It was her opportunity, and she seized it; but at the first movement she

made the sentinel’s attention was aroused, and she knew she was

discovered, for he challenged immediately. Even then, Mariamne could not

but observe that his voice was unsteady, and the spear he levelled

trembled like an aspen in his grasp. She thought it wisest to make no

attempt at deception, but walking boldly up to him, implored his safe‐

conduct, and besought him to take her to the tent of the commander at

once. The sentinel seemed uncertain how to act, and showed, indeed, but

little of that military promptitude and decision for which the Roman army

was so distinguished. After a pause, he answered—and the soft tones,

musical even in their trouble, that rang in Mariamne’s ears, were

unquestionably those of a woman—a woman, too, whose instincts of jealousy

had recognised her even before she spoke.

“You are the girl I saw in the amphitheatre,” she said, laying a white

hand, which trembled violently, on the arm of the Jewess. “You were

watching him that day, when he was down in the sand beneath the net. I

know you, I say! I marked you turned pale when the tribune’s arm was up to

strike. You loved him then. You love him now! Do not deny it, girl! lest I

drive this spear through your body, or send you to the guard to be treated

like a spy taken captive in the act. You look pale, too, and wretched,”

she added, suddenly relenting. “Why are you here? Why have you left him

behind the walls alone? I would not have deserted you in your need, Esca,

my lost Esca!”

Mariamne shivered when she heard the beloved name pronounced in such fond

accents by another’s lips. Womanlike, she had not been without suspicions

from the first, that her lover had gained the affections of some noble

Roman lady—suspicions which were confirmed by his own admission to

herself, accompanied by many a sweet assurance of fidelity and devotion;

but yet it galled her even now, at this moment of supreme peril, to feel

the old wound thus probed by the very hand that dealt it; and, moreover,

through all her anxiety and astonishment, rose a bitter and painful

conviction of the surprising beauty possessed by this shameless woman,

clad thus inexplicably in the garb of a Roman soldier. Nevertheless, the

Jewish maiden was true as steel. Like that mother of her nation who so

readily gave up all claim to her own flesh and blood, to preserve it from

dismemberment under the award of the wisest and greatest of kings, she

would have saved her cherished Briton at any sacrifice, even that of her

own constant and unfathomable love. She knelt down before the sentinel,

and clasped the scarlet mantle in both hands.

“I will not ask you what or who you are,” she said; “I am in your power,

and at your mercy. I rejoice that it is so. But you will help me, will you

not? You will use all your beauty and all your influence to save him

whom—whom we both love?”

She hesitated while she spoke the last sentence. It was as if she gave him

up voluntarily, when she thus acknowledged another’s share. But his very

life was at stake; and what was her sore heart, her paltry jealousy, to

stand in the way at such a moment as this? The other looked scornfully

down on the kneeling girl.

“You, too, seem to have suffered,” said the sentinel. “It is true then,

all I have heard of the desolation and misery within the walls? But boast

not of your sorrows; think not you alone are to be pitied. There are weary

heads and aching hearts here in the leaguer, as yonder in the town. Tell

me the truth, girl! What of Esca? You know him. You come from him even

now. Where is he, and how fares it with him?”

“Bound in the Outer Court of the Temple!” gasped Mariamne, “and condemned

to die with the first light of to‐morrow’s sun!”

His fate seemed more terrible and more certain, now that she had forced

herself to put it into words. The Roman soldier’s face turned deadly pale.

The golden‐crested helmet, laid aside for air, released a shower of rich

brown curls, that fell over the ivory neck, and the smooth shoulders, and

the white bosom panting beneath its breastplate. There could be no attempt

at concealment now. Mariamne was obliged to confess that, even in her male

attire, the woman whom she so feared, yet whom she must trust implicitly,

was as beautiful as she seemed to be reckless and unsexed.

They were a lawless and a desperate band, that body of gladiators which

Hippias had brought with him to the siege of Jerusalem. None of them but

were deeply stained with blood; most of them were branded with crime; all

were hopeless of good, fearless and defiant of evil. In many a venturous

assault, in many a hand‐to‐hand encounter, fought out with enemies as

fierce and almost as skilful as themselves, they had earned their ominous

title; and the very legionaries, though they sneered at their discipline,

and denied their efficiency in long‐protracted warfare, could not but

admit that to head a column of attack, to run a battering‐ram under the

very ramparts of a citadel, to dash in with a mad cheer over the shattered

ruins of a breach, or to carry out any other hot and desperate service,

there were no soldiers in the army like the Legion of the Lost. They had

dwindled away, indeed, sadly from slaughter and disease; yet there were

still some five or six hundred left, and this remnant consisted of the

strongest and staunchest in the band. They still constituted a separate

legion, nor would it have been judicious to incorporate them with any

other force, which, indeed, might have been as unwilling to receive them

as they could be to enrol themselves in its ranks; and they performed the

same duties, and made it their pride to guard the same posts they had

formerly watched when thrice their present strength. Under these

circumstances a fresh draft would have been highly acceptable to the

Legion of the Lost; and in their daily increasing want of men, even a

single recruit was not to be despised. Occasionally one of the Syrian

auxiliaries, or a member of any of the irregular forces attached to the

Roman army, who had greatly distinguished himself by his daring, was

admitted into their band, and these additions became less rare as the

original number decreased day by day.

An appeal to the good‐nature of old Hirpinus, backed by a heavy bribe to

one of his centurions, ensured Valeria’s enrolment into this wild,

disorderly, and dangerous force; nor in their present lax state of

discipline, with the prospect of an immediate assault, had she much to

dread from the curiosity of her new comrades. Even in a Roman camp, money

would purchase wine, and wine would purchase everything else. Valeria had

donned in earnest the arms she had often before borne for sport. “Hippias

taught me to use them,” she thought, with bitter, morbid exultation; “he

shall see to‐morrow how I have profited by his lessons!” Then she resolved

to feed her fancy by gazing at the walls of Jerusalem; and she had little

difficulty in persuading a comrade to whom she brought a jar of strong

Syrian wine, that he had better suffer her to relieve him for the last

hour or two of his watch.

The Amazons of old, with a courage we might look for in vain amongst the

other sex, were accustomed to amputate their right breast that it might

not hinder the bowstring when they drew the arrow to its head. Did they

never feel, after the shapely bosom was thus mutilated and defaced, a

throb of anguish, or a weight of dull dead pain where the flesh was now

scarred, and hardened, and cicatrised—nay, something worse than pain

beneath the wound, when they beheld a mother nursing a sucking‐child?

Valeria, too, had resolved, so to speak, that she would cut the very heart

from out of her breast—that she would never feel as a woman feels again.

She knew she was miserable, degraded, desperate—she believed she could

bear it nobly now, because she was turned to stone. Yet, as she leaned on

her spear in the moonlight, and gazed on the city which contained the

prize she had so coveted and lost, she was compelled to acknowledge that

the fibres of that heart she had thought to tear out and cast away,

retained their feelings still. For all that was come and gone, she loved

him, oh! so dearly, yet; and the eyes of the lost, maddened, desperate

woman filled with tears of as deep and unselfish affection as could have

been shed by Mariamne herself in her pure and stainless youth.

Valeria, as Hippias had learned by painful experience, was resolute for

good and evil. It was this decision of character, joined to the impulsive

disposition which springs from an undisciplined life, that had given him

his prey. But it was this that thwarted all the efforts he made to obtain

the ascendency over her which generally follows such a link as theirs; and

it was this, too, that ere long caused her to tear the link asunder

without a moment’s apprehension or remorse. With all his energy and habits

of command, the gladiator found he could not control the proud Roman lady,

who in a moment of caprice had bowed her head to the very dust for the

sake of following him. He could neither intimidate her into obedience, nor

crush her into despair, though he tried many a haughty threat, and many an

unmanly taunt at her shame. But all in vain; and as he would not yield an

inch in their disputes, there was but little peace in the tent of the

brave leader who ruled so sternly over the Legion of the Lost. The pair,

indeed, went through the usual phases that accompany such bonds as those

they chose to wear; but the changes were more rapid than common, as might

well be expected, when their folly had not even the excuse of true

affection on both sides. Valeria indeed tired first; for as far as the

gladiator was capable of loving anything but his profession, he loved her,

and this perhaps only embittered the guilty cup that was already

sufficiently unpalatable to both. Weariness, as usual, followed fast on

the heels of satiety, to be succeeded by irritation, discontent, and

dislike; then came rude words, angry gestures, and overt aggression from

the man, met by the woman with trifling provocations, mute defiance, and

sullen scorn. To love another, too, so hopelessly and so dearly, made

Valeria’s lot even more difficult to bear, rendering her fretful,

intolerant, and inaccessible to all efforts at reconciliation. Thus the

breach widened hour by hour; and on the day when Hippias returned to his

tent from the council of war before which Calchas had been brought,

Valeria quitted it, vowing never to return. She had but one object left

for which to live. Maddened by shame, infuriated by the insults of the

gladiator, her great love yet surged up in her heart with an irresistible

tide; and she resolved that she would see Esca once more, ay, though the

whole Jewish army stood with levelled spears between them. After that, she

cared not if she died on the spot at his feet!

To get within the works was indeed no easy matter; and so close a watch

was kept by the Romans on all movements between the lines of the hostile

forces, now in such dangerous proximity, that it was impossible to escape

from the camp of Titus and join the enemy behind the wall, though the

Jews, notwithstanding the vigilance of their countrymen, were trooping to

the besiegers’ camp by scores, to implore the protection of the conqueror,

and throw themselves on his well‐known clemency and moderation.

Valeria, then, had taken the desperate resolution of entering the city

with the assault on the morrow. For this purpose she had adopted the dress

and array of the Lost Legion. She would at least, she thought in her

despair, be as forward as any of those reckless combatants. She would, at

least, see Esca once more. If he met her under shield, not knowing her,

and hurled her to the ground, the arm that smote her would be that of her

glorious and beloved Briton. There was a wild, sweet sadness in the

thought that she might perhaps die at last by his hand. Full of such

morbid fancies—her imagination over‐excited, her courage kindled, her

nerves strung to their highest pitch—it brought with it a fearful reaction

to learn that even her last consolation might be denied her—that the

chance of meeting her lover once more was no longer in her own hands.

What! had she undergone all these tortures, submitted to all this

degradation, for nothing? And was Esca to die after all, and never learn

that she had loved him to the last? She could not have believed it, but

for the calm, hopeless misery that she read in Mariamne’s eyes.

For a while Valeria covered her face and remained silent; then she looked

down scornfully on the Jewess, who was still on her knees, holding the hem

of the Roman lady’s garment, and spoke in a cold, contemptuous tone—

“Bound and condemned to death, and you are here? You must indeed love him

very dearly to leave him at such a time!”

Mariamne’s despair was insensible to the taunt.

“I am here,” said she, “to save him. It is the only chance. Oh, lady, help

me! help me if only for his dear sake!”

“What would you have me do?” retorted the other impatiently. “Can I pull

down your fortified wall with my naked hands? Can you and I storm the

rampart at point of spear, and bear him away from the midst of the enemy

to share him afterwards between us, as the legionaries share a prey?”—and

she laughed a strange, choking laugh while she spoke.

“Nay,” pleaded the kneeling Jewess, “look not down on me so angrily. I

pray—I implore you only to aid me! Ay! though you slay me afterwards with

your hand if I displease you by word or deed. Listen, noble lady; I can

lead the Roman army within the walls; I can bring the soldiers of Titus

into Jerusalem, maniple by maniple, and cohort by cohort, where they shall

surprise my countrymen and obtain easy possession of the town; and all I

ask in return—the price of my shame, the reward of my black treachery—is,

that they will rescue the two prisoners bound in the Outer Court of the

Temple, and spare their lives for her sake who has sold honour, and

country, and kindred here to‐night!”

Valeria reflected for a few seconds. The plan promised well; her woman’s

intuition read the secret of the other woman’s heart. A thousand schemes

rose rapidly in her brain; schemes of love, of triumph, of revenge. Was it

feasible? She ran over the position of the wall, the direction from which

Mariamne had come, her own knowledge gained from the charts she had

studied in the tent of Hippias—charts that, obtained partly by treachery

and partly by observation, mapped out every street and terrace in

Jerusalem—and she thought it was. Of her suppliant’s good faith she

entertained no doubt.

“There is then a secret passage?” she said, preserving still a stern and

haughty manner to mask the anxiety she really felt. “How long is it, and

how many men will it take in abreast?”

“It cannot be far,” answered the Jewess, “since it extends but from that

heap of brushwood to the terrace of my father’s house. It might hold three

men abreast. I entreat you take me to Titus, that I may prevail on him to

order the attack ere it be too late. I myself will conduct his soldiers

into the city.”

Valeria’s generosity was not proof against her selfishness. Like many

other women, her instincts of possession were strong; and no sooner had

she grasped the possibility of saving Esca, than the old fierce longing to

have him for her very own returned with redoubled force.

“That I may rescue the Briton for the Jewess!” she retorted, with a sneer.

“Do you know to whom you speak? Listen, girl: I, too, have loved this

Esca: loved him with a love to which yours is but as the glimmer on my

helmet compared to the red glare of that watch‐fire below the hill—loved

him as the tigress loves her cubs—nay, sometimes as the tigress loves her

prey! Do you think I will save him for another?”

Mariamne’s face was paler than ever now, but her voice was clear, though

very low and sad, while she replied—

“You love him too! I know it, lady, and therefore I ask you to save him.

Not for me; oh! not for me! When he is once set free, I will never see him

more: this is your price, is it not? Willingly, heartily I pay it; only

save him—only save him! You will, lady; will you not? And so you will take

me direct to Titus? See! the middle watch of the night is already nearly

past.”

But Valeria’s plotting brain began now to shape its plans; she saw the

obstacles in her way were she to conduct the girl at once into the

presence of Titus. Her own disguise would be discovered, and the Roman

commander was not likely to permit such a flagrant breach of discipline

and propriety to pass unnoticed. If not punished, she would probably be at

least publicly shamed, and placed under restraint. Moreover, the prince

might hesitate to credit Mariamne’s story, and suspect the whole scheme

was but a plot to lead the attacking party into an ambush. Besides, she

would never yield to the Jewess the credit and the privilege of saving her

lover. No: she had a better plan than this. She knew that Titus had

resolved the city should fall on the morrow. She knew the assault would

take place at dawn; she would persuade Mariamne to return into the town;

she would mark the secret entrance well. When the gladiators advanced to

the attack, she would lead a chosen band by this path into the very heart

of the city; she would save Esca at the supreme moment; and surely his

better feelings would acknowledge her sovereignty then, when she came to

him as a deliverer and a conqueror, like some fabulous heroine of his own

barbarian nation. She would revenge on Hippias all the past weary months

of discord; she would laugh Placidus to scorn with his subtle plans and

his venturous courage, and the skill he boasted in the art of war. Nay,

even Licinius himself would be brought to acknowledge her in her triumph,

and be forced to confess that, stained, degraded as she was, his kinswoman

had at last proved herself a true scion of their noble line, worthy of the

name of Roman! There was a sting, though, in a certain memory that

Mariamne’s words brought back; their very tone recalled his, when he too

had offered to sacrifice his love that he might save its object—and she

thought how different were their hearts to hers. But the pain only goaded

her into action, and she raised the still kneeling girl with a kindly

gesture, and a reassuring smile.

“You can trust me to save him,” said she; “but it would be unwise to

declare your plan to Titus. He would not believe it, but would simply make

you a prisoner, and prevent me from fulfilling my object till too late.

Show me the secret path, girl; and by all a woman holds most sacred, by

all I have most prized, yet lost, I swear to you that the eagles shall

shake their wings in the Temple by to‐morrow’s sunrise; that I will cut

Esca’s bonds with the very sword that hangs here in my belt! Return the

way you came; be careful to avoid observation; and if you see Valeria

again alive, depend upon her friendship and protection for his sake whom

you and I shall have saved from death before another day be past!”

So strangely constituted are women, that something almost like a caress

passed between these two, as the one gave and the other received the

solemn pledge; although Mariamne yielded but unwillingly to Valeria’s

arguments, and sought the secret way on her return with slow reluctant

steps. But she had no alternative; and the Roman lady’s certainty of

success imparted some of her own confidence to the weary and desponding

Jewess. “At least,” thought Mariamne, “if I cannot save him, I can die

with him, and then nothing can separate us any more!” Sad as it was, she

yet felt comforted by the hopeless reflection, while it urged her to

hasten to her lover at once.

There was no time to be lost. As she looked back to the Roman sentinel,

once more motionless on his post, and waved her hand with a gesture that

seemed to implore assistance, while it expressed confidence, ere she

stooped to remove the brushwood for her return, a peal of Roman trumpets

broke on the silence, sounding out the call which was termed “cock‐crow,”

an hour before the dawn.

CHAPTER XIV

FAITH

There is nothing in the history of ancient or modern times that can at all

help us to realise the feelings with which the Jews regarded their Temple.

To them the sacred building was not only the very type and embodiment of

their religion, but it represented also the magnificence of their wealth,

the pride of their strength, the glory, the antiquity, and the patriotism

of the whole people—noble in architecture, imposing in dimensions, and

glittering with ornament, it was at once a church, a citadel, and a

palace. If a Jew would express the attributes of strength, symmetry, or

splendour, he compared the object of his admiration with the Temple. His

prophecies continually alluded to the national building as being identical

with the nation itself; and to speak of injury or contamination to the

Temple was tantamount to a threat of defeat by foreign arms, and invasion

by a foreign host—as its demolition was always considered synonymous with

the total destruction of Judæa; for no Jew could contemplate the

possibility of a national existence apart from this stronghold of his

faith. His tendency thus to identify himself with his place of worship was

also much fostered by the general practice of his people, who annually

flocked to Jerusalem in great multitudes to keep the feast of the

Passover; so that there were few of the posterity of Abraham throughout

the whole of Syria who had not at some time in their lives been themselves

eye‐witnesses of the glories in which they took such pride. At the period

when the Roman army invested the Holy City, an unusually large number of

these worshippers had congregated within its walls, enhancing to a great

degree the scarcity of provisions, and all other miseries inseparable from

a state of siege.

The Jews defended their Temple to the last. While the terrible circle was

contracting day by day, while suburb after suburb was taken, and tower

after tower destroyed, they were driven, and, as it were, condensed

gradually and surely, towards the upper city and the Holy Place itself.

They seemed to cling round the latter and to trust in it for protection,

as though its very stones were animated by the sublime worship they had

been reared to celebrate.

It was a little before the dawn, and the Outer Court of the Temple, called

the Court of the Gentiles, was enveloped in the gloom of this, the darkest

hour in the whole twenty‐four. Nothing could be distinguished of its

surrounding cloisters, save here and there the stem of a pillar or the

segment of an arch, only visible because brought into relief by the black

recesses behind. A star or two were faintly twinkling in the open sky

overhead; but the morning was preceded by a light vapoury haze, and the

breeze that wafted it came moist and chill from the distant sea, wailing

and moaning round the unseen pillars and pinnacles of the mighty building

above. Except the sacred precincts themselves, this was perhaps the only

place of security left to the defenders of Jerusalem; and here, within a

spear’s‐length of each other, they had bound the two Christians, doomed by

the Sanhedrim to die. Provided with a morsel of bread, scarce as it was,

and a jar of water, supplied by that spurious mercy which keeps the

condemned alive in order to put him to death, they had seen the Sabbath,

with its glowing hours of fierce pitiless heat, pass slowly and wearily

away; they had dragged through the long watches of the succeeding night,

and now they were on the brink of that day, which was to be their last on

earth.

Esca stirred uneasily where he sat; and the movement seemed to rouse his

companion from a fit of deep abstraction, which, judging by the cheerful

tones of his voice, could have been of no depressing nature.

“It hath been a tedious watch,” said Calchas, “and I am glad it is over.

See, Esca, the sky grows darker and darker, even like our fate on earth.

In a little while day will come, and with it our great and crowning

triumph. How glorious will be the light shining on thee and me, in another

world, an hour after dawn!”

The Briton looked admiringly at his comrade, almost envying him the

heartfelt happiness and content betrayed by his very accents. He had not

himself yet arrived at that pinnacle of faith, on which his friend stood

so confidently; and, indeed, Providence seems to have ordained, that in

most cases such piety should be gradually and insensibly attained, that

the ascent should be won slowly step by step, and that even as a man

breasting a mountain scales height after height, and sees his horizon

widening mile by mile as he strains towards its crest, so the Christian

must toil ever upwards, thankful to gain a ridge at a time, though he

finds that it but leads him to a higher standard and a farther aim; and

that, though his view is extending all around, and increasing knowledge

takes in much of which he never dreamed before, the prospect expands but

as the eye ascends, while every summit gained is an encouragement to

attempt another, nobler, and higher, and nearer yet to heaven.

“It will be daylight in an hour,” said Esca, in a far less cheerful voice,

“and the cowards will be here to pound us to death against this pavement

with their cruel stones. I would fain have my bonds cut, and a weapon

within reach at the last moment, Calchas, and so die at bay amongst them,

sword in hand!”

“Be thankful that a man’s death is not at his own choice,” replied Calchas

gently. “How would poor human nature be perplexed, to take the happy

method and the proper moment! Be thankful, above all things, for the boon

of death itself. It was infinite mercy that bade the inevitable deliverer

wait on sin. What curse could equal an immortality of evil? Would you live

for ever in such a world as ours if you could? nay, you in your youth, and

strength, and beauty, would you wish to remain till your form was bent,

and your beard grey, and your eyes dim? Think, too, of the many deaths you

might have died,—stricken with leprosy, crouching like a dog in some

hidden corner of the city, or wasted by famine, gnawing a morsel of offal

from which the sustenance had long since been extracted by some wretch

already perished. Or burnt and suffocated amongst the flaming ramparts,

like the maniple of Romans whom you yourself saw consumed over against the

Tower of Antonia but a few short days ago!”

“That, at least, was a soldier’s death,” replied Esca, to whose resolute

nature the idea of yielding up his life without a struggle seemed so hard.

“Or I might have fallen by sword‐stroke, or spear‐thrust, on the wall,

like a man. But to be stoned to death, as the shepherds stone a jackal in

his hole! It is a horrible and an ignoble fate!”

“Would you put away from you the great glory that is offered you?” asked

Calchas gravely. “Would you die but as a heathen, or one of our own

miserable Robbers and Zealots, of whom the worst do not hesitate to give

their blood for Jerusalem? Are you not better, and braver, and nobler than

any of these? Listen, young man, to him who speaks to you now words for

which he must answer at the great tribunal ere another hour be past. Proud

should you be of His favour whom you will be permitted to glorify to‐day.

Ashamed, indeed, as feeling your own unworthiness, yet exulting that you,

a young and inexperienced disciple, should have been ranked amongst the

leaders and the champions of the true faith. Look upon me, Esca, bound and

waiting here like yourself for death. For two‐score years have I striven

to follow my Master, with feeble steps, indeed, and many a sad misgiving

and many a humbling fall. For two‐score years have I prayed night and

morning; first, that I might have strength to persevere in the way that I

had been taught, so that I might continue amongst His servants, even

though I were the very lowest of the low. Secondly, that if ever the time

should come when I was esteemed worthy to suffer for His sake, I might not

be too much exalted with that glory which I have so thirsted to attain. I

tell thee, boy, that in an hour’s time from now, thou and I shall be

received by those good and great men of whom I have so often spoken to

thee, coming forward in shining garments, with outstretched arms, to

welcome our approach, and lead us into the eternal light of which I dare

not speak even now, in the place which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man conceived. And all this guerdon is for thee, coming

into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, yet sharing with those who have

borne the labour and heat of the day. Oh, Esca, I have loved thee like a

son, yet from my heart, I cannot wish thee anywhere but bound here by my

side this night.”

The other could not but kindle with his companion’s enthusiasm. “Oh, when

they come,” said he, “they shall find me ready. And I too, Calchas,

believe me, would not flinch from thee now if I could. Nay, if it be His

will that I must be stoned to death here in the Outer Court of the Temple,

I have learned from thee, old friend, gratefully and humbly to accept my

lot. Yet I am but human, Calchas. Thou sayest truly, I lack the long and

holy training of thy two‐score years. I have a tie that binds me fast to

earth. It is no sin to love Mariamne, and I would fain see her once

again.”

A tear rose to the old man’s eye. Chastened, purified, as was his spirit,

and ready to take its flight for home, he could yet feel for human love.

Nay, the very ties of kindred were strong within him, here in his place of

suffering, as they had been at his brother’s hearth. It was no small

subject of congratulation to him, that his confession of faith before the

Sanhedrim, while it vindicated his master’s honour, should at the same

time have preserved Eleazar’s character in the eyes of the nation, while

his exultation at the prospect of sharing with his disciple the glory of

martyrdom, was damped by the reflection that Mariamne must grieve

bitterly, as the human heart will, ere her nobler and holier self could

become reconciled to her loss. For a moment he spoke not, though his lips

moved in silent prayer for both, and Esca pursued the subject that

occupied most of his thoughts even at such an hour as this.

“I would fain see her,” he repeated dreamily. “I loved her so well; my

beautiful Mariamne. And yet it is a selfish and unworthy wish. She would

suffer so much to look on me lying bound and helpless here. She will know,

too, when it is over, that my last thought was of her, and it may be she

will weep because she was not here to catch my last look before I died.

Tell me, Calchas, I shall surely meet her in that other world? It can be

no sin to love her as I have loved!”

“No sin,” repeated Calchas gravely; “none. The God who bears such love for

them has called nine‐tenths of His creatures to His knowledge through

their affections. When these are suffered to become the primary object of

the heart, it may be that He will see fit to crush them in the dust, and

will smite, with the bitterest of all afflictions, yet only that He may

heal. How many men have followed the path to heaven that was first pointed

out by a woman’s hand? That a woman hath perhaps gone on to tread,

beckoning him after her as she vanished, with a holy hopeful smile. No,

Esca, it is not sin to love as thou hast done; and because thou hast not

scrupled to give up even this, the great and precious treasure of thy

heart, for thy master’s honour, thou shalt not lose thy reward.”

“And I shall see her again,” he insisted, clinging yet somewhat to earthly

feelings and earthly regrets, for was he not but a young and untrained

disciple? “It seems to me, that it would be unjust to part her from me for

ever. It seems to me that heaven itself would not be heaven away from

her!”

“I fear thou art not fit to die,” replied Calchas, in a low and sorrowful

voice. “Pray, my son, pray fervently, unceasingly, that the human heart

may be taken away from thee, and the new heart given which will fit thee

for the place whither thou goest to‐day. It is not for thee and for me to

say, ‘Give me here, Father, a morsel of bread, or give me there a cup of

wine.’ We need but implore in our prayers, of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite

Mercy, to grant that which it knows is best for our welfare; and He who

has taught us how to pray, has bidden us, even before we ask for food,

acknowledge a humble unquestioning resignation to the will of our Father

which is in heaven. Leave all to Him, my son, satisfied that He will grant

thee what is best for thy welfare. Distress not thyself with weak

misgivings, nor subtle reasonings, nor vain inquiries. Trust, only trust

and pray, here in the court of death, as yonder on the rampart, or at home

by the beloved hearth, so shalt thou obtain the victory; for, indeed, the

battle draweth nigh. The watches of the night are past, and it is already

time to buckle on our armour for the fight.”

While he spoke the old man pointed to the east, where the first faint

tinge of dawn was stealing up into the sky. Looking into his companion’s

face, only now becoming visible in the dull twilight, he was struck with

the change that a few hours of suffering and imprisonment had wrought upon

those fair young features. Esca seemed ten years older in that one day and

night; nor could Calchas repress a throb of exultation, as he thought how

his own time‐worn frame and feeble nature had been supported by the strong

faith within. The feeling, however, was but momentary, for the Christian

identified himself at once with the suffering and the sorrowful; nor would

he have hesitated in the hearty self‐sacrificing spirit that his faith had

taught him, that no other faith either provides or enjoins, to take on his

own shoulders the burden that seemed so hard for his less‐advanced brother

to bear. It was no self‐confidence that gave the willing martyr such

invincible courage; but it was the thorough abnegation of self, the entire

dependence on Him, who alone never fails man at his need, the fervent

faith, which could see so clearly through the mists of time and humanity,

as to accept the infinite and the eternal for the visible, and the

tangible, and the real.

They seemed to have changed places now; that doomed pair waiting in their

bonds for death. The near approach of morning seemed to call forth the

exulting spirit of the warrior in the older man, to endow the younger with

the humble resignation of the saint.

“Pray for me that I may be thought worthy,” whispered the latter, pointing

upwards to the grey light widening every moment above their heads.

“Be of good cheer,” replied the other, his whole face kindling with a

triumphant smile. “Behold, the day is breaking, and thou and I have done

with night, henceforth, for evermore!”

CHAPTER XV

FANATICISM

While faith has its martyrs, fanaticism also can boast its soldiers and

its champions. Calchas in his bonds was not more in earnest than Eleazar

in his breastplate; but the zeal that brought peace to the one, goaded the

other into a restless energy of defiance, which amounted in itself to

torture.

The chief of the Zealots was preparing for the great struggle that his

knowledge of warfare, no less than the words of his brother before the

Sanhedrim (words which yet rang in his ears with a vague monotony of

repetition), led him to expect with morning. Soon after midnight, he had

woke from the slumber in which Mariamne left him wrapped, and without

making inquiry for his daughter, or indeed taking any thought of her, he

had armed himself at once and prepared to visit the renewed defences with

the first glimpse of day. To do so he was obliged to pass through the

Court of the Gentiles, where his brother and his friend lay bound; for in

the strength of the Temple itself consisted the last hopes of the

besieged, and its security was of the more importance now that the whole

of the lower town was in possession of the enemy. Eleazar had decided that

if necessary he would abandon the rest of the city to the Romans, and

throwing himself with a chosen band into this citadel and fortress of his

faith, would hold it to the last, and rather pollute the sacred places

with his blood, than surrender them into the hand of the Gentiles.

Sometimes, in his more exalted moments, he persuaded himself that even at

the extremity of their need, Heaven would interpose for the rescue of the

chosen people. As a member of the Sanhedrim and one of the chief nobility

of the nation, he had not failed to acquire the rudiments of that magic

lore, which was called the science of divination. Formerly, while in

compliance with custom he mastered the elements of the art, his strong

intellect laughed to scorn the power it pretended to confer, and the

mysteries it professed to expound. Now, harassed by continual anxiety,

sapped by grief and privation, warped by the unvaried predominance of one

idea, the sane mind sought refuge in the shadowy possibilities of the

supernatural, from the miseries and horrors of its daily reality.

He recalled the prodigies, of which, though he had not himself been an

eye‐witness, he had heard from credible and trustworthy sources. They

could not have been sent, he thought, only to alarm and astonish an

ignorant multitude. Signs and wonders must have been addressed to him, and

men like him, leaders and rulers of the people. He never doubted now that

a sword of fire had been seen flaming over the city in the midnight sky;

that a heifer, driven there for sacrifice, had brought forth a lamb in the

midst of the Temple; or that the great sacred gate of brass in the same

building had opened of its own accord in the middle watch of the night;

nay, that chariots and horsemen of fire had been seen careering in the

heavens, and fierce battles raging from the horizon to the zenith, with

alternate tide of conquest and defeat, with all the slaughter and

confusion and vicissitudes of mortal war.(22)

These considerations endowed him with the exalted confidence which borders

on insanity. As the dreamer finds himself possessed of supernatural

strength and daring, attempting and achieving feats which yet he knows the

while are impossibilities, so Eleazar, walking armed through the waning

night towards the Temple, almost believed that with his own right hand he

could save his country—almost hoped that with daylight he should find an

angel or a fiend at his side empowered to assist him, and resolved that he

would accept the aid of either, with equal gratitude and delight.

Nevertheless, as he entered the cloisters that surrounded the Court of the

Gentiles, his proud crest sank, his step grew slower and less assured.

Nature prevailed for an instant, and he would fain have gone over to that

gloomy corner, and bidden his brother a last kind farewell. The

possibility even crossed his brain of drawing his sword and setting the

prisoners free by a couple of strokes, bidding them escape in the

darkness, and shift for themselves; but the fanaticism which had been so

long gaining on his better judgment, checked the healthy impulse as it

arose. “It may be,” thought the Zealot, “that this last great sacrifice is

required from me—from me, Eleazar Ben‐Manahem, chosen to save my people

from destruction this day. Shall I grudge the victim, bound as he is now

with cords to the altar? No, not though my father’s blood will redden it

when he dies. Shall I spare the brave young Gentile, who hath been to me

as a kinsman, though but a stranger within my gate, if his life too be

required for an oblation? No! not though my child’s heart will break when

she learns that he is gone forth into the night, never to return. Jephthah

grudged not his daughter to redeem his vow; shall I murmur to yield the

lives of all my kindred, freely as mine own, for the salvation of

Jerusalem?” And thus thinking, he steeled himself against every softer

feeling, and resolved he would not even bid the prisoners farewell. He

could not trust himself. It might unman him. It might destroy his

fortitude; nay, it might even offend the vengeance he hoped to propitiate.

Besides, if he were known to have held communication with two professed

Christians, where would be the popularity and influence on which he

calculated to bear him in triumph through the great decisive struggle of

the day? It was better to stifle such foolish yearnings. It was wiser to

harden his heart and pass by on the other side.

Nevertheless he paused for a moment and stretched his arms with a yearning

gesture towards that corner in which his brother lay bound, and, while he

did so, a light step glided by in the gloom; a light figure passed so near

that it almost touched him, and a woman’s lips were pressed to the hem of

his garment with a long clinging kiss, that bade him a last farewell.

Mariamne, returning to the city by the secret way from her interview with

Valeria in the Roman camp, had been careful not to enter her father’s

house, lest her absence might have been discovered, and her liberty of

action for the future impaired. She would have liked to see that father

once more; but all other considerations were swallowed up in the thought

of Esca’s danger, and the yearning to die with him if her efforts had been

too late to save. She sped accordingly through the dark streets to the

Temple, despising, or rather ignoring, those dangers which had so

terrified her in her progress during the earlier part of the night. While

she stole under the shadow of the cloisters towards her lover, her ear

recognised the sound of a familiar step, and her eye, accustomed to the

gloom, and sharpened by a child’s affection, made out the figure of her

father, armed and on his way to the wall. She could not but remember that

the morning light which was to bring certain death to Esca, might not,

improbably shine upon Eleazar’s corpse as well. He would defend the place

she knew to the last drop of his blood; and the Roman would never enter

the Temple but over the Zealot’s body. She could never hope to see him

again, the father whom, notwithstanding his fierceness and his faults, she

could not choose but love. And all she could do was to shed a tear upon

his garment, and wish him this silent and unacknowledged farewell. Thus it

was that Eleazar bore with him into the battle the last caress he was ever

destined to receive from his child.

CHAPTER XVI

DAWN

The day soon broke in earnest, cold and pale on the towers and pinnacles

of the Temple. The lofty dome that had been looming in the sky, grand and

grey and indistinct, like the mass of clouds that rolls away before the

pure clear eye of morning, glowed with a flush of pink; and changed again

to its own glittering white of polished marble, as its crest caught the

full beams of the rising sun. Ere long the golden roof was sparkling here

and there in points of fire, to blaze out at last in one dazzling sheet of

flame; but still the Court of the Gentiles below was wrapped in gloom, and

the two bound figures in its darkest corner, turned their pale faces

upward to greet the advent of another day—their last on earth.

But their attention was soon recalled to the court itself; for through the

dark recesses of the vaulted cloisters, was winding an ominous procession

of those who had been their judges, and who now approached to seal the

fiat of their doom. Clad in long dark robes, and headed by their “Nasi,”

they paced slowly out, marching two by two with solemn step and stern

unpitying mien: it was obvious that the Sanhedrim adhered strictly to that

article of their code, which enjoined them to perform justice without

mercy. Gravely advancing with the same slow step, gradual and inevitable

as time, they ranged themselves in a semicircle round the prisoners—then

halted every man at the same moment; while all exclaimed as with one

voice, to notify their completion and their unanimity—

“Here in the presence of the Lord!”

Again a deathlike silence, intolerable, and apparently interminable to the

condemned. Even Calchas felt his heart burn with a keen sense of injustice

and a strange instinct of resistance; while Esca, rising to his full

height, and in spite of his bonds, folding his brawny arms across his

chest, frowned back at the pitiless assembly a defiance that seemed to

challenge them to do their worst. Matthias the son of Boethus then stepped

forward from amongst his fellows; and addressed, according to custom, the

youngest member of the Sanhedrim.

“Phineas Ben‐Ezra. Hath the doom gone forth?”

“It hath gone forth through the nation,” answered Phineas, in deep

sonorous tones. “To north and south, to east and west; to all the people

of Judæa hath the inevitable decree been made manifest. The accuser hath

spoken and prevailed. The accused have been judged and condemned. It is

well. Let the sentence be executed without delay!”

“Phineas Ben‐Ezra,” interposed Matthias, “can the condemned put forth no

plea for pardon or reprieve?”

It was according to ancient custom that the Nasi should even at the last

moment urge this merciful appeal—an appeal that never obtained a moment’s

respite for the most innocent of sufferers. Ere Calchas or Esca could have

said a word on their own behalf, Phineas took upon himself the established

reply—

“The voice of the Sanhedrim hath spoken! There is no plea; there is no

pardon; there is no reprieve.”

Then Matthias raised both hands above his head, and spoke in low grave

accents—

“For the accused, justice; for the offender, death. The Sanhedrim hath

heard; the Sanhedrim hath judged; the Sanhedrim hath condemned. It is

written, ‘If a man be found guilty of blasphemy, let him be stoned with

stones until he die!’ Again I say unto you, Calchas Ben‐Manahem, and you,

Esca the Gentile, your blood be upon your own heads.”

Lowering his hands, the signal was at once answered by the inward rush of

some score or two of vigorous young men, who had been in readiness outside

the court. These were stripped to the waist, and had their loins girt.

Some bore huge stones in their bare arms; others, loosening the pavement

with crow and pick‐axe, stooped down and tore it up with a fierce and

cruel energy, as though they had already been kept waiting too long. They

were followers of John of Gischala, and their chief, though he took no

part in the proceeding, stood at their head. His first glance was one of

savage triumph, which faded into no less savage disappointment, as he saw

Eleazar’s place vacant in the assembly of judges—that warrior’s duties

against the enemy excusing his attendance on the occasion. John had

counted on this critical moment for the utter discomfiture of his rival;

but the latter, whose fortitude, strung as it had been to the highest

pitch, could scarcely have carried him through such a trial as was

prepared for him, had escaped it by leading a chosen band of followers to

the post of danger, where the inner wall was weakest, and the breach so

lately made had been hastily and insufficiently repaired.

John saw in this well‐timed absence another triumph for his invincible

enemy. He turned away with a curse upon his lips, and ordered the young

men to proceed at once in the execution of their ghastly duty. It seemed

to him that he must not lose a moment in following his rival to the wall,

yet he could not resist the brutal pleasure of witnessing that rival’s

brother lying defaced and mangled in the horrible death to which he had

been condemned. Already the stones were poised, the fierce brows knit, the

bare arms raised, when even the savage executioners held their hands, and

the grim Sanhedrim glanced from one to another, half in uncertainty, half

in pity, at what they beheld. The figure of a woman darting from the

gloomy cloister, rushed across the court to fall in Esca’s arms with a

strange wild cry, not quite a shout of triumph, not quite a shriek of

despair; and the Briton looking down upon Mariamne, folded her head to his

breast, with a murmur of manly tenderness that even such a moment could

not repress, while he shielded her with his body from the threatened

missiles, in mingled gentleness and defiance, as a wild animal turned to

bay protects its young.

She passed her hands across his brow with a fond impulsive caress. With a

woman’s instinct, too, of care and compassion, she gently stroked his

wrist where it had been chafed and galled by his bonds; then she smiled up

in his face, a loving happy smile, and whispered, “My own, my dear one;

they shall never part us. If I cannot save thee, I can die with thee; oh!

so happy. Happier than I have ever been before in my life.”

It was a strange feeling for him to shrink from the beloved presence, to

avoid the desired caress, to entreat his Mariamne to leave him; but though

his first impulse had been to clasp her in his arms, his blood ran cold to

think of the danger she was braving, the fate to which those tender limbs,

that fair young delicate body, would too surely be exposed.

“No, no,” he said, “not so. You are too young, too beautiful to die.

Mariamne, if you ever loved me—nay, as you love me, I charge you to leave

me now.”

She looked at Calchas, whom she had not yet seemed to recognise, and there

was a smile—yes! a smile on her face, while she stood forth between the

prisoners, and fronted that whole assembly with dauntless forehead and

brave flashing eyes; her fair slight figure the one centre of all

observation, the one prominent object in the court.

“Listen,” she said, in clear sweet tones, that rang like music to the very

farthest cloisters. “Listen all, and bear witness! Princes of the House of

Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and Levites of the nation! ye cannot

shrink from your duty, ye cannot put off your sacred character. I appeal

to your own constitution and your own awful vow. Ye have sworn to obey the

dictates of wisdom without favour; ye have sworn to fulfil the behests of

justice without mercy. I charge ye to condemn me, Mariamne, the daughter

of Eleazar Ben‐Manahem, to be stoned with stones until I die; for that I

too am one of those Nazarenes whom men call Christians. Yea, I triumph in

their belief, as I glory in their name. Ye need no evidence, for I condemn

myself out of my own mouth. Priests of my father’s faith, here in its very

Temple I deny your holiness, I abjure your worship, I renounce your creed!

This building that overshadows me shall testify to my denunciations. It

may be that this very day it shall fall in upon you and cover you with its

ruins. If these have spoken blasphemy, so have I; if these are offenders

worthy of death, so am I. I bear witness against you! I defy you! I bid

you do your worst on those who are proud and happy to die for conscience’

sake!”

Her cheek glowed, her eye flashed, her very figure dilated as she shook

her white hand aloft, and thus braved the assembled Sanhedrim with her

defiance. It was strange how like Eleazar she was at that moment, while

the rich old blood of Manahem mounted in her veins; and the courage of her

fathers, that of yore had smitten the armed Philistine in the wilderness,

and turned the fierce children of Moab in the very tide of conquest, now

blazed forth at the moment of danger in the fairest and gentlest

descendant of their line. Even her very tones thrilled to the heart of

Calchas, not so much for her own sake, as for that of the brother whom he

so loved, and whose voice he seemed to hear in hers. Esca gazed on her

with a fond astonishment; and John of Gischala quailed where he stood, as

he thought of his noble enemy, and the hereditary courage he had done more

wisely not to have driven to despair.

But the tension of her nerves was too much for her woman’s strength.

Bravely she hurled her challenge in their very teeth; and then, shaking in

every limb, she leaned against the Briton’s towering form, and hid her

face once more on his breast.

Even the Nasi was moved. Stern, rigid, and exacting, yet apart from his

office he too had human affections and human weaknesses. He had mourned

for more than one brave son, he had loved more than one dark‐eyed

daughter. He would have spared her if he could, and he bit his lip hard

under the long white beard, in a vain effort to steady the quiver he could

not control. He looked appealingly amongst his colleagues, and met many an

eye that obviously sympathised with his tendency to mercy; but John of

Gischala interposed, and cried out loudly for justice to be done without

delay.

“Ye have heard her!” he exclaimed, with an assumption of holy and zealous

indignation; “out of her own mouth she is condemned. What need ye more

proof or further deliberation? The doom has gone forth. I appeal to the

Sanhedrim that justice be done, in the name of our faith, our nation, our

Temple, and our Holy City, which such righteous acts as these may preserve

even now from the desolation that is threatening at the very gate!”

With such an assembly, such an appeal admitted of no refusal. The Seventy

looked from one to another and shook their heads, sorrowfully indeed, but

with knitted brows and grave stern faces that denoted no intention to

spare. Already Phineas Ben‐Ezra had given the accustomed signal; already

the young men appointed as executioners had closed round the doomed three,

with huge blunt missiles poised, and prepared to launch them forth, when

another interruption arrived to delay for a while the cruel sacrifice that

a Jewish Sanhedrim dignified with the title of justice.

A voice that had been often heard before, though never so wild and

piercing as at this moment, rang through the Court of the Gentiles, and

seemed to wail among the very pinnacles of the Temple towering in the

morning air above. It was a voice that struck to the hearts of all who

heard it—such a voice as terrifies men in their dreams; chilling the

blood, and making the flesh creep with a vague yet unendurable horror, so

that when the pale sleeper wakes, he is drenched with the cold sweat of

mortal fear. A voice that seemed at once to threaten and to warn, to pity

and to condemn; a voice of which the moan and the burden were ever

unbroken and the same—“Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Sin, and

sorrow, and desolation! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to Jerusalem!”

Naked, save for a fold of camel’s hair around his loins, his coarse black

locks matted and tangled, and mingled with the uncombed beard that reached

below his waist—his dark eyes gleaming with lurid fire, and his long lean

arms tossing aloft with the wild gestures of insanity—a tall figure

stalked into the middle of the court, and taking up its position before

the Nasi of the Sanhedrim, began scattering around it on the floor the

burning embers from a brazier it bore on its head; accompanying its

actions with the same mournful and prophetic cry. The young men paused

with their arms up in act to hurl; the Nasi stood motionless and

astonished; the Sanhedrim seemed paralysed with fear; and the Prophet of

Warning, if prophet indeed he were, proceeded with his chant of vengeance

and denunciation against his countrymen.

“Woe to Jerusalem!” said he once more. “Woe to the Holy City! A voice from

the East, a voice from the West, a voice from the four winds; a voice

against Jerusalem and the holy house; a voice against the bridegrooms and

the brides; and a voice against the whole people!”

Then he turned aside and walked round the prisoners in a circle, still

casting burning ashes on the floor. Matthias, like his colleagues, was

puzzled how to act. If this were a demoniac, he entertained for him a

natural horror and aversion, enhanced by the belief he held, in common

with his countrymen, that one possessed had the strength of a score of men

in his single arm; but what if this should be a true prophet, inspired

directly from heaven? The difficulty would then become far greater. To

endeavour to suppress him might provoke divine vengeance on the spot;

whereas, to suffer his denunciations to go abroad amongst the people as

having prevailed with the Great Council of the nation, would be to abandon

the inhabitants at once to despair, and to yield up all hope of offering a

successful defence to the coming attack. From this dilemma the Nasi was

released by the last person on whom he could have counted for assistance

at such a time. Pointing to the prisoners with his wasted arm, the prophet

demanded their instant release, threatening divine vengeance on the

Sanhedrim if they refused; and then addressing the three with the same

wild gestures and incoherent language, he bade them come forth from their

bonds, and join him in his work of prophecy through the length and breadth

of the city.

“I have power to bind,” he exclaimed, “and power to loose! I command you

to rend your bonds asunder! I command you to come forth, and join me, the

Prophet of Warning, in the cry that I am commissioned to cry aloud,

without ceasing—‘Woe to Jerusalem! Woe to the Holy City! Woe to

Jerusalem!’”

Then Calchas, stretching out his bound hands, rebuked him, calmly, mildly,

solemnly, with the patience of a good and holy man—with the instinctive

superiority of one who is standing on the verge of his open grave.

“Wilt thou hinder God’s work?” he said. “Wilt thou dare to suppress the

testimony we are here to give in His presence to‐day? See! even this young

girl, weak indeed in body yet strong in faith, stands bold and unflinching

at her post! And thou, O man! what art thou, that thou shouldst think to

come between her and her glorious reward? Be still! be still! Be no more

vexed by the unquiet spirit, but go in peace, or rather stay here in the

Court of the Gentiles, and bear witness to the truth, for which we are so

thankful and so proud to die!”

The prophet’s eye wandered dreamily from the speaker’s face to those of

the surrounding listeners. His features worked as though he strove against

some force within that he was powerless to resist; then his whole frame

collapsed, as it were, into a helpless apathy, and placing his brazier on

the ground, he sat down beside it, rocking his body to and fro, while he

moaned out, as it seemed unconsciously, in a low and wailing voice, the

burden of his accustomed chant.

To many in the assembly that scene was often present in their after lives.

When they opened their eyes to the light of morning they saw its glow once

more on the bewildered faces of the Sanhedrim; on the displeasure, mingled

with wonder and admiration, that ruffled the austere brow of Matthias; on

the downward scowl that betrayed how shame and fear were torturing John of

Gischala; on the clear‐cut figures of the young men he had marshalled,

girded and ready for their cruel office; on Esca’s towering frame, haughty

and undaunted still; on Mariamne’s drooping form, and pale patient face;

above all, on the smile that illumined the countenance of Calchas,

standing there in his bonds, so venerable, and meek, and happy, now

turning to encourage his companions in affliction, now raising his eyes

thankfully to heaven, his whole form irradiated the while by a flood of

light, that seemed richer and more lustrous than the glow of the morning

sun.

But while the prophet, thus tranquillised and silenced by the rebuke he

had provoked, sat muttering and brooding amongst his dying embers on the

floor; while the Sanhedrim, with their Nasi, stood aghast; while John of

Gischala gnawed his lip in impatient vindictive hatred; and the young men

gathered closer round their victims, as the wolves gather in upon their

prey,—Mariamne raised her head from Esca’s breast, and, pushing the hair

back from her ears and temples, stood for an instant erect and motionless,

with every faculty absorbed in the one sense of listening. Then she turned

her flashing eyes, lit up with great hope and triumph, yet not untinged by

wistful mournful tenderness, upon the Briton’s face, and sobbed in broken

accents, between tears and laughter—

“Saved! Saved! beloved. And by my hand, though lost to me!”

Sharpened by intense affection, her ear alone had caught the distant note

of the Roman trumpets sounding for the assault.

CHAPTER XVII

THE FIRST STONE

[Initial B]

But the young men would hold their hands no longer. Impatient of delay,

and encouraged by a sign from their leader, they rushed in upon the

prisoners. Esca shielded Mariamne with his body. Calchas, pale and

motionless, calmly awaited his fate. Gioras, the son of Simeon, a

prominent warrior amongst the Sicarii, hurling on him a block of granite

with merciless energy, struck the old man bleeding to the earth; but while

the missile left his hands—while he yet stood erect and with extended

arms, a Roman arrow quivered in the aggressor’s heart. He fell upon his

face stone dead at the very feet of his victim. That random shaft was but

the first herald of the storm. In another moment a huge mass of rock,

projected from a powerful catapult against the building, falling short of

its mark, struck the prophet as he sat moaning on the ground, and crushed

him a lifeless, shapeless mass beneath its weight. Then rose a cry of

despair from the outer wall—a confused noise of strife and shouting, the

peal of the trumpets, the cheer of the conquerors, the wild roar of

defiance and despair from the besieged. Ere long fugitives were pouring

through the court, seeking the shelter of the Temple itself. There was no

time to complete the execution—no time to think of the prisoners. John of

Gischala, summoning his adherents, and bidding the young men hasten for

their armour, betook himself to his stronghold within the Sacred Place.

The Sanhedrim fled in consternation, although Matthias and the braver of

his colleagues died afterwards in the streets, as became them, under

shield. In a few minutes the Court of the Gentiles was again clear, save

for the prisoners, one of whom was bound, and one mangled and bleeding on

the pavement, tended by Mariamne, who bent over her kinsman in speechless

sorrow and consternation. The fragment of rock, too, which had been

propelled against the Temple, lay in the centre, over the crushed and

flattened body of the prophet, whose hand and arm alone protruded from

beneath the mass. The place did not thus remain in solitude for long.

Fighting their retreat step by step, and, although driven backward,

contesting every yard with their faces to the enemy, the flower of the

Jewish army soon passed through, in the best order they could maintain, as

they retired upon the Temple. Among the last of these was Eleazar;

hopeless now, for he knew all was lost, but brave and unconquered still.

He cast one look of affection at his brother’s prostrate form, one of

astonishment and reproof on his kneeling child; but ere he could approach

or even speak to her, he was swept on with the resistless tide of the

defeated, ebbing before the advance of the Roman host.

And now Esca’s eye kindled, and his blood mounted, to a well‐known battle‐

cry. He had heard it in the deadly circus; he had heard it on the

crumbling breach; he had heard it wherever blows rained hard and blood

flowed free, and men fought doggedly and hopelessly, without a chance or a

wish for escape. His heart leaped to the cheer of the gladiators, rising

fierce, reckless, and defiant above all the combined din of war, and he

knew that his old comrades and late antagonists had carried the defences

with their wonted bravery, as they led the Roman army to the assault.

The Legion of the Lost had indeed borne themselves nobly on this occasion.

Their leader had not spared them; for Hippias well knew that to‐day, with

the handful left him by slaughter and disease, he must play his last stake

for riches and distinction; nor had his followers failed to answer

gallantly to his call. Though opposed by Eleazar himself and the best he

could muster, they had carried the breach at the first onset—they had

driven the Jews before them with a wild headlong charge that no courage

could resist, and they had entered the outskirts of the Temple almost at

the same moment with its discomfited defenders. It was their trumpets

sounding the advance that reached Mariamne’s ear as she stood in the Court

of the Gentiles, awaiting the vengeance she had defied. And amongst this

courageous band two combatants had especially signalised themselves by

feats of reckless and unusual daring. The one was old Hirpinus, who felt

thoroughly in his element in such a scene, and whose natural valour was

enhanced by the consciousness of the superiority he had now attained as a

soldier over his former profession of a gladiator. The other was a comrade

whom none could identify; who was conspicuous no less from his flowing

locks, his beautiful form, and his golden armour, than from the audacity

with which he courted danger, and the immunity he seemed to enjoy, in

common with those who display a real contempt for death.

As he followed the golden headpiece and the long brown hair, that made way

so irresistibly through the press, more than one stout swordsman exulted

in the belief that some tutelary deity of his country had descended in

human shape to aid the Roman arms; and Titus himself inquired, and waited

in vain for an answer, “Who was that dashing warrior, with white arms and

shining corselet, leading the gladiators so gallantly to the attack?”

But old Hirpinus knew, and smiled within his helmet as he fought. “The

captain is well rid of her,” thought he, congratulating himself the while

on his own freedom from such inconveniences. “For all her comely face and

winning laugh, I had rather have a tigress loose in my tent than this

fair, fickle, fighting fury, who takes to shield and spear as other women

do to the shuttle and the distaff!”

Valeria, in truth, deserved little credit for her bravery. While

apprehension of danger never for a moment overmastered her, the excitement

of its presence seemed to offer a temporary relief to her wounded and

remorseful heart. In the fierce rush of battle she had no leisure to dwell

on thoughts that had lately tortured her to madness; and the very physical

exertion such a scene demanded, brought with it, although she was

unconscious of its severity, a sure anodyne for mental suffering. Like all

persons, too, who are unaccustomed to bodily perils, the impunity with

which she affronted each imparted an overweening confidence in her good

fortune, and an undue contempt for the next, till it seemed to herself

that she bore a charmed life; and that, though man after man might fall at

her side as she fought on, _she_ was destined to fulfil her task

unscathed, and reach the presence of Esca in time to save him from

destruction, even though she should die the next minute at his feet.

The two first assailants who entered the Court of the Gentiles were

Valeria, in her golden armour, and Hirpinus, brandishing the short deadly

weapon he knew how to use so well. They were close together; but the

former paused to look around, and the gladiator, rushing to the front,

made for his old comrade, whom he recognised on the instant. His haste,

however, nearly proved fatal. The heavily‐nailed sandals that he wore

afforded but a treacherous foothold on the smooth stone pavement, his feet

slipped from under him, and he came with a heavy back‐fall to the ground.

_Habet!_(23) exclaimed Hippias, from the sheer force of custom, following

close upon his tracks; but he strained eagerly forward to defend his

prostrate comrade while he spoke, and found himself instantly engaged with

a score of Jewish warriors, who came swarming back like bees to settle on

the fallen gladiator. Hirpinus, however, covered his body skilfully under

his shield, and defended himself bravely with his sword—dealing more than

one fatal thrust at such of his assailants as were rash enough to believe

him vanquished because down. As more of the gladiators came pouring in,

they were opposed by troops of the Jews, who, with Eleazar at their head,

made a desperate sally from the Temple to which they had retired, and a

fierce hand‐to‐hand struggle, that lasted several minutes, took place

round Hirpinus in the centre of the court. When he at length regained his

feet, his powerful aid soon made itself felt in the fray, and the Jews,

though fighting stubbornly still, were obliged once more to retreat before

the increasing columns of the besiegers.

Valeria, in the meantime, rushing through the court to where she spied a

well‐known form struggling in its bonds, came across the path of Eleazar,

at whom she delivered a savage thrust as she met him, lest he should

impede her course. The fierce Jew, who had enough on his hands at such a

moment, and was pressing eagerly forward into the thickest of the

struggle, was content to parry the stroke with his javelin, and launch

that weapon in return at his assailant, while he passed on. The cruel

missile did its errand only too well. The broad thirsty point clove

through a crevice in her golden corselet, and sank deep in her white

tender side, to drink the life‐blood of the woman‐warrior as she sped

onward in fulfilment of her fatal task. Breaking the javelin’s shaft in

her hands, and flinging the fragments from her with a scornful smile,

Valeria found strength to cross the court, nor did her swift step falter,

nor did her proud bearing betray wounds or weakness, till she reached

Esca’s side. A loving smile of recognition, two strokes of her sharp

blade, and he was free! but as the severed bonds fell from his arms, and

he stretched them forth in the delight of restored liberty, his deliverer,

throwing away sword and shield, seized his hand in both her own, and,

pressing it convulsively to her bosom, sank down helpless on the pavement

at his feet.

[Illustration: Sank down helpless on the pavement at his feet.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE COST OF CONQUEST

Mariamne turned from the still insensible form of Calchas to the beautiful

face, that even now, though pale from exhaustion and warped with agony, it

pained her to see so fair. Gently and tenderly she lifted the golden

helmet from Valeria’s brows; gently and tenderly she smoothed the rich

brown hair, and wiped away the dews of coming death. Compassion,

gratitude, and an ardent desire to soothe and tend the sufferer left no

room for bitterness or unworthy feeling in Mariamne’s breast. Valeria had

redeemed her promise with her life—had ransomed the man whom they both

loved so dearly, at that fatal price, for _her_! and the Jewess could only

think of all she owed the Roman lady in return; could only strive to tend

and comfort her, and minister to her wants, and support her in the awful

moment she did not fail to see was fast approaching. The dying woman’s

face was turned on her with a sweet sad smile; but when Mariamne’s touch

softly approached the head of her father’s javelin, still protruding from

the wound, Valeria stayed her hand.

“Not yet,” she whispered with a noble effort that steadied voice and lips,

and kept down mortal agony; “not yet; for I know too well I am stricken to

the death. While the steel is there it serves to stanch the life‐blood.

When I draw it out, then scatter a handful of dust over my forehead, and

lay the death‐penny on my tongue. I would fain last a few moments longer,

Esca, were it but to look on thy dear face! Raise me, both of you. I have

somewhat to say, and my time is short.”

The Briton propped her in his strong arms, and she leaned her head against

his shoulder with a gesture of contentment and relief. The winning eyes

had lost none of their witchery yet, though soon to be closed in death.

Perhaps they never shone with so soft and sweet a lustre as now, while

they looked upon the object of a wild, foolish, and impossible love. While

one white hand was laid upon the javelin’s head, and held it in its place,

the other wandered over Esca’s features in a fond caress, to be wetted

with his tears. Her voice was failing, her strength was ebbing fast, but

the brave spirit of the Mutian line held out, tameless and unshaken still.

“I have conquered,” gasped the Roman lady, in broken accents and with

quick‐coming breath. “I have conquered, though at the cost of life. What

then? Victory can never be bought too dear. Esca, I swore to rescue thee.

I swore thou shouldst be mine. Now have I kept my oath. I have bought thee

with my blood, and I give thee—_give_ thee, my own, to this brave girl,

who risked her life to save thee too, and who loves thee well; but not so

well, not half so well, as I have done. Esca, my noble one, come closer,

closer yet.” She drew his face down nearer and nearer to her own while she

guided his hand to the javelin’s head, still fast in her side. “I can bear

this agony no longer,” she gasped, “but it is not hard to die in thine

arms, and by thy dear hand!”

Thus speaking, she closed his grasp within her own, round the steel, and

drew it gently from the wound. The blood welled up in dark‐red jets to

pour forth, as it cleared its channel, in one continuous stream that soon

drained life away. With a quiver of her dainty limbs, with a smile

deepening in her fair face, with her fond eyes fixed on the man she loved,

and her lips pressed against his hand, the spirit of that beautiful,

imperious, and wilful woman passed away into eternity.

Blinded by their tears, neither Esca nor Mariamne were, for the moment,

conscious of aught but the sad fate of her who had twice saved the one

from death, and to whom the other had so lately appealed as the only

source of aid in her great need. Dearly as he loved the living woman by

his side, the Briton could not refrain from a burst of bitter sorrow while

he looked on the noble form of Valeria lying dead at his feet; and

Mariamne forgot her own griefs, her own injuries, in holy pity for her who

had sacrificed virtue, happiness, wealth, life itself in his behalf, whom

she, too, loved more dearly than it behoves human weakness to love

anything this side the grave.

But the living now claimed that attention which it availed no longer to

bestow upon the dead. Calchas, though sadly bruised and mangled, began to

show signs of restored life. The stone that stretched him on the pavement

had, indeed, dealt a fatal injury; but though it stunned him for a time,

had failed to inflict instantaneous death. The colour was now returning to

his cheek, his breath came in long deep sighs, and he raised his hand to

his head with a gesture of renewed consciousness, denoted by a sense of

pain. Esca, careless and almost unaware of the conflict raging around,

bent sorrowfully over his old friend, and devoted all his faculties to the

task of aiding Mariamne in her efforts to alleviate his sufferings.

In the meantime, the tide of battle surged to and fro, with increasing

volume and unmitigated fury. The Legion of the Lost, flushed with success,

and secure of support from the whole Roman army in their rear, pressed the

Jews, with the exulting and unremitting energy of the hunter closing in on

his prey. These, like the wild beasts driven to the toils, turned to bay

with the dreadful courage of despair. Led by Eleazar, who was ever present

where most needed, they made repeated sallies from the body of the Temple,

endeavouring to regain the ground they had lost, at least as far as the

entrance to the Court of the Gentiles. This became, therefore, an arena in

which many a mortal combat was fought out hand to hand, and was several

times taken and retaken with alternate success.

Hippias, according to his wont, was conspicuous in the fray. It was his

ambition to lead his gladiators into the Holy Place itself, before Titus

should come up, and with such an object he seemed to outdo to‐day the

daring feats of valour for which he had previously been celebrated.

Hirpinus, who had no sooner regained his feet than he went to work again

as though, like the fabled Titan, he derived renewed energy from the

kisses of mother Earth, expostulated more than once with his leader on the

dangers he affronted, and the numerical odds he did not hesitate to

engage, but received to each warning the same reply. Pointing with

dripping sword at the golden roof of the Temple flashing conspicuously

over their heads, “Yonder,” said the fencing‐master, “is the ransom of a

kingdom. I will win it with my own hand for the legion, and share it

amongst you equally, man by man.” Such a prospect inspired the gladiators

with even more than their usual daring; and though many a stout swordsman

went down with his face to the enemy, and many a bold eye looked its last

on the coveted spoil, ere it grew dark for ever, the survivors did but

close in the fiercer, to fight on, step by step, and stroke by stroke,

till the court was strewed with corpses, and its pavement slippery with

blood.

During a pause in the reeling strife, and while marshalling his men, who

had again driven the Jews into the Temple, for a fresh and decisive

attack, Hippias found himself in that corner of the court where Esca and

Mariamne were still bending over the prostrate form of Calchas. Without a

symptom of astonishment or jealousy, but with his careless half‐

contemptuous laugh, the fencing‐master recognised his former pupil, and

the girl whom he had once before seen in the porch of the tribune’s

mansion at Rome. Taking off his heavy helmet, he wiped his brows, and

leaned for a space on his shield.

“Go to the rear,” said he, “and take the lass with thee, man, since she

seems to hang like a clog round thy neck, wherever there is fighting to be

done. Give yourselves up to the Tenth Legion, and tell Licinius, who

commands it, you are my prisoners. ’Tis your only chance of safety, my

pretty damsel, and none of your sex ever yet had cause to rue her trust in

Hippias. You may tell him also, Esca, that if he make not the more haste,

I shall have taken the Temple, and all belonging to it, without his help.

Off with thee, lad! this is no place for a woman. Get her out of it as

quick as thou canst.”

But the Briton pointed downward to Calchas, who had again become

unconscious, and whose head was resting on Mariamne’s knees. His gesture

drew the attention of Hippias to the ground, cumbered as it was with

slain. He had begun with a brutal laugh to bid his pupil “leave the

carrion for the vultures,” but the sentence died out on his lips, which

turned deadly white, while his eyes stared vacantly, and the shield on

which he had been leaning fell with a clang to the stones.

There at his very feet over the golden breastplate was the dead face of

Valeria; and the heart of the brave, reckless, and unprincipled soldier

smote him with a cruel pang, for something told him that his own wilful

pride and selfishness had begun that work, which was completed, to his

eternal self‐reproach, down there.

He never thought he loved her so dearly. He recalled, as if it were but

yesterday, the first time he ever saw her, beautiful and sumptuous and

haughty, looking down from her cushioned chair by the equestrian row, with

the well‐known scornful glance that possessed for him so keen a charm. He

remembered how it kindled into approval as it met his own, and how his

heart thrilled under his buckler, though he stood face to face with a

mortal foe. He remembered how fondly he clung to that mutual glance of

recognition, the only link between them, renewed more frankly and more

kindly at every succeeding show, till, raising his eyes to meet it once

too often in the critical moment of encounter, he went down badly wounded

under the blow he had thus failed to guard. Nevertheless, how richly was

he rewarded when fighting stubbornly on his knee, and from that

disadvantageous attitude vanquishing his antagonist at last, he

distinguished amidst the cheers of thousands her marked and musical

_Euge!_ syllabled so clearly though so softly, for his special ear, by the

lips of the proud lady, whom from that moment he dared to love!

Afterwards, when admitted periodically to her house, how delightful were

the alternations of hope and fear with which he saw himself treated; now

as an honoured guest, now as a mere inferior, at another time with mingled

kindness and restraint, that, impassible as he thought himself, woke such

wild wishes in his heart! How sweet it was to be sure of seeing her at

certain stated hours, the recollection of one meeting bridging over the

intervening period so pleasantly, till it was time to look forward to

another! She was to him like the beautiful rose blooming in his garden, of

which a man is content at first only to admire the form ere he learns to

long for its fragrance, and at last desires to pluck it ruthlessly from

the stem that he may wear it on his breast. How soon it withers there and

dies, and then how bitterly, how sadly, he wishes he had left it blushing

where it grew! There are plenty more flowers in the garden, but none of

them are quite equal to the rose.

It was strange how little Hippias dwelt on the immediate past—how it was

the Valeria of Rome, not the Valeria of Judæa, for whom his heart was

aching now. He scarcely reverted even to the delirious happiness of the

first few days when she accompanied him to the East; he did not dwell on

his own mad joy, nor the foolish triumph that lasted so short a time. He

forgot, as though they had never been, her caprice, her wilfulness, her

growing weariness of his society, and the scorn she scarcely took the

trouble to conceal. It was all past and gone now, that constraint and

repugnance in the tent, that impatience of each other’s presence, those

angry recriminations, those heartless biting taunts and the final rupture

that could never be pardoned nor atoned for now. She was again Valeria of

the olden time, of the haughty bearing, and the winning eyes, and the

fresh glad voice that sprang from a heart which had never known a struggle

nor a fall—the Valeria whose every mood and gesture were gifted with a

dangerous witchery, a subtle essence that seems to pervade the very

presence of such women—a priceless charm, indeed, and yet a fatal, luring

the possessor to the destruction of others and her own.

Oh, that she could but speak to him once more! Only once, though it were

in words of keen reproach or bitter scorn! It seemed like a dream that he

should never hear her voice again; and yet his senses vouched that it was

waking cold reality, for was she not lying there before him, surrounded by

the slain of his devoted legion? The foremost, the fairest, and the

earliest lost, amongst them all!

He took no further note of Calchas nor of Esca. He turned not to mark the

renewed charge of his comrades, nor the increased turmoil of the fight,

but he stooped down over the body of the dead woman, and laid his lips

reverently to her pale cold brow. Then he lifted one of her long brown

tresses, dabbled as they were in blood, to sever it gently and carefully

with his sword, and unbuckling his corselet, hid it beneath the steel upon

his heart. After this, he turned and took leave of Esca. The Briton

scarcely knew him, his voice and mien were so altered. But watching his

figure as he disappeared, waving his sword, amidst the press of battle, he

knew instinctively that he had bidden Hippias the gladiator a long and

last farewell.

CHAPTER XIX

THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES

Shouting their well‐known war‐cry, and placing himself at the head of that

handful of heroes who constituted the remnant of the Lost Legion, Hippias

rallied them for one last desperate effort against the defenders of the

Temple. These had formed a hasty barricade on the exigency of the moment

from certain beams and timbers they had pulled down in the Sacred Place.

It afforded a slight protection against the javelins, arrows, and other

missiles of the Romans, while it checked and repulsed the impetuous rush

of the latter, who now wavered, hesitated, and began to look about them,

making inquiry for the battering‐rams and other engines of war that were

to have supported their onset from the rear. In vain Hippias led them,

once and again, to carry this unforeseen obstacle. It was high and firm,

it bristled with spears and was lined with archers; above all, it was

defended by the indomitable valour of Eleazar, and the gladiators were

each time repulsed with loss. Their leader, too, had been severely

wounded. He had never lifted his shield from the ground where it lay by

Valeria’s side; and, in climbing the barricade, he had received a thrust

in the body from an unknown hand. While he stanched the blood with the

folds of his tunic, and felt within his breastplate for the tress of

Valeria’s hair, he looked anxiously back for his promised reinforcements,

now sorely needed, convinced that his shattered band would be unable to

obtain possession of the Temple without the assistance of the legions.

Faint from loss of blood, strength and courage failing him at the same

moment, an overpowering sense of hopeless sorrow succeeding the triumphant

excitement of the last hour, his thoughts were yet for his swordsmen; and

collecting them with voice and gesture, he bade them form with their

shields the figure that was called “the tortoise,” as a screen against the

shower of missiles that overpowered them from the barricade. Cool,

confident, and well‐drilled, the gladiators soon settled into this

impervious order of defence; and the word of command had hardly died on

his lips ere the leader himself was the only soldier left out of that

movable fortress of steel.(24)

Turning from the enemy to inspect its security, his side was left a moment

exposed to their darts. The next, a Jewish arrow quivered in his heart.

True to his instincts, he waved his sword over his head, as he went down,

with a triumphant cheer; for his failing ear recognised the blast of the

Roman trumpets—his darkening eye caught the glitter of their spears and

the gleam of their brazen helmets, as the legions advanced in steady and

imposing order to complete the work he and his handful of heroes had

begun.

Even in the act of falling, Esca, looking up from his charge, saw the

fencing‐master wheel half‐round that his dead face might be turned towards

the foe; perhaps, too, the Briton’s eye was the only one to observe a thin

dark stream of blood steal slowly along the pavement, till it mingled with

the red pool in which Valeria lay.

Effectual assistance had come at last. From the Tower of Antonia to the

outworks of the Temple a broad and easy causeway had been thrown up in the

last hour by the Roman soldiers. Where every man was engineer as well as

combatant, there was no lack of labour for such a task. A large portion of

the adjoining wall, as of the tower itself, had been hastily thrown down

to furnish materials; and while the gladiators were storming the Court of

the Gentiles, their comrades had constructed a wide, easy, and gradual

ascent, by which, in regular succession, whole columns could be poured in

to the support of the first assailants. These were led by Julius Placidus

with his wonted skill and coolness. In his recent collision with Esca he

had sustained such severe injuries as incapacitated him from mounting a

horse; but with the Asiatic auxiliaries were several elephants of war, and

on one of these huge beasts he now rode exalted, directing from his

movable tower the operations of his own troops, and galling the enemy when

occasion offered with the shafts of a few archers who accompanied him on

the patient and sagacious animal.

The elephant, in obedience to its driver, a dark supple Syrian, perched

behind its ears, ascended the slope with ludicrous and solemn caution.

Though alarmed by the smell of blood, it nevertheless came steadily on, a

formidable and imposing object, striking terror into the hearts of the

Jews, who were not accustomed to confront such enemies in warfare. The

tribune’s arms were more dazzling, his dress even more costly than usual.

It seemed that with his Eastern charger he affected also something of

Eastern luxury and splendour; but he encouraged his men, as he was in the

habit of doing, with jeer and scoff, and such coarse jests as soldiers

best understand and appreciate in the moment of danger.

No sooner had he entered the court, through its battered and half‐

demolished gateway, than his quick eye caught sight of the still glowing

embers scattered by the Prophet of Warning on the pavement. These

suggested a means for the destruction of the barricade, and he mocked the

repulsed gladiators, with many a bitter taunt, for not having yet applied

them to that purpose. Calling on Hirpinus, who now commanded the remnant

of the Lost Legion, to collect his followers, he bade them advance under

the _testudo_ to pile these embers against the foundations of the wooden

barrier.

“The defenders cannot find a drop of water,” said he, laughing; “they have

no means of stifling a fire kindled from without. In five minutes all that

dry wood will be in a blaze, and in less than ten there will be a smoking

gap in the gateway large enough for me to ride through, elephant and all!”

Assisted by fresh reinforcements, the gladiators promptly obeyed his

orders. Heaps of live embers were collected and applied to the wooden

obstacle so hastily erected. Dried to tinder in the scorching sun, and

loosely put together for a temporary purpose, it could not fail to be

sufficiently inflammable; and the hearts of the besieged sank within them

as the flame began to leap and the woodwork to crackle, while their last

defences seemed about to consume gradually away.

The tribune had time to lean over from his elephant and question Hirpinus

of his commander. With a grave sad brow and a heavy heart, the stout old

swordsman answered by pointing to the ground where Hippias lay, his face

calm and fixed, his right hand closed firmly round his sword.

“_Habet!_” exclaimed the tribune with a brutal laugh; adding to himself,

as Hirpinus turned away sorrowful and disgusted, “My last rival down; my

last obstacle removed. One more throw for the Sixes, and the great game is

fairly won!”

Placidus was indeed now within a stride of all he most coveted, all he

most wished to grasp on earth. A dozen feet below him, pale and rigid on

the ground, lay the rival he had feared might win the first place in the

triumph of to‐day; the rival whom he knew to possess the favour of Titus;

the rival who had supplanted him in the good graces of the woman he loved.

He had neither forgotten nor forgiven Valeria; but he bore none the less

ill‐will against him with whom she had voluntarily fled. When he joined

the Roman army before Jerusalem, and found her beautiful, miserable,

degraded, in the tent of the gladiator, he had but dissembled and deferred

his revenge till the occasion should arrive when he might still more

deeply humiliate the one and inflict a fatal blow on the other. Now the

man was under his elephant’s feet; and the woman left alone yonder,

friendless and deserted in the camp, could not, he thought, fail

eventually to become his prey. He little knew that those who had made each

other’s misery in life were at last united in the cold embrace of death.

He had arrived, too, in the nick of time, to seize and place on his own

brows the wreath that had been twined for him by the Lost Legion and their

leader. A little earlier and Hippias, supplied by himself with fresh

troops, would have won the credit of first entering the Temple; a little

later, and his triumph must have been shared by Licinius, already with the

Tenth Legion close upon his rear. But now, at the glorious opportunity,

there was nothing between him and victory save a score of Jewish spearmen

and a few feet of blazing wood.

Leaning over to the unwilling driver, he urged him to goad the elephant

through the flames, that its weight might at once bear down what remained

of the barricade and make a way for his followers into the Temple.

Ambition prompted him not to lose a moment. The Syrian unwound the shawl

from his waist, and spread it over the animal’s eyes, while he persuaded

it, thus blindfolded, to advance. Though much alarmed, the elephant pushed

on, and there was small hope that the shattered smouldering barrier would

resist the pressure of its enormous weight. The last chance of the

besieged seemed to fail them, when Eleazar leaped out through the smoke,

and, running swiftly to meet it, dashed under the beast’s uplifted trunk,

and stabbed it fiercely with quick repeated thrusts in the belly. At each

fresh stroke the elephant uttered a loud and hideous groan, a shriek of

pain and fear, mingled with a trumpet‐note of fury, and then sinking on

its knees, fell slowly and heavily to the ground, crushing the devoted

Zealot beneath its huge carcass, and scattering the band of archers, as a

man scatters a handful of grain, over the court.

Eleazar never spoke again. The Lion of Judah died as he had lived—fierce,

stubborn, unconquered, and devoted to the cause of Jerusalem. Mariamne

recognised him as he sallied forth, but no mutual glance had passed

between the father and the child. Pale, erect, motionless, she watched him

disappear under the elephant, but the scream of horror that rang from her

white lips when she realised his fate was lost in the wild cry of pain,

and anger, and dismay, that filled the air, while the huge quivering mass

tottered and went down. Placidus was hurled to the pavement like a stone

from a sling. Lying there, helpless, though conscious, he recognised at

once the living Esca and the dead Valeria; but baffled wrath and cherished

hatred left no room in his heart for sorrow or remorse. His eye glared

angrily on the Briton, and he ground his teeth with rage to feel that he

could not even lift his powerless hand from the ground; but the Jewish

warriors were closing in with fierce arms up to strike, and it was but a

momentary glimpse that Esca obtained of the tribune’s dark, despairing,

handsome face. It was years, though, ere he forgot the vision. The costly

robes, the goodly armour, the shapely writhing form, and the wild hopeless

eyes that gleamed with hatred and defiance both of the world he left and

that to which he went.

And now the court was filling fast with a dun lurid smoke that wreathed

its vapours round the pinnacles of the Temple, and caused the still

increasing troops of combatants to loom like phantom shapes struggling and

fighting in a dream. Ere long, bright tongues of flame were leaping

through the cloud, licking the walls and pillars of the building, gliding

and glancing over the golden surface of its roof, and shooting upwards

here and there into shifting pyramids of fire. Soon was heard the hollow

rushing roar with which the consuming element declares its victory, and

showers of sparks, sweeping like storms across the Court of the Gentiles,

proclaimed that the Temple was burning in every quarter.

One of the gladiators, in the wild wantonness of strife, had caught a

blazing fragment of the barricade, as its remains were carried by a rush

of his comrades, after the fall of Eleazar, and flung it into an open

window of the Temple over his head. Lighting on the carved woodwork, with

which the casement was decorated, it soon kindled into a strong and steady

flame, that was fed by the quantity of timber, all thoroughly dry and

highly ornamented, which the building contained; thus it had communicated

from gallery to gallery, and from storey to storey, till the whole was

wrapped in one glowing sheet of fire. From every quarter of the city, from

Agrippa’s wall to the Mount of Olives, from the camp of the Assyrians to

the Valley of Hinnom, awestruck faces of friend and foe, white with fear,

or anger, or astonishment, marked that rolling column, expanding, swaying,

shifting, and ever rising higher into the summer sky, ever flinging out

its red forked banner of destruction broader, and brighter, and fiercer,

with each changing breeze.

Then the Jews knew that their great tribulation was fulfilled—that the

curse which had been to them hitherto but a dead letter and a sealed book,

was poured forth literally in streams of fire upon their heads—that their

sanctuary was desolate, their prosperity gone for ever, their very

existence as a nation destroyed, and “the place that had known them should

know them no more”! The very Romans themselves, the cohorts advancing in

serried columns to support their comrades, the legions massed in solid

squares for the completion of its capture, in all the open places of the

town, gazed on the burning Temple with concern and awe. Titus, even, in

the flush of conquest, and the exulting joy of gratified ambition, turned

his head away with a pitying sigh, for he would have spared the enemy had

they but trusted him, would fain have saved that monument of their

nationality and their religion, as well for their glory as his own.

And now with the flames leaping, and the smoke curling around, the huge

timbers crashing down on every side to throw up showers of sparkling

embers as they fell—the very marble glowing and riven with heat—the

precious metal pouring from the roof in streams of molten fire—Esca and

Mariamne, half suffocated in the Court of the Gentiles, could not yet

bring themselves to seek their own safety, and leave the helpless form of

Calchas to certain destruction. Loud shouts, cries of agony and despair,

warned them that even the burning Temple, at furnace heat, was still the

theatre of a murderous and useless conflict. The defenders had set the

example of merciless bloodshed, and the Romans, exasperated to cruelty,

now took no prisoners and gave no quarter. John of Gischala and his

followers, driven to bay by the legions, still kept up a resistance the

more furious that it was the offspring of despair. Hunted from wall to

wall, from roof to roof, from storey to storey, they yet fought on while

life and strength remained. Even those whose weapons failed them, or who

were hemmed in by overwhelming numbers, leaped down like madmen, and

perished horribly in the flames.

But although steel was clashing, and blood flowing, and men fighting by

myriads around it, the Court of the Gentiles lay silent and deserted under

its canopy of smoke, with its pavement covered by the dead. The only

living creatures left were the three who had stood there in the morning,

bound and doomed to die. Of these, one had his foot already on the border‐

land between time and eternity.

“I will never desert him,” said Esca to his pale companion; “but thou,

Mariamne, hast now a chance of escape. It may be the Romans will respect

thee if thou canst reach some high commander, or yield thee to some cohort

of the reserve, whose blood is not a‐fire with slaughter. What said

Hippias of the Tenth Legion and Licinius? If thou couldst but lay hold on

his garment, thou wert safe for my sake!”

“And leave thee here to die!” answered Mariamne. “Oh, Esca! what would

life be then? Besides, have we not trusted through this terrible night,

and shall we not trust still? I know who is on my side. I have not

forgotten all he taught me who lies bruised and senseless here. See, Esca!

He opens his eyes. He knows us! It may be we shall save him now!”

Calchas did indeed seem to have recovered consciousness; and the life so

soon to fade glowed once more on his wasted cheek, like an expiring lamp

that glimmers into momentary brightness ere its flame is extinguished for

ever.

CHAPTER XX

THE VICTORY

The Tenth Legion, commanded by Licinius and guarding the person of their

beloved prince, were advancing steadily upon the Temple. Deeming

themselves the flower of the Roman army, accustomed to fight under the eye

of Titus himself, there was no unseemly haste in the movements of these

highly disciplined troops. None even of that fiery dash, which is

sometimes so irresistible, sometimes so dangerous a quality in the

soldier. The Tenth Legion would no more have neglected the even regularity

of their line, the mechanical precision of their step, in a charge than in

a retreat. They were, as they boasted, “equal to either fortune.”(25) Not

flushed by success, because they considered victory the mere wages to

which they were entitled—not discouraged by repulse, because they were

satisfied that the Tenth Legion could do all that was possible for

soldiers; and the very fact of their retiring, was to them in itself a

sufficient proof that sound strategy required such a movement.

Thus, when the Legion of the Lost dashed forward with wild cheers and an

impetuous rush to the attack, the Tenth supported them with even ranks and

regular pace and a scornful smile on their keen, bronzed, quiet faces.

They would have taken the Temple, they thought, if they had the order,

with half the noise and in half the time, so they closed remorselessly in,

as man after man fell under the Jewish missiles, and preserved through

their whole advance the same stern, haughty, and immovable demeanour,

which was the favourite affectation of their courage. Titus had addressed

them, when he put himself at their head, to recommend neither steadiness,

valour, nor implicit compliance with orders, for in all such requirements

he could depend on them, as if they were really what he loved to call

them, “his own children”! but he exhorted them to spare the lives of the

vanquished, and to respect as far as possible the property as well as the

persons of the citizens. Above all, he had hoped to save the Temple; and

this hope he expressed again and again to Licinius, who rode beside him,

even until gazing sorrowfully on the mass of lowering smoke and yellow

flame, his own eyes told him that his clemency was too late.

Even then, leaving to his general the duty of completing its capture and

investing its defences, he put spurs to his horse and rode at speed round

the building, calling on his soldiers to assist him in quenching the

flames, shouting, signing, gesticulating; but all in vain.(26) Though the

Tenth Legion were steady as a rock, the rest of the army had not resisted

the infection of success; and stimulated by the example of the gladiators,

were more disposed to encourage than to impede the conflagration—nor, even

had they wished, would their most strenuous efforts have been now able to

extinguish it.

Though fighting still went on amongst the cloisters and in the galleries

of the Temple; though John of Gischala was still alive, and the Robbers

held out, here and there, in fast diminishing clusters; though the Zealots

had sworn to follow their leader’s example, dying to a man in defence of

the Holy Place; and though the Sicarii were not yet completely

exterminated—Jerusalem might nevertheless be considered at length in

possession of the Roman army. Licinius, leading the Tenth Legion through

the Court of the Gentiles, more effectually to occupy the Temple, and

prevent if possible its total destruction, was accosted at its entrance by

Hirpinus, who saluted him with a sword dripping from hilt to point in

blood. The old gladiator’s armour was hacked and dinted, his dress

scorched, his face blackened with smoke; but though weary, wounded, and

exhausted, his voice had lost none of its rough jovial frankness, his brow

none of the kindly good‐humoured courage it had worn through all the

hardships of the siege.

“Hail, prætor!” said he, “I shall live to see thee sitting yet once again,

high on the golden car, in the streets of Rome. The Temple is thine at

last, and all it contains, if we can only save it from these accursed

flames. The fighting is over now; and I came back to look for a prisoner

who can tell me where water may be found. The yellow roof yonder is

flaring away like a torch in an oil‐cask, and they must be fond of gold

who can catch it by handfuls, guttering down like this in streams of fire.

Our people, too, have cut their prisoners’ throats as fast as they took

them, and I cannot find a living Jew to show me well or cistern.

Illustrious! I have won spoil enough to‐day to buy a province—I would give

it all for as much clear water as would go into my helmet. The bravest old

man in Syria is dying in yonder corner for want of a mouthful!”

Returning through the court, in obedience to the prince’s orders, to

collect men and procure water, if possible, for the extinction of the

conflagration, Hirpinus had recognised his young friend Esca with no

little surprise and delight. Seeing Calchas, too—for whom, ever since his

bold address to the gladiators in the training‐school, he had entertained

a sincere admiration—lying half suffocated, and at his last gasp, on the

stones, the old swordsman’s heart smote him with a keen sense of pity, and

something between anger and shame at his own helplessness to assist the

sufferer. He said nothing but truth, indeed, when he declared that he

would give all his share of spoil for a helmetful of water; but he might

have offered the price of a kingdom rather than a province, with as little

chance of purchasing what he desired. Blood there was, flowing in streams,

but of water not a drop! It was more in despair than hope that he told his

sad tale to Licinius, on whom it seemed natural for every soldier in the

army to depend when in trouble, either for himself or for others. Giving

his orders, clear, concise, and imperative to his tribunes, the Roman

general accompanied Hirpinus to the corner of the court where Calchas lay.

Fallen beams and masses of charred timber were smouldering around, dead

bodies, writhed in the wild contortions of mortal agony, in heaps on every

side—he was sick and faint, crushed, mangled, dying from a painful wound,

yet the Christian’s face looked calm and happy; and he lay upon the hard

stones, waiting for the coming change, like one who seeks refreshing

slumber on a bed of down.

As the kind eyes turned gently to Licinius, in glance of friendly

recognition, they were lit with the smile that is never worn but by the

departing traveller whose barque has already cast off its moorings from

the shore—the smile in which he seems to bid a hopeful, joyful farewell to

those he leaves for a little while, with which he seems to welcome the

chill breeze and the dark waters because of the haven where he would be.

Mariamne and Esca, bending over with tender care, and watching each

passing shade on that placid countenance, knew well that the end was very

near.

His strength was almost gone; but Calchas pointed to his kinswoman and the

Briton, while looking at Licinius he said, “They will be your care now. I

have bestowed on you countless treasures freely yonder in the camp of the

Assyrians.(27) This you shall promise me in return.”

Licinius laid his shield on the ground and took the dying man’s hand in

both his own.

“They are my children,” said he, “from this day forth. Oh! my guide, I

will never forget thy teaching nor thy behest.”

Calchas looked inquiringly in the face of Hirpinus. The gladiator’s rugged

features bore a wistful expression of sorrow, mingled with admiration,

sympathy, and a dawning light of hope.

“Bring him into the fold with you,” he murmured to the other three, and

then his voice came loud and strong in full triumphant tones. “It may be

that this man of blood, also, shall be one of the jewels in my crown.

Glory to Him who has accepted my humble tribute, who rewards a few brief

hours of imperfect service; a blow from a careless hand with an eternity

of happiness, an immortal crown of gold! I shall see you, friends, again.

We shall meet ere we have scarcely parted. You will not forget me in that

short interval. And you will rejoice with me in humble thankful joy that I

have been permitted to instruct you of heaven, and to show you myself the

way.”

Exhausted with the effort, he sank back ere he had scarce finished

speaking, and his listeners, looking on the calm dead face, from which the

radiant smile had not yet faded, needed to keep watch no longer, for they

knew that the martyr’s spirit was even now holding converse with the

angels in heaven.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH

FOOTNOTES

1 The dinner or _prandium_ of Rome was the first meal in the day.

2 A technical term for a school of gladiators trained by the same

master.

3 “_Sicarii_,” or homicides—bands of assassins, regularly organised in

Judæa, who made a trade of murder.

4 “You may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will;

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”

5 According to Pliny, the distinguishing sign of newly‐arrived slaves.

6 About twelve pounds sterling.

7 The _sestercius_ was at this period about 1¾d., or rather more. The

_sestercium_, or thousand sesterces, about £7, 16s.

8 This inhuman practice was actually in vogue.

9 The form by which a gladiator, who had repeatedly distinguished

himself, received his dismissal and immunity from the arena for

life.

10 The well‐known “Morituri te salutant!”

11 About forty pounds sterling.

12 “Christiani ad leones! virgines ad lenones!”—a sentence that found

no small favour with the Roman crowd.

13 The _clepsydra_, or water‐clock—a Greek invention for the division

of time—consisting of a hollow globe made of glass, or some

transparent substance, from which the water trickled out through a

narrow orifice, in quantities so regulated, that the sinking level

of the element marked with sufficient exactitude the time that had

elapsed since the vessel was filled.

14 This game is played to‐day with equal zest, under its Italian name

of “Morro.” Perhaps its nature was best rendered by the Latin phrase

_micare digitos_, “to flash the fingers.”

15 Domitian.

16 Hippicus, Phasaelus, and lovely Mariamne, for whom, in the dead of

night, the great king used to call out in his agony of remorse when

she was no more.

17 Josephus, _Wars of the Jews_, book v. sec. 5.

18 The first call of the Roman trumpets in camp, about two hours before

dawn, was distinguished by that name.

19 Now when he had said this he looked round about him, upon his

family, with eyes of commiseration and of rage (that family

consisted of a wife and children, and his aged parents), so in the

first place he caught his father by his grey hairs, and ran his

sword through him, and after him he did the same to his mother, who

willingly received it; and after them he did the like to his wife

and children, every one almost offering themselves to his sword, as

desirous to prevent being slain by their enemies; so when he had

gone over all his family he stood upon their bodies, to be seen by

all, and stretching out his right hand, that his action might be

observed by all, he sheathed his entire sword into his own bowels.

This young man was to be pitied, on account of the strength of his

body, and the courage of his soul.—Josephus, _Wars of the Jews_,

book ii. sec. 18.

20 Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to

chew everything, while they gathered such things as the most sordid

animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at

length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which

belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps

of old hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibres, and

sold a very small weight of them for four Attic (drachmæ).—Josephus,

_Wars of the Jews_, book vi. sec. 3.

21 This frightful supper is said to have been eaten in the dwelling of

one Mary of Bethezub, which signifies the House of Hyssop.—Josephus,

_Wars of the Jews_, book vi. sec. 3.

22 For a description of these portentous appearances, both previous to

and during the siege of Jerusalem, see Josephus, _Wars of the Jews_,

book vi. sec. 5, as related by the historian with perfect good

faith, and no slight reproaches to the incredulity of his obdurate

countrymen—that generation of whom the greatest authority has said,

“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.”

23 The exclamation with which the spectators notified a conclusive

thrust or blow in the circus.

24 In bringing forward their heavy battering‐rams, or otherwise

advancing to the attack of a fortified place, the Roman soldiers

were instructed to raise their shields obliquely above their heads,

and, linking them together, thus form an impervious roof of steel,

under which they could manœuvre with sufficient freedom. This

formation was called the _testudo_, or tortoise, from its supposed

resemblance to the defensive covering with which nature provides

that animal.

25 “Utrinque parati.”

26 Then did Cæsar, both by calling to the soldiers that were fighting,

with a loud voice, and by giving a signal to them with his right

hand, order them to quench the fire; but they did not hear what he

said, though he spake so loud, having their ears already dinned by a

greater noise another way; nor did they attend to the signal he made

with his hand neither, as still some of them were distracted with

passion, and others with fighting, neither any threatenings nor any

persuasions could restrain their violence, but each one’s own

passion was his commander at this time; and as they were crowding

into the Temple together many of them were trampled on by one

another, while a great number fell among the ruins of the cloisters,

which were still hot and smoking, and were destroyed in the same

miserable way with those whom they had conquered.—Josephus, _Wars of

the Jews_, book vi. sec. 4.

27 The ground occupied by the Roman lines during the siege.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Variations in hyphenation have not been changed.

Other changes, which have been made to the text:

page 9, exclamation mark added after “Jugurtha”

page 98, quote mark removed after “plans.”

page 114, quote mark removed before “after”

page 137, “wel” changed to “well”

page 164, “Brition” changed to “Briton”

page 259, “inbibed” changed to “imbibed”

page 335, “Where s” changed to “Where is”

page 433, “Jeruslaem” changed to “Jerusalem”