with

him who was thy kinsman but yesterday, neither with him the Gentile within

my gate, who has eaten of my bread and drunk from my cup, and stood with

me shoulder to shoulder against the Roman on the wall.”

She clasped her hands in agony, and her very lips turned white; but she

said true—she was his own daughter, and she neither tottered nor gave way.

In measured tones she repeated her former words.

“Tell me the worst, father. I can bear it.”

He found it easier now that he had begun, and he could lash himself into a

spurious anger as he went on, detailing the events of the previous day;

the charges brought forward by John of Gischala, the trial before the

Sanhedrim, his own narrow escape, and the confession of the two culprits,

owning, nay, glorying in their mortal crime. He fenced himself in with the

sophistry of an enthusiast and a fanatic. He deluded himself into the

belief that he had been injured and aggrieved by the apostasy of the

condemned. He poured forth all the eloquence that might have vindicated

him before Matthias and his colleagues, had John’s accusation been ever

brought to proof. The girl stood petrified and overpowered with his

violence: at last he denounced herself, for having listened so eagerly to

the gentle doctrines of her own father’s brother, for having consorted on

terms of friendship with the stranger whom he had been the first to

encourage and welcome beneath his roof. Once she made her appeal on Esca’s

behalf, but he silenced her ere she had half completed it.

“Father,” she urged, “though a Gentile, he conformed to the usages of our

people; though a stranger, I have heard yourself declare that not a

warrior in our ranks struck harder for the Holy City than your guest, the

brave and loyal Esca!”

He interrupted her with a curse.

“Daughter of Ben‐Manahem! in the day in which thou shalt dare again to

speak that forbidden name, may thine eye wax dim, and thy limbs fail, and

thy heart grow cold within thy breast—that thou be cut off even then, in

thy sin—that thou fall like a rotten branch from the tree of thy

generation—that thou go down into the dust and vanish like water spilt on

the sand—that thy name perish everlastingly from among the maidens of

Judah and the daughters of thy father’s house!”

Though his fury terrified it did not master her. Some women would have

fled in dismay from his presence; some would have flung themselves on

their knees and sought to move him to compassion with prayers and tears.

Mariamne looked him fixedly in the face with a quiet sorrow in her own

that touched him to the quick, and maddened him the more.

“Father,” she said softly, “I have nothing left to fear in this world.

Slay me, but do not curse me.”

The vision of her childhood, the memory of her mother, the resigned

sadness of her bearing, and the consciousness of his own injustice,

conspired to infuriate him.

“Slay thee!” he repeated between his set teeth. “By the bones of

Manahem—by the head of the high‐priest—by the veil of the Temple itself,

if ever I hear thee utter that accursed name again, I will slay thee with

mine own hand!”

It was no empty threat to a daughter of her nation. Such instances of

fanaticism were neither unknown to the sterner sects of the Jews, nor

regarded with entirely unfavourable eyes by that self‐devoted and

enthusiastic people. The tale of Jephthah’s daughter was cherished rather

as an example of holy and high‐minded obedience, than a warning from rash

and inconsiderate vows. The father was more honoured as a hero than the

daughter was pitied for a victim. And in later times, one Simon of

Scythopolis, who had taken up arms against his own countrymen, and

repented of his treachery, regained a high place in their estimation by

putting himself to death, having previously slain every member of his

family with his own hand.(19) It would have only added one more incident,

causing but little comment, to the horrors of the siege, had the life of

Mariamne been taken by her own father on his very threshold. She looked at

him more in surprise than fear, with a hurt reproachful glance that

pierced him to the heart. “Father!” she exclaimed, “you cannot mean it.

Unsay those cruel words. Am I not your daughter? Father! father! you used

to love me, when I was a little girl!”

Then his savage mood gave way, and he took her to him and spoke to her in

gentle soothing accents, as of old.

“Thou art a daughter of Manahem,” said he, “a maiden of Judah. It is not

fit for thee to consort with the enemies of thy nation and of thy father’s

house. These men have avowed the pernicious doctrines of the Nazarenes,

who call themselves Christians. Therefore they are become an abomination

in our sight, and are to be cut off from amongst our people. Mariamne, if

I can bear unmoved to see my brother perish, surely it is no hard task for

thee to give up this stranger guest. It is not that my heart is iron to

the core, though thou seest me ofttimes so stern, even with thee; but the

men of to‐day, who have taken upon themselves the defence of Jerusalem

from the heathen, must be weaned from human affections and human

weaknesses, even as the child is weaned from its mother’s milk. I tell

thee, girl, I would not count the lives of all my kindred against one hour

of the safety of Judah; and Mariamne, though I love thee dearly, ay,

better far than thou canst know—for whom have I now but thee, my

daughter?—yet, if I believed that thou, too, couldst turn traitor to thy

country and thy faith—I speak it not in anger—flesh and blood of mine own

though thou be, I would bury my sword in thy heart!”

Had Eleazar’s looks corresponded with his words, such a threat, in her

present frame of mind, might have caused Mariamne to avow herself a

Christian, and brave the worst at once; but there was a weight of care on

her father’s haggard brow, a mournful tenderness in his eyes, that stirred

the very depths of her being in compassion—that merged all other feelings

in one of intense pity for the misery of that fierce, resolute, and

desolate old man. For the moment she scarcely realised Esca’s danger in

her sympathy for the obvious sufferings of one usually so self‐reliant and

unmoved. She came closer to his side, and placed her hand in his without

speaking. He looked fondly down at her.

“Abide with me for a space,” said he; “Mariamne, thou and I are left alone

in the world.”

Then he covered his face with his hands, and remained without speaking,

wrapped, as it seemed, in gloomy reflections that she dare not disturb. So

the two sat on through the weary hours of that long hot Sabbath day.

Whenever she made the slightest movement, he looked up and signed for her

to remain where she was. Though it was torture, she dared not disobey; and

while the time slipped on and the shadows lengthened, and the breeze began

to stir, she knew that every minute, as it passed, brought her lover

nearer and nearer to a cruel death. Thus much she had learned too surely;

but with the certainty were aroused all the energies of her indomitable

race, and she resolved that he should be saved. Many a scheme passed

through her working brain, as she sat in her father’s presence, fearing

now, above all things, to awake his suspicion of her intentions by word or

motion, and so make it impossible for her to escape. Of all her plans

there was but one that seemed feasible; and even that one presented

difficulties almost insurmountable for a woman.

She knew that he was safe at least till the morrow. No execution could

take place on the Sabbath; and although the holy day would conclude at

sundown, it was not the custom of her nation to put their criminals to

death till after the dawn, so that she had the whole night before her in

which to act. But, on the other hand, her father would not leave his home

during the Sabbath, and she would be compelled to remain under his

observation till the evening. At night, then, she had resolved to make her

escape, and taking advantage of the private passage, only known to her

father’s family, by which Calchas had reached the Roman camp, to seek

Titus himself, and offer to conduct his soldiers by that path into the

city, stipulating as the price of her treachery an immediate assault, and

the rescue of her kinsman, Calchas, with his fellow‐sufferer. Girl as she

was, it never occurred to her that Titus might refuse to believe in her

good faith towards himself, and was likely to look upon the whole scheme

as a design to lead his army into an ambush. The only difficulty that

presented itself was her own escape from the city. She never doubted but

that, once in the Roman camp, her tears and entreaties would carry

everything before them, and, whatever became of herself, her lover would

be saved.

It was not, however, without a strong conflict of feelings that she came

to this desperate resolve. The blood that flowed in her veins was loyal

enough to tingle with shame ever and anon, as she meditated such treachery

against her nation. Must she, a daughter of Judah, admit the enemy into

the Holy City? Could the child of Eleazar Ben‐Manahem, the boldest warrior

of her hosts, the staunchest defender of her walls, be the traitor to

defile Jerusalem with a foreign yoke? She looked at her father sitting

there, in gloomy meditation, and her heart failed her as she thought of

his agony of shame, if he lived to learn the truth, of the probability

that he would never survive to know it, but perish virtually by her hand,

in an unprepared and desperate resistance. Then she thought of Esca, tied

to the stake, the howling rabble, the cruel mocking faces, the bare arms

and the uplifted stones. There was no further doubt after that—no more

wavering—nothing but the dogged immovable determination that proved whose

daughter she was.

When the sun had set, Eleazar seemed to shake off the fit of despondency

that had oppressed him during the day. The Sabbath was now past, and it

was lawful for him to occupy mind and body in any necessary work. He bade

Mariamne light a lamp, and fetch him certain pieces of armour that had

done him good service, and now stood in need of repair. It was a task in

the skilful fulfilment of which every Jewish warrior prided himself. Men

of the highest rank would unwillingly commit the renewal of these trusty

defences to any fingers but their own; and Eleazar entered upon it with

more of cheerfulness than he had shown for some time. As he secured one

rivet after another, with the patience and precision required, every

stroke of the hammer seemed to smite upon his daughter’s brain. There she

was compelled to remain a close prisoner, and the time was gliding away so

fast! At length, when the night was already far advanced, even Eleazar’s

strong frame began to feel the effects of hunger, agitation, labour, and

want of rest. He nodded two or three times over his employment, worked on

with redoubled vigour, nodded again, let his head sink gradually on his

breast, while the hammer slipped from his relaxing fingers, and he fell

asleep.

CHAPTER XI

THE DOOMED CITY

Mariamne watched her father for a few impatient minutes, that seemed to

lengthen themselves into hours, till she had made sure by his deep

respiration that her movements would not wake him. Then she extinguished

the lamp and stole softly from the room, scarcely breathing till she found

herself safe out of the house. The door through which she emerged was a

private egress, opening on the wide terrace that overhung the gardens. Its

stone balustrades and broad flight of steps were now white and glistening

in the moonlight, which shone brighter and fairer in those mellow skies

than doth many a noonday in the misty north. While she paused to draw

breath, and concentrate every faculty on the task she had undertaken, she

could not but admire the scene spread out at her very feet. There lay the

gardens in which she had followed many a childish sport, and dreamed out

many a maiden’s dream, sitting in the shade of those black cypresses, and

turning her young face to catch the breeze that stirred their whispering

branches, direct from the hills of Moab, blending in the far distance with

the summer sky. And lately, too, amid all the horrors and dangers of the

siege, had she not trod these level lawns with Esca, and wondered how she

could be so happy while all about her was strife, and desolation, and woe?

The thought goaded her into action, and she passed rapidly on;

nevertheless, in that one glance around, the fair and gorgeous picture

stamped itself for ever on her brain.

Beneath her—here black as ebony, there glistening like sheets of burnished

steel—lay the clear‐cut terraces and level lawns of her father’s stately

home, dotted by tall tapering cypresses pointing to the heavens, and

guarded by the red stems of many a noble cedar, flinging their twisted

branches aloft in the midnight sky. Beyond, the spires and domes and

pinnacles of the Holy City glittered and shone in the mellow light, or

loomed in the alternate shade, fantastic, gloomy, and indistinct. Massive

blocks of building, relieved by rows of marble pillars supporting their

heavy porticoes, denoted the dwellings of her princes and nobles; while

encircling the whole could be traced the dark level line of her last

defensive wall, broken by turrets placed at stated intervals, and already

heightened at the fatal breach opposite the Tower of Antonia, from the

summit of which glowed one angry spot of fire, a beacon kindled for some

hostile purpose by the enemy. High above all, like a gigantic champion

guarding his charge, in burnished armour and robes of snowy white, rose

the Temple, with its marble dome and roof of beaten gold. It was the

champion’s last watch—it was the last sleep of the fair and holy city.

Never again would she lie in the moonlight, beautiful, and gracious, and

undefaced. Doomed, like the Temple in which she trusted, to be utterly

demolished and destroyed, the plough was already yoked that should score

its furrows deep into her comeliness; the mighty stones, so hewn and

carved and fashioned into her pride of strength, were even now vibrating

to that shock which was about to hurl them down into such utter ruin, that

not one should be left to rear itself upon the fragments of another!

The moonbeams shone calm and pleasant on the doomed city, as they shone on

the stunted groves of the Mount of Olives, on the distant crest of the

hills of Moab, and, far away below these, on the desolate plains that

skirt the waters of the Dead Sea. They shone down calm and pleasant, as

though all were in peace and safety, and plenty and repose; yet even now

the arm of the avenger was up to strike, the eagle’s wing was pruned, his

beak whetted; and Mariamne, standing on the terrace by her father’s door,

could count the Roman watch‐fires already established in the heart of the

Lower City, twinkling at regular distances along the summit of Mount

Calvary.

The view of the enemy’s camp, the thought of Esca’s danger, spurred her to

exertion. She hurried along the terrace, and down into the garden,

following the path which she knew was to lead her to the marble basin with

its hidden entrance to the secret passage. Her only thought now was one of

apprehension that her unassisted strength might be unable to lift the

slab. Full but of this care, she advanced swiftly and confidently towards

the disused fountain, to stop within ten paces of it, and almost scream

aloud in the high state of tension to which her nerves had been strung—so

startled was she and scared at what she saw. Sitting with its back to her,

a long lean figure stooped and cowered over the empty basin, waving its

arms, and rocking its body to and fro with strange unearthly gestures, and

broken, muttered sentences, varied by gasps and moans. Her nation are not

superstitious, and Mariamne had too many causes for fear in this world to

spare much dread for the denizens of another; nevertheless she stood for a

space almost paralysed with the suddenness of the alarm, and the

unexpected nature of the apparition, quaking in every limb, and unable

either to advance or fly.

There are times when the boldest of human minds become peculiarly

susceptible to supernatural terrors—when the hardest and least

impressionable persons are little stronger than their nervous and

susceptible brethren. A little anxiety, a little privation, the omission

of a meal or two, nay, even the converse of such abstinence in too great

indulgence of the appetites, bring down the boasted reason of mankind to a

sad state of weakness and credulity. The young, too, are more subject to

such fantastic terrors than the old. Children suffer much from fears of

the supernatural, conceiving in their vivid imaginations forms and

phantoms and situations, which they can never have previously experienced,

and of which it is therefore difficult to account for the origin. But all

classes, and all ages, if they speak truth, must acknowledge, that at one

time or another, they have felt the blood curdle, the skin creep, the

breath come quick, and the heart rise with that desperate courage which

springs from intense fear, at the fancied presence or the dreaded

proximity of some ghostly object which eludes them after all, leaving a

vague uncertainty behind it, that neither satisfies their curiosity nor

ensures them against a second visitation of a similar nature.

Mariamne was in a fit state to become the victim of any such supernatural

delusion. Her frame was weakened by the want of food; for like the rest of

the besieged, she had borne her share of the privations that created such

sufferings in the city for many long weeks before it was finally reduced.

She had gone through much fatigue of late—the continuous unbroken fatigue

that wears the spirits even faster than the bodily powers; and above all

she had been harassed for the last few hours by the torture of inaction in

a state of protracted suspense. It was no wonder that she should suffer a

few moments of intense and inexplicable fear.

The figure, still with its back to her, and rocking to and fro, was

gathering handfuls of dust from the disused basin of the fountain, and

scattering them with its long lean arms upon its head and shoulders,

chanting at the same time, in wild, mournful tones, the words “Wash and be

clean,” over and over again. It obviously imagined itself alone, and

pursued its monotonous task with that dreary earnestness and endless

repetition so peculiar to the actions of the insane.

After a while, Mariamne, perceiving that she was not observed, summoned

courage to consider what was best to be done. The secret of the hidden

passage was one to be preserved inviolate under any circumstances; and to‐

night everything she most prized depended on its not being discovered by

the besieged. While the figure remained in its present position, she could

do nothing towards the furtherance of her scheme. And yet the moments were

very precious, and Esca’s life depended on her speed.

There was no doubt, the unfortunate who had thus wandered into her

father’s gardens was a maniac; and those who suffered under this severe

affliction were held in especial horror among her people. Unlike the

Eastern nations of to‐day, who believe them to be not only under its

special protection, but even directly inspired by Providence, the Jews

held that these sufferers were subject to the great principle of evil;

that malignant spirits actually entered into the body of the insane,

afflicting, mocking, and torturing their victim, goading it in its

paroxysms to the exertion of that supernatural strength with which they

endowed its body, and leaving the latter prostrate, exhausted, and

helpless when they had satiated their malice upon its agonies. To be

possessed of a devil was indeed the climax of all mental and corporeal

misery. The casting out of devils by a mere word or sign, was perhaps the

most convincing proof of miraculous power that could be offered to a

people with whom the visitation was as general as it was mysterious and

incomprehensible.

Mariamne hovered about the fountain, notwithstanding her great fear, as a

bird hovers about the bush under which a snake lies coiled, but which

shelters nevertheless her nest and her callow young. Standing there, in

long dark robes, beneath a flood of moonlight, her face and hands white as

ivory by the contrast, her eyes dilating, her head bent forward, her whole

attitude that of painful attention and suspense, she might have been an

enchantress composing the spell that should turn the writhing figure

before her into stone, cold and senseless as the marble over which it

bent. She might have been a fiend, in the form of an angel, directing its

convulsions, and gloating over its agonies; or she might have been a pure

and trusting saint, exorcising the evil spirit, and bidding it come out of

a vexed fellow‐creature in that name which fiends and men and angels must

alike obey.

Presently the night‐breeze coming softly over the Roman camp, brought with

it the mellow notes of a trumpet, proclaiming that the watch was changed,

and the centurions, each in his quarter, pacing their vigilant rounds. Ere

it reached Mariamne’s ears, the maniac had caught the sound, and sprang to

his feet, with his head thrown back and his muscles braced for a spring

like some beast of chase alarmed by the first challenge of the hound.

Gazing wildly about him, he saw the girl’s figure standing clear and

distinct in the open moonlight, and raising a howl of fearful mirth, he

leaped his own height from the ground, and made towards her with the

headlong rush of a madman. Then fear completely overmastered her, and she

turned and fled for her life. It was no longer a curdling horror that

weighed down the limbs like lead, and relaxed the nerves like a palsy, but

the strong and natural instinct of personal safety, that doubled quickness

of perception for escape and speed of foot in flight.

Between herself and her father’s house lay a broad and easy range of

steps, leading upward to the terrace. Instinctively she dared not trust

the ascent, but turned downwards over the level lawn into the gardens,

with the maniac in close pursuit. It was a fearful race. She heard his

quick‐drawn breath, as he panted at her very heels. She could almost fancy

that she felt it hot upon her neck. Once the dancing shadow of her

pursuer, in the moonlight, actually reached her own! Then she bounded

forward again in her agony, and eluded the grasp that had but just missed

its prey. Thus she reached a low wall, dividing her father’s from a

neighbour’s ground; feeling only that she must go straight on, she bounded

over it, she scarce knew how, and made for an open doorway she saw ahead,

trusting that it might lead into the street. She heard his yell of triumph

as he rose with a vigorous leap into the air, the dull stroke of his feet

as he landed on the turf so close behind her, and the horror of that

moment was almost beyond endurance. Besides, she felt her strength

failing, and knew too well that she could not sustain this rate of speed

for many paces farther; but escape was nearer than she hoped, and reaching

the door a few yards before the madman, she gained slightly on him as she

shot through it, and sped on, with weakening limbs and choking breath,

down the street.

She heard his yell once again, as he caught sight of her, but two human

figures in front restored her courage, and she rushed on to implore their

protection from her enemy; yet fear had not so completely mastered her

self‐possession, as to drive her into an obvious physical danger, even to

escape encounter with a lunatic. Nearing them, and indeed almost within

arm’s‐length, she perceived that one was blasted with the awful curse of

leprosy. The moon shone bright and clear upon the white glistening surface

of his scarred and mortifying flesh. On his brow, on his neck, in the

patches of his wasting beard and hair, on his naked arms and chest, nay,

in the very garment girt around his loins, the plague‐spots deepened, and

widened, and festered, and ate them all away. It would be death to come in

contact, even with his garments—nay, worse than death, for it would entail

a separation from the touch of human hand, and the help of human skill.

Yet grovelling there on the bare stones of the street, the leper was

struggling for a bone with a strong active youth, who had nearly

overpowered him, and whom famine had driven to subject himself to the

certainty of a horrible and loathsome fate, rather than endure any longer

its maddening pangs. There was scarcely a meal of offal on the prize, and

yet he tore it from the leper whom he had overpowered, and gnawed it with

a greedy brutish muttering, as a dog mumbles a bone.

Gathering her dress around her to avoid a chance of the fatal contact,

Mariamne scoured past the ghastly pair, even in her own imminent terror

and distress feeling her heart bleed for this flagrant example of the

sufferings endured by her countrymen. The maniac, however, permitted his

attention to be diverted for a few moments, by the two struggling figures,

from his pursuit; and Mariamne, turning quickly aside into a narrow

doorway, cowered down in its darkest corner, and listened with feelings of

relief and thankfulness to the steps of her pursuer, as, passing this

unsuspected refuge, he sped in his fruitless chase along the street.

CHAPTER XII

DESOLATION

Panting like a hunted hind, yet true to the generous blood that flowed in

her veins, Mariamne recovered her courage even before her strength. No

sooner was the immediate danger passed, than she cast aside all thoughts

of personal safety, and only considered how she might still rescue the man

she loved. Familiar with the street in which she had taken refuge, as with

every other nook and corner of her native city—for the Jews permitted

their women far more liberty than did their Eastern neighbours—she

bethought her of taking a devious round in case she should be followed,

and then returning by the way she had come, to her father’s gardens. It

was above all things important that Eleazar should not be made aware of

his daughter’s absence; and she calculated, not without reason, that the

fatigues he had lately gone through, would ensure a few hours at least of

sound unbroken sleep. The domestics, too, of his household, worn out with

watching and hunger, were not likely to be aroused before morning; she

had, therefore, sufficient time before her to put her plan into execution.

She reflected that it was impossible to approach her father’s garden

unnoticed at this hour, save by the way she had taken in her flight. To go

through his house from the street was not to be thought of, as the

entrance was probably secured, and she could not gain admittance without

giving an explanation of her absence, and exciting the observation she

most wished to avoid. Then she fell to thinking on the paths she had

followed in her headlong flight, tracing them backward in her mind with

that clear feminine perception, which so nearly approaches instinct, and

is so superior to the more logical sagacity of man. She knew she could

thread them step by step, to the marble basin of the fountain; and once

again at that spot she felt as if her task would be half accomplished,

instead of scarce begun. Doubtless the exertion of mind served to calm her

recent terrors, and to distract attention from the dangers of her present

situation—alone in a strange house, with the streets full of such horrors

as those she had lately witnessed, and thronged by armed parties of

lawless and desperate men.

She had gathered her robes about her, and drawn her veil over her head

preparatory to emerging from her hiding‐place, when she was driven back by

the sound of footsteps, and the clank of weapons, coming up the street. To

be seen was to accept the certainty of insult, and to run the risk of ill‐

usage, and perhaps death. She shrank farther back, therefore, into the

lower part of the house; and becoming more accustomed to the gloom, looked

anxiously about, to ascertain what further chance she had within for

concealment or escape.

It was a low irregular building, of which the ground‐floor seemed to have

been used but as a space for passage to and from the upper apartments,

and, perhaps, before the famine consumed them, as a shelter for beasts of

burden, and for cattle. Not a particle of their refuse, however, had been

left on the dry earthen floor; and though a wooden manger was yet

standing, not a vestige remained of halter or tethering ropes, which had

been long since eaten in the scarcity of food.(20) A boarded staircase,

fenced by carved wooden balustrades, led from this court to the upper

chambers, which were carefully closed; but a glimmer of light proceeding

from the chinks of an ill‐fitting door at its head, denoted that the house

was not deserted. It was probably inhabited by some of the middle class of

citizens; a rank of life that had suffered more than the higher, or even

the lower during the siege—lacking the means of the one, and shrinking

from the desperate resources of the other.

Mariamne, listening intently to every sound, was aware of a light step

passing to and fro, within the room, and perceived besides a savoury smell

as of roasted flesh, which pervaded the whole house. She knew by the quiet

footfall and the rustle of drapery, that it was a woman whose motions she

overheard, and for an instant the desire crossed her mind to beg for a

mouthful of strengthening food, ere she departed on her way—a request she

had reason to believe would be refused with anger. She blushed as she

thought how a morsel of bread was now grudged, even at her own father’s

gate; and she remembered the time when scores of poor neighbours thronged

it every morning for their daily meal; when sheep and oxen were slain and

roasted at a moment’s notice, on the arrival of some chance guest with his

train of followers.

“It is a judgment!” thought the girl, regarding the afflictions of her

people in the light of her new faith. “It may be, we must be purified by

suffering, and so escape the final doom. Woe is me for my kindred and for

my father’s house! What am I, that I should not take my share in the

sorrows of the rest?”

Then in a pure and holy spirit of self‐sacrifice, she turned wearily away,

resolving rather to seek the enemy weak and fasting, than shift from her

own shoulders one particle of the burden borne by her wretched fellow‐

citizens; and ere long the time came when she was thankful she had not

partaken, even in thought, of the food that was then being prepared.

Seeking the street once more, she found, to her dismay, that the armed

party had halted immediately before the door. She was forced again to

shrink back into the gloom of the lower court, and wait in fear and

trembling for the result. These, too, had been arrested before the house

by the smell of food. Wandering up and down the devoted city, such hungry

and desperate men scrupled not to take with the strong hand anything of

which they had need. By gold and silver, and soft raiment, they set now

but little store—of wine they could procure enough to inflame and madden

them, but food was the one passionate desire of their senses. Besides his

own party, John of Gischala had now attached to his faction numbers of the

Sicarii—a band of paid assassins who had sprung up in the late troubles to

make a trade of murder—and had also seduced into his ranks such of the

Zealots as were weary of Eleazar’s rigid though fervent patriotism,

finding the anarchy within the walls produced by the siege more to their

taste than the disciplined efforts of their chief to resist the enemy. The

party that now prevented Mariamne’s egress consisted of a few fierce

pitiless spirits from these three factions, united in a common bond of

recklessness and crime. It was no troop for a maiden to meet by night in

the house of a lone woman, or on the stones of a deserted street, and the

girl, trembling at the conversation she was forced to overhear, needed all

her courage to seize the first opportunity for escape. The clang of their

arms made her heart leap, as they halted together at the door; but it was

less suggestive of evil and violence than their words.

“I have it!” exclaimed one, striking his mailed hand against the post,

with a blow that vibrated through the building. “Not a bloodhound of

Molossis hath a truer nose than mine, or hunts his game more steadily to

its lair. I could bury my muzzle, I warrant ye, in the very entrails of my

prey, had I but the chance. There is food here, comrades, I tell ye,

cooking on purpose for us. ’Tis strange if we go fasting to the wall to‐

night!”

“Well said, old dog!” laughed another voice. “Small scruple hast thou,

Sosas, what the prey may be, so long as it hath but the blood in it. Come

on; up to the highest seat with thee! No doubt we are expected, though the

doors be closed and we meet with a cold welcome!”

“Welcome!” repeated Sosas; “who talks of welcome? I bid ye all welcome,

comrades. Take what you please, and call for more. Every man what he likes

best, be it sheep or lamb, or delicate young kid, or tender sweet‐mouthed

heifer. My guests ye are, and I bid you again walk up and welcome!”

“’Twere strange to find a morsel of food here, too,” interposed one of the

band. “Say, Gyron, is not this the house thou and I have already stripped

these three times? By the beard of old Matthias, there was but half a

barley‐cake left when we made our last visit!”

“True,” replied Gyron, with a brutal laugh, “and the woman held on to it

like a wild‐cat. I was forced to lend her a wipe over the wrist with my

dagger, ere she let go, and then the she‐wolf sucked her own blood from

the wound, and shrieked out that we would not even leave her _that_. We

might let her alone this time, I think, and go elsewhere!”

“Go to!” interrupted Sosas. “Thou speakest like one for whom the banquet

is spread at every street corner. Art turning tender, and delicate even as

a weaned child, with that grizzled beard on thy chin? Go to! I say. The

supper is getting cold. Follow me!”

With these words the last speaker entered the house, and proceeded to

ascend the staircase, followed by his comrades, who pushed and shouldered

each other through the door with ribald jest and laughter, that made their

listeners’ blood run cold. Mariamne, in her retreat, was thus compelled to

retire step by step before them to the top of the stairs, dreading every

moment that their eyes, gradually accustomed to the gloom, which was

rendered more obscure by the moonlight without, should perceive her

figure, and their relentless grasp seize upon her too surely for a prey.

It was well for her that the stairs were very dark, and that her black

dress offered no contrast in colour to the wall against which she shrank.

The door of the upper chamber opened outwards, and she hid herself close

behind it, hoping to escape when her pursuers had entered one by one. To

her dismay, however, she found that, with more of military caution than

might have been expected, they had left a scout below to guard against

surprise. Mariamne heard the unwilling sentinel growling and muttering his

discontent, as he paced to and fro on the floor beneath.

Through the hinges of the open door, the upper apartment was plainly

visible, even by the dim light of a solitary lamp that stood on the board,

and threw its rays over the ghastly banquet there set forth. Sick, faint,

and trembling with the great horror she beheld, Mariamne could not yet

turn her eyes away. A gaunt grim woman was crouching at the table, holding

something with both hands to her mouth, and glaring sidelong at her

visitors, like a wild beast disturbed over its prey. Her grisly tresses

were knotted and tangled on her brow; dirt, misery, and hunger were in

every detail of her dress and person. The long lean arms and hands, with

their knotted joints and fleshless fingers, like those of a skeleton, the

sunken face, the sallow tight‐drawn skin, through which the cheek‐bones

seemed about to start, the prominent jaw, and shrivelled neck, denoted too

clearly the tortures she must have undergone in a protracted state of

famine, bordering day by day upon starvation.

And what was that ghastly morsel hanging from those parched thin lips?

Mariamne could have shrieked aloud with mingled wrath and pity and dismay.

Often had she seen a baby’s tiny fingers pressed and mumbled in a mother’s

mouth, with doting downcast looks and gentle soothing murmurs and muttered

phrases, fond and foolish, meaningless to others, yet every precious

syllable a golden link of love between the woman and her child. But now,

the red light of madness glared in the mother’s eye; she was crouching

fierce and startled, like the wild wolf in its lair, and her teeth were

gnashing in her accursed hunger over the white and dainty limbs of her

last‐born child. Its little hand was in her mouth when the ruffians

entered, whose violence and excesses had brought this abomination of

desolation upon her house. She looked up with scarce a trace of humanity

left in her blighted face.

“You have food here, mother!” shouted Sosas, rushing in at the head of his

comrades. “Savoury food, roasted flesh, dainty morsels. What! hast got no

welcome for thy friends? We have come to sup with thee unbidden, mother,

for we know of old(21) the house of Hyssop is never ill‐provided. Ay,

Gyron there, watching down below, misled us sadly. His talk was but of

scanty barley‐cakes and grudging welcome, while lo! here is a supper fit

to set before the high‐priest, and the mother gives a good example, though

she wastes no breath on words of welcome. Come on, comrades, I tell you;

never wait to wash hands, but out with your knives, and fall to!”

While he spoke, the ruffian stretched his brawny arm across the table, and

darted his long knife into the smoking dish. Mariamne behind the door, saw

him start, and shiver, and turn pale. The others looked on, horror‐struck,

with staring eyes fixed upon the board. One, the fiercest and strongest of

the gang, wiped his brow, and sat down, sick and gasping, on the floor.

Then the woman laughed out, and her laughter was terrible to hear.

“I did it!” she cried, in loud, triumphant tones. “He was my own child, my

fair, fat boy. If I had a hundred sons I would slay them all. All, I tell

you, and set them before you, that you might eat and rejoice, and depart

full and merry from the lonely woman’s house. I slew him at sundown, my

masters, when the Sabbath was past, and I roasted him with my own hands,

for we were alone in the house, I and my boy. What! will ye not partake?

Are you so delicate, ye men of war, that ye cannot eat the food which

keeps life in a poor, weak woman like me? It is good food, it is wholesome

food, I tell ye, and I bid you hearty welcome. Eat your fill, my masters;

spare not, I beseech you. But we will keep a portion for the child. The

child!” she repeated, like one who speaks in a dream: “he must be hungry

ere now; it is past his bedtime, my masters, and I have not given him his

supper yet!”

Then she looked on the dish once more, with a vacant, bewildered stare,

rocking herself the while, and muttering in strange, unintelligible

whispers, glancing from time to time stealthily at her guests, and then

upon the horrid fragment she held, which, as though fain to hide it, she

turned over and over in her gown. At length she broke out in another wild

shriek of laughter, and laid her head down upon the table, hiding her face

in her hands.

Pale and horror‐struck, with quiet steps, and heads averted from the

board, the gang departed one by one. Gyron, who was already wearied of his

watch, met them on the stairs, to receive a whispered word or two from

Sosas, with a muttered exclamation of dismay, and a frightful curse. The

rest, who had seen what their comrade only heard, were speechless still,

and Mariamne, listening to their clanking, measured tread as it traversed

the lower court and passed out into the street, heard it die away in the

distance, unbroken by a single exclamation even of disgust or surprise.

The boldest of them dared not have stood another moment face to face with

the hideous thing from which he fled.

Mariamne, too, waited not an instant after she had made sure that they

were gone. Not even her womanly pity for suffering could overcome her

feelings of horror at what she had so lately beheld. She seemed stifled

while she remained under the roof where such a scene had been enacted; and

while she panted to quit it, was more than ever determined to seek the

Roman camp, and call in the assistance of the enemy. It was obvious even

to her, girl as she was, that there was now no hope for Jerusalem within

the walls. While her father’s faction, and that of John, were neutralising

each other’s efforts for the common good—while to the pressure of famine,

and the necessary evils of a siege, were added the horrors of rapine and

violence, and daily bloodshed, and all the worst features of civil war—it

seemed that submission to the fiercest enemy would be a welcome refuge,

that the rule of the sternest conqueror would be mild and merciful by

comparison.

She remembered, too, much that Calchas had explained in the sacred

writings they had studied together, with the assistance of that Syrian

scroll which proclaimed the good tidings of the new religion, elucidating

and corroborating the old. She had not forgotten the mystical menaces of

the prophets, the fiery denunciations of some, the distinct statements of

others—above all, the loving, merciful warning of the Master himself.

Surely the doom had gone forth at length. Here, if anywhere, was the

carcass. Yonder, where she was going, was the gathering of the eagles. Was

not she in her mission of to‐night an instrument in the hands of

Providence? A means for the fulfilment of prophecy? If she had felt

patriotic scruples before, they vanished now. If she had shrunk from

betraying her country, dishonouring her father, and disgracing her blood,

all such considerations were as nothing now, compared to the hope of

becoming a divine messenger, that, like the dove with its olive‐branch,

should bring back eventual peace and safety in its return. She had seen

to‐night madness and leprosy stalking abroad in the streets. Within a

Jewish home she had seen a more awful sight even than these. It was in her

power, at least, to put an end to such horrors, and she doubted whether

the task might not have been specially appointed her from heaven; but she

never asked herself the question if she would have been equally satisfied

of her celestial mission, had Esca not been lying under the wall of the

Temple, bound and condemned to die with the light of to‐morrow’s sun.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LEGION OF THE LOST

[Initial N]

Nerving herself with every consideration that could steel a woman’s heart,

Mariamne sought her father’s gardens by the way she had already come. They

were deserted now, and the house, at which she could not forbear taking a

look that would probably be her last, was still quiet and undisturbed. She

would fain have seen her father once more, even in his sleep—would fain

have kissed his unconscious brow, and so taken a fancied pardon for the

treason she had resolved to commit—but it was too great a risk to run, and

with a prayer for divine protection and assistance, she bent down to lift

the slab of marble that concealed the secret way. Having been moved so

lately in the egress of Calchas, it yielded easily to her strength, and

she descended, not without considerable misgivings, a damp, winding stair,

that seemed to lead into the bowels of the earth.

As the stone fell back to its former place, she was enveloped in utter

darkness; and while she groped her way along the slimy arch that roofed‐in

the long, mysterious tunnel, she could not forbear shuddering with dread

of what she might encounter, ere she beheld the light of day once more. It

was horrible to think of the reptiles that might be crawling about her

feet; of the unknown shapes with which, at any moment, she might come in

contact; of the chances that might block her in on both sides, and so

consign her, warm and living, to the grave: worst of all, of the

possibility that some demoniac, like him from whom she had so recently

escaped, might have taken up his abode here, in the strange infatuation of

the possessed, and that she must assuredly become his prey, without the

possibility of escape.

Such apprehensions made the way tedious indeed; and it was with no slight

feeling of relief, and no mere formal thanksgiving, that Mariamne caught a

glimpse of light stealing through the black, oppressive darkness, that

seemed to take her breath away, and was aware that she had reached the

other extremity of the passage at last. A few armfuls of brushwood,

skilfully disposed, concealed its egress. These had been replaced by

Calchas, in his late visit to the Roman camp, and Mariamne, peering

through, could see without being seen, while she considered what step she

should take next.

She was somewhat uneasy, nevertheless, to observe that a Roman sentinel

was posted within twenty paces; she could hear the clank of his armour

every time he stirred; she could even trace the burnished plumage of the

eagle on the crest of his helmet. It was impossible to emerge from her

hiding‐place without passing him; and short as his beat might be, he

seemed indisposed to avail himself of it by walking to and fro. In the

bright moonlight there was no chance of slipping by unseen, and she looked

in vain for a coming cloud on the midnight sky. He would not even turn his

head away from the city, on which his gaze was fastened; and she watched

him with a sort of dreary fascination, pondering what was best to be done.

Even in her extremity she could not but remark the grace of his attitude,

and the beautiful outline of his limbs, as he leaned wearily on his spear.

His arms and accoutrements, too, betrayed more splendour than seemed

suitable to a mere private soldier, while his mantle was of rich scarlet,

looped up and fastened at the shoulder with a clasp of gold. Such details

she took in mechanically and unconsciously, even as she perceived that, at

intervals, he raised his hand to his eyes, like one who wipes away

unbidden tears. Soon she summoned her presence of mind, and watched him

eagerly, for he stretched his arms towards Jerusalem with a pitiful,

yearning gesture, and, bowing wearily, leant his crested head upon both

arms, resting them against the spear.

[Illustration: ‘she walked boldly up to him’]