THE DYING CITY
The gaunt specter of famine was stalking through Jerusalem.
On the very first day of the siege the price of food had mounted so
high that a bushel of wheat could not be had for less than a talent
of gold,[28] but as soon as the Roman wall had cut off the Jews from
all external supplies ten times ten talents could not purchase even a
handful of grain.
Then from ten thousand homes there rose up the cry for bread; but the
heaven above was as brass; the God that had shed down manna upon their
forefathers remained cold to all the wild wailings in the synagogues.
He who had laid up food for himself was not certain of benefiting by
his forethought, for the Zealots broke into whatsoever house they
pleased, and upon those suspected of concealing food they inflicted
torments so horrible as to seem rather the invention of fiends than of
men.
Among those hitherto preserved from the visits of the Zealots, though
living in daily dread of such visits, were Vashti and her mother.
The two dwelt all alone, since Miriam, in expectation of famine, had
dismissed her handmaids at the beginning of the siege.
Vashti had never known a more unhappy time than the present, and
she had begun to doubt whether it would not have been wiser to have
followed the counsel of the holy Simeon by escaping while it was
possible from the doomed city.
It was not the gnawing pangs of hunger that distressed her so much as
the knowledge that she had altogether lost her mother’s love. Miriam
treated her with an unkindliness that seemed to increase with each
succeeding day. She was forever reproaching Vashti as being a Christian
and a lover of the Romans.
“But I love you, too, dear mother, more than all the Christians, or
would I have remained here with you, when I might have retired safely
to Pella?”
Her mother took no notice of this pertinent argument, but began to
inveigh against Crispus, whose conspicuous valor during the siege had
inspired the Jews with a hatred almost equal to that felt for Titus
himself.
“Why did you nurse him back to life? He is a serpent repaying our
kindness by doing all the hurt he can to the holy city.”
Not wishing to vex her mother, Vashti refrained from argument, and went
with aching heart to survey their fast diminishing store of provisions.
The slender stock of meal, figs, and dried grapes would last but a few
days more, and then----?
The two women contented themselves with a few mouthfuls a day in order
that little Arad might have sufficient for his wants. He was now
between five and six years of age, and was idolized at least by his
sister, if not by his mother. The child could not help observing how
little they ate.
“It is all through the Romans,” answered his mother fiercely, adding,
“say, ‘God curse the Romans!’”
The little fellow repeated the words.
“Now you say it, Vashti,” said he.
But Vashti, believing that the Romans were God’s ministers, tearfully
shook her head, and this produced a fresh outburst of wrath on the
part of Miriam, who seemed to take an unholy pleasure in setting the
child against Vashti, saying so many bitter things that Vashti withdrew
weeping.
At last came the time of starvation.
For two days the women fasted, giving to Arad what remained of their
store; and, as Miriam watched him eating, there was in her eyes a look
that Vashti did not like to see, a look as if she were begrudging the
child its food.
On the third day he, too, had to fast.
His pitiful questionings and sobbings gave additional pangs to Vashti’s
own anguish. But where was she to look for relief? To solicit food from
her friends and neighbors would but provoke them to mocking laughter,
if indeed the power to laugh remained in them. If they had food, would
they part with it, when such act would be but to hasten their own end?
What was Arad to them? they would say. Had they not dying children of
their own? Why prolong Arad’s sufferings? The quicker death came to him
the better. Such were the answers Vashti would receive, as she very
well knew.
As for Miriam, she had grown neglectful of the boy; faint and
dizzy, she restlessly tottered with feeble step from room to room,
looking into every corner, probing behind every piece of furniture,
emptying every chest of its contents, in the hope of lighting upon
something--anything--that could satisfy for a time the gnawing pangs of
hunger. But vain was her search.
The two women passed the third night foodless. Arad cried himself to
sleep. Vashti spent the dark hours in a state between slumbering and
waking; when she dreamed, it was of delicious banquets, from which with
a sudden start she would wake to the dreadful realities of her position.
And now dawned the fourth day of her fast, and Arad, waking again, set
up his piteous cry for food, a cry that went to the heart of Vashti.
Must she sit idly by, and watch the child die?
A sudden thought set all her nerves thrilling with joy. Looking around
and finding her mother absent, she knelt beside his pallet, and
whispered to him, “Don’t cry, Arad. Lie still, and be good, and I’ll
bring you something to eat.”
Pacified somewhat by this announcement the little fellow became quiet.
On passing into the next chamber Vashti saw her mother crouching in a
corner upon the floor, her head bowed down upon her knees. She seemed,
as if having once sat down, to lack all power to rise again. As Vashti
drew near, Miriam feebly raised her head, and stared in moody and
dull despair at her daughter. She made no inquiries as to Arad; not a
word passed her lips; she had reached the stage when speaking becomes
painful and irritating, the stage when all interest in outward things
ceases, the stage where one sits on the ground silently brooding,
waiting for the slow approach of death.
Vashti’s youthful frame contained more life and energy than her
mother’s, but soon she, too, unable to drag her limbs along, must sit,
brooding, silent, dying.
Vashti said nothing to her mother. What could she say? Cheering words
would be but a mockery.
She climbed the stairway, and passed out upon the roof.
A few weeks previously Arad had taken there a large cake of bread with
a view of amusing himself by tossing crumbs up into the air in order to
attract the attention of pigeons and sparrows. For some reason or other
he had not carried out his purpose, and the bread instead of being
carried down again was placed by him within a hollow under a tile to
be reserved for the sport of some other day. That day had never come,
however; and there it had lain forgotten by Vashti till this moment.
Was it still there? she wondered. Yes, there it was, large enough to
serve little Arad for one meal. A great temptation came upon Vashti
to fix her teeth into it there and then, and gnaw away till nothing
remained; but the thought of Arad controlled this selfish prompting.
The bread was as hard as iron, but a little soaking in water would soon
render it soft and palatable.
Concealing the precious fragment within her bosom, Vashti descended the
stairway, passing by her mother again, who looked at her with the same
listless, mechanical stare as before. Under that dreadful look Vashti
felt like a traitress. A struggle began in her breast. Was it right to
conceal this discovery from her mother? Was she not entitled to a share
of the crust? Yes, if she would be content with a share, but supposing
in her fierce hunger she should seize upon the whole? _There_ was
Vashti’s fear. Affection bade her choose between her mother and Arad,
and the latter prevailed. It went to her heart to leave her mother
dying there, but it would go to her heart still more to see little Arad
robbed of his last morsel by the mother who bore him.
As Vashti entered the chamber the little fellow turned his eyes eagerly
upon her.
She stole to his pallet.
“See! here is a large cake of bread; but it is hard, and must be
softened before you can eat it.” And then, dreading lest her mother’s
ears should be caught by these doings, she added in a whisper, “Hush!
do not talk, darling. Lie still, and you shall have it soon.”
Having rendered the bread eatable by moistening it with water,
tormented the while by a fearful longing to devour it herself, she
handed the whole to Arad.
There were many fathers among the besieging Romans outside, men of
humane disposition, despite their warlike calling. Could they have
witnessed the joy with which the little fellow swallowed the not very
palatable morsels, they would surely have loaded their balistæ, not
with stones, but with loaves, and have rained them upon the roof of
Miriam’s dwelling.
“Eat slowly,” said Vashti, “or ’twill do you hurt.”
She had scarcely said this when a scream broke from her. Between her
and Arad there had suddenly dropped a skinny hand, a hand that clutched
greedily at the bread, a hand belonging to the figure whom Vashti had
thought to be still crouching upon the floor of the next apartment.
Arad, instinctively divining that he was about to be robbed of his
meal, crammed one end of the crust into his mouth.
“Give it to me,” shrieked Miriam, tugging at the other end with such
force as to drag the child from off his pallet.
Arad hung with his teeth upon the crust; it suddenly parted, and
Miriam, securing her own piece, swallowed it with a wolfish gusto
dreadful to witness, while Vashti looked on in fear and trembling.
“Oh, mother! mother!” she gasped. “How could you do it?”
Arad, frightened almost to death by his mother’s deed and look, clung
to his sister, who strove to soothe his grief.
“It is as I have suspected,” said Miriam. “You are hiding food from me
to satisfy yourself and Arad, while I, your mother, may starve.”
“Not so, mother.”
“Will you deny what mine eyes have seen? Show me the way to your secret
store.”
“I have no secret store.”
“Whence, then, did you obtain this bread?”
Vashti explained, but all to no purpose. Miriam persisted in declaring
that Vashti had secreted provisions somewhere in the house, and
announced her intention of watching henceforth all her daughter’s
movements.
Vashti, weak before, was now almost ready to collapse under the shock
of this rude encounter, but for Arad’s sake she bravely bore up.
Her indignation against her mother passed away after a time, giving
place to pity; in taking Arad’s food Miriam had been doing only what
she herself had been terribly tempted to do. Though tormented within
by a gnawing pain that grew greater with each hour, Vashti, hiding it
all under a cheerful mien, sought to make Arad forget his sorrows;
she brought out his toys (for children had toys in those days as in
these) and played with him; she procured parchment, ink and pens, and
drew letters and objects and little pictures for his diversion; she
told him simple stories and sang some of the psalms known to him that
he might chime in with his little voice. Those psalms recalled the
happy twilight hours spent with Crispus, and she sang with a quaver
in her voice and tears welling from her eyes, till at last she broke
down entirely and sobbed aloud. Seeing his sister cry, Arad naturally
cried, too; and, the pangs of hunger asserting themselves, he began his
piteous wail for something to eat.
“Give us of your store,” said Miriam.
“Mother, I have no store.”
“Then, find us food,” returned Miriam, raising her voice to a shriek.
“You see me and the child starving, and yet you sit idly by doing
nothing to prevent it. Are we to die? I am too weak to stir abroad,
but you have strength left. There must be food somewhere in the
city. Go and find it. Take money, your jewels, your golden zone.
Buy--beg--steal, if need be, but bring us food.”
In Vashti’s opinion Miriam’s words were mere raving. Of what use was
it to wander through the city offering to buy food from a starving
populace? He who had bread, would he not keep it?
Suddenly she bethought herself of one with whom she had always been a
favorite, the benevolent Johanan ben Zacchai, whose two daughters had
been her lifelong friends.
She would go to their home in Ophel, and, if they should be the happy
possessors of food, beg a little of it for the sake of Arad. Kissing
him passionately she laid him down, and went forth on this dubious
errand.
* * * * *
The setting sun was tingeing with a golden glow the higher parts of the
city as Vashti unbarred the gate of her dwelling, a gate that had not
opened for many weeks.
The first thing that impressed her was the strange stillness that
prevailed around, “_a deep silence and a kind of deadly night_,” to use
the language of the contemporary historian. The street was empty; every
house, like her own, was shut and barred.
Significant fact! What silent tragedies, what scenes of anguish, were
taking place behind those closed doors and latticed windows?
As she stepped out into the street her eye was caught by a startling
object. Hanging by a rope from a hook fixed into an adjacent wall was
a shriveled and mummified corpse, that of a man, who, doubtless unable
longer to endure the agonies of slow starvation, had chosen to hasten
his end by suicide. The thought that before her journey’s end she was
likely to see other sights like this, or even more ghastly, almost
drove her within the house again, but her mother’s wrath and Arad’s
hunger spurred her on, and she walked away as quickly as her weakness
would let her.
A few paces, and she saw lying within the entrance of a narrow archway
the body of a woman but recently dead, a woman with a frame emaciated
by famine, the skin tightly drawn over her bones, the veins on her
shriveled neck showing like sinews. Pillowed upon her arm lay an infant
whose hand convulsively grasped his mother’s withered breast, twisting
it with his fingers, and uttering feeble little cries of anger at
finding himself deprived of sustenance. Pity for the mother, a greater
pity for the babe, put Vashti in a state of hesitation. To leave the
infant dying there was an unnatural act; on the other hand, where was
the good in taking it to her own home? Neither she nor her mother had
the means of preserving its life. It might as well die under the open
sky as under a roof; and so, steeling her heart, Vashti went slowly on.
But she got no further than the end of the street; beginning to feel
like a murderess, she turned back, only to find the infant breathing
its last.
Leaving mother and babe Vashti went on her way, seeing with a pitying
heart other sights equally grim. The Apocalypse, but recently written,
had not yet come to her knowledge, or she might have recalled the
passage, “_Their dead bodies shall lie in the streets of the great
city._”
She entered a silent square, seemingly empty, but a second
glance around showed her on its southern side a group of human
figures--perhaps twenty in all--men, women, and children, clustered in
various attitudes upon the steps of the Royal Synagogue. They took no
notice of her approach, though her footsteps sounded unnaturally loud
in the strange stillness.
Vashti stopped short, absolutely appalled at their aspect. Though
terribly wasted herself, Vashti was plump compared with these figures.
With limbs attenuated to those of a skeleton; with eyes deep sunken in
their orbit; with cheek-bones projecting hideously; with complexions
darkened by famine, they looked like weird beings from another world.
More dreadful than all was the look of unspeakable anguish stamped upon
their features; it was the look of men who would never smile more in
this world. They had come to this spot because from it their beloved
temple could be seen; and they would fain die with their glazing eyes
fixed to the last upon the lofty golden pinnacles of the white marble
shrine that stood out in all its loveliness against the calm blue sky
of evening.
Dead and dying they lay, stretched athwart the steps. “Those who were
just going to die looked upon those that were gone to their rest
before them with dry eyes and open mouths.”[29]
Suddenly a sound became audible; distant at first, it grew painfully
loud, and at last, with a rattle and a clang, a dozen armed Zealots,
belonging to John’s party, came marching into the square, their
well-preserved physique affording a striking contrast to the ghastly
group on the synagogue steps. Famine had not yet laid its finger upon
_them_.
Seemingly in the best of spirits they talked and laughed in rude
fashion, indifferent to the suffering that met them at every point.
As a matter of fact, they had come out purposely to add to the city’s
sufferings. Four of their number carried a small battering-ram,
intended to force open the doors of such obstinate citizens as were
bent on keeping their own provisions.
Vashti noticed that these Zealots were taking the way that led past the
synagogue. Not wishing to attract their attention, she crept to the
side of the building, and hid herself behind a buttress, contriving the
while, however, to keep watch upon the approaching group.
As they drew nearer she saw to her surprise that the more youthful of
them were _dressed as women_ in all the bravery of finely dyed garments
and golden anklets that tinkled as they walked; their long, flowing
hair was decked with the _suffa_, a gauzy network, that, attached to
the headdress, hung down over the shoulders as far as the waist; red
coloring glowed on their cheeks, while their eyes, to make them appear
larger and more lustrous, were painted round with _kohl_, and their
eyebrows arched and darkened with the same preparation.
Their appearance thrilled Vashti with a mysterious and nameless horror;
she wondered what this feminine garb should mean, not knowing in her
innocence that the temple had become, under John of Giscala, the seat
of infamies that caused the seer of Patmos to brand the once holy city
with a fearful name.
The Zealots in passing glanced at the silent throng, whose dying
anguish provoked only their savage mirth.
“More victims for the dead-cart,” laughed one. “Aha!” he continued,
stopping in his walk, and pointing to a ghastly stiffened figure lying
supine upon the stairs, “whom have we here? Asenath the harlot, as I
live. One can scarce recognize in her the one-time favorite of old
Ananias. How she stares! Is she living or dead?”
“Dead!” replied another Zealot.
“I’ll wager ten shekels she’s living,” cried he who had spoken first.
“And I’ll wager the same that she’s dead,” answered the second.
“Good! you hear,” said the first, addressing the rest as desiring them
to be witnesses of the wager.
The Zealots had a way of their own--and for sport often practiced
it--of ascertaining whether a body were dead.
Drawing his blade the first ruffian pulled aside the woman’s robe and
pierced her breast with the point of the weapon, an act followed by a
faint moan, and a slight writhing of the figure.
“Thou hast lost thy bet, Malchus,” laughed the first ruffian. “She’s
living.”
“She’s dead now, at any rate,” answered the second; and, furious at
losing the wager, he drew his sword and stabbed the woman to the heart.
At this a dying man beside her spoke in hollow tones.
“In the name of God be merciful, and do the like by me. Thrust me
through that my anguish may have an end.”
“Thou wishest to die? Then thou shalt live,” replied Malchus; and,
sheathing his blade, he moved off with the rest of the Zealots, who
laughed as though the affair were a merry jest.
When silence had descended upon the square again Vashti crept fearfully
forth, and, after hesitating whether or not to return home, she resumed
her slow and trembling way to Ophel, and arrived without further
adventure at the house of Johanan ben Zacchai. It was a humble dwelling
situated in a street that, like all others in the city, was as quiet as
the tomb.
Vashti found the gate, as she expected, barred.
Before knocking she listened, and detected coming from within a sound
that caused her heart to leap with hope, for it was a sound like that
produced when corn is ground between two millstones.
Even in her dazed and frightened state of mind Vashti could not but
think it imprudent to be grinding corn within hearing of the street, a
street that might be traversed at any moment by ruffianly, food-seeking
Zealots.
The household of Johanan were evidently not without grain; surely they
would spare her just a little from their store?
She knocked at the gate, and the sound of the grinding, if such it
were, instantly ceased.
“They think I am a Zealot,” she said with a wild little laugh.
She knocked a second and a third time, but received no reply; she
called out her name so loudly that those within must have heard who the
visitor was, but they made no response. A dead silence prevailed within.
Vashti withdrew to the middle of the street, and turned her despairing
eyes towards the lattice over the gateway. No friendly face looked down
at her; no face at all.
She turned sorrowfully away, but came again presently, and this she
continued to do at intervals, beating piteously upon the gate, but all
to no purpose.
Then did hope die within her. If Johanan ben Zacchai would not listen
to the voice of a suppliant, there was none other in the city that
would.
Nothing remained for her but to return home; but how could she,
empty-handed, face the despairing gaze of her dying mother, the
fearful, famishing eyes of little Arad, who quite expected to see his
sister come back laden with food.
Loth to return home she wandered slowly and aimlessly through the
streets and squares of the star-lit city.
In the Xystus that faced the half-burned palace of Agrippa she came
upon a group of men, all bearing the signet-mark of famine--the
skeleton limbs, the dark complexion, the sunken eyes of unnatural
luster with the scared look in them.
Leaning upon staves they were listening to one of those self-deluded
fanatics, so numerous at that time in Jerusalem--fanatics whose dream
no reverses could destroy, the dream namely of a coming universal
empire for the Jews; the darker and the more hopeless the situation
seemed, the more fervent and enthusiastic became the faith of these
false prophets, who did not relinquish their hopes till they saw the
temple sink into everlasting night, and the plow drawn over the soil
where once the palace of Zion had stood.
Vashti paused for a moment to listen to his wild harangue.
“Think you that Jehovah will let the place in which He has chosen to
put His name fall into the hands of the uncircumcized heathen? Men,
brethren, there is no contradiction in the Divine nature, and therefore
He who decreed that the temple should be built can never decree that
it shall be destroyed. Take heart and rejoice! The time foretold by
the prophets is at hand: the heavens shall open, and the Messiah shall
descend therefrom--yea! it is but a matter of a few hours now--to
avenge His people. His feet shall stand upon Olivet, and with the
breath of His mouth will He slay the host of Titus even as He slew the
host of Sennacherib.”
And so speciously did he argue by texts drawn from the prophetical
scriptures that his famishing auditors, with scarcely strength to
stand, became as hopeful as the orator himself; they forgot their
present sufferings; their faces brightened, and they turned their
glance upward to the comet gleaming red in the sky, half-expecting to
see it launch forth fiery death at the girdling hostile line that,
“hushed in grim repose,” was patiently waiting the slow but certain
doom of the city.
With a sigh Vashti passed on, and coming to a street corner beheld the
emaciated figure of a man kneeling, in his hand a drawn bow with an
arrow fitted thereto. Never had she seen eyes so fiercely wild, or an
expression so painfully eager and expectant. Following the direction
of his glance she saw that he was aiming at a pigeon which had just
alighted upon the ground only a few yards distant. “Food, food! Life,
life!” was the thought that frenzied his brain.
But Vashti could see what he could not, namely, that much nearer to the
bird, and crouching down within a gateway was the skeleton figure of
a woman, whose manner showed that she was waiting to snatch the prize
from the archer. And so it proved. As the shaft flew true to the mark
the woman tottered feebly from her hiding-place; her eyes sparkled with
wild glee; she gave a demoniacal chuckle as she pounced upon the slain
pigeon, and ghoul-like tore greedily at the raw flesh with her teeth.
At that sight there broke from the man a cry of surprise and despair,
of agony and rage, a cry horrible yet pitiable to hear. “Thief! bitch!
accursed!” he screamed. “Give me what is mine. Ah! she would devour it
all! In the name of God give me a mouthful, a morsel, that I may live,
and not die.”
As the speaker lurched forward in the endeavor to get at the thief his
legs gave way beneath him, and he fell heavily to the ground; feebly
struggling to his feet he staggered on again with intent to wreak
vengeance upon the spoiler.
Outraged nature did the work for him.
The eater gorging herself to the full, and being long unused to the
taking of so great an amount of sustenance, became suddenly convulsed,
dropped to the ground in horrible contortions, and there and then died,
her end being greeted with mocking laughter by the weakling pursuer,
who, seemingly undeterred by her fate, knelt down, and plucking the
remnant of the bird from the dead woman’s teeth began to gnaw it with
his own.
Vashti, shuddering, turned away, and retracing her steps to Ophel,
sought once more the house of Johanan ben Zacchai. But she stopped
aghast ere reaching it.
Its gate was wide open now, hanging wrecked upon its hinges, with the
battering-ram that had done the work lying within the entrance.
From the house came the cries as of an old man in pain.
“Give his limb another twist,” cried a voice that she recognized as
that of Malchus the Zealot. “We’ll soon make the old graybeard tell
where he has concealed his corn.”
At the same moment there broke forth from an upper chamber the
thrilling screams of Johanan’s two daughters, painly calling upon their
aged father to deliver them from the hands of the lewd and laughing
Zealots; for John’s followers made it their boast that if there were a
virgin in any house they entered there would be none there when they
left.
With the blood about her heart congealing to ice Vashti fled, lest a
like fate should befall her; fled, not knowing whither she went, not
caring; fled, till she suddenly found herself facing a great black mass
that rose up into the starry night. It was the wall of Zion, the huge
rampart of masonry that lay between the Romans and victory, that lay,
alas! betwixt herself and Crispus. She was near the Valley Gate, whose
approaches as she saw were guarded by a small party of Zealots, while
on the battlements above them slow-pacing sentinels kept their watch.
Hastily Vashti retreated within the shadows ere she should be seen.
By the gate stood Simon the Black. An unpleasant odor, so palpable that
one could almost taste it, hung in the air; and this was doubtless his
reason for holding in his hand a perfume box whose fragrance he inhaled
from time to time.
At intervals there came from beyond the city walls weird, plaintive
cries, mysterious voices as of human creatures in pain; the sounds,
borne on the wings of the night, seemed to come like arrows to the
heart of Vashti, thrilling her with an unknown fear. The strange odor
and the eerie sounds--what did they mean? The apparent unconcern of the
men about the gate showed that to them at least these were familiar
things.
Conversing apart with Simon was a somewhat sad-eyed man, by name
Manneus, the scribe appointed to take note of all the dead carried
forth through the Valley Gate; for be it known that the bodies of the
dead as being like to create a plague if allowed to remain in the city
were collected at night by paid agents of the Sanhedrim, thrown upon
carts, and carried out to be promiscuously flung, without funeral rites
and without burial, into the ravines that surrounded Jerusalem; all
which matters were as yet unknown to Vashti.
“How many, think you, up to yester even have been borne forth from this
gate?” asked Manneus of Simon.
“Twenty thousand, perhaps,” replied the Zealot, hazarding a guess.
“_One hundred and fifteen thousand, eight hundred and eighty_,”[30]
returned Manneus, consulting his tablets.
Even Simon, little prone to emotion, was staggered by these figures.
“Fire of Gehenna!” he muttered. “And this is but one gate! How many
from each of the other gates? Our Jewish brethren from foreign lands
whose wish it is to be buried at Jerusalem seem to be having their
wish,” he added grimly. “But, ah! whom have we here?”
This last question was caused by the action of Vashti, who, moved by
some uncontrollable impulse, came tremblingly forward, and addressed to
him a pitiful plaint for bread.
“Bread?” repeated the Zealot. “Why comest thou to me?”
“Because you are as a king in this city.”
“Captain,” said one of the Zealots, recognizing Vashti, “this damsel is
of the Nazarenes, who were forever preaching the doom of the city. She
is, moreover, the ward of Josephus, that traitor, who is high in the
councils of the enemy.”
“A Nazarene, true. Yet,” answered Vashti, eager to seize upon any
argument that might influence the Zealot chief in her favor, “yet did
I not quit the city, when the Nazarenes left it, but have remained
behind to share the fate of my fellow-citizens. In the name of God,”
she continued, addressing Simon, “give me bread. I ask not for myself,
but for a dying child. Give me but one loaf, and on the resurrection
morning, when all deeds will be brought to light, this shall be counted
to you for righteousness.”
“You shall have a loaf,” said Simon, moved strangely by her words, “you
shall have a basket ... a basket filled with bread.” The bewildered
Vashti could scarcely trust her hearing. “But ere you return home you
must eat a morsel yourself, or you will faint by the way. Come with me.”
Vashti, loth to go with him, yet not daring to refuse, accompanied
Simon to the tower adjacent to the Valley Gate. Entering the first room
that he came to, the Zealot chief peremptorily ordered out of it three
or four of his followers who were sitting there occupied with dice and
wine.
“Here,” said he, addressing Vashti, when the men had withdrawn, “here
are six dried grapes, a fig, and a morsel of bread. No more at present.
Put a curb upon your appetite, if you would live.”
To Vashti’s mind there was something selfish in eating while thousands
of her fellow-citizens were dying of want--doubly selfish, when she
reflected that this food had perhaps been wrung by violence from the
famishing people. Natural appetite, however, prevailed over sentiment;
and with a strange feeling towards Simon, a feeling compounded of
gratitude and repulsion, Vashti began the slow eating of what was to
her a repast more delicious than that in the banquet-hall of Florus,
though her enjoyment was somewhat marred by the unpleasant odor that
seemed to cling around everything in this vicinity. That she did not
know its cause seemed to surprise Simon. Perceiving that her ignorance
was real and not feigned, he rose, and said, “Come with me, if you
would learn.”
Vashti began to regret her curiosity, being all-anxious now to return
home with the promised loaves. Not wishing, however, to offend the
Zealot she followed him up a stone staircase, and through a doorway
that opened upon the ramparts.
Simon, first handing her his perfume box, bade her look down over the
battlements.
And Vashti looked.
It was a moonless night, but the sky was jeweled with stars whose
faint light was just sufficient to give her a glimmering of what lay
below. It was the light required for such a scene: the full blaze of
the noonday sun would have made it a horror too great to be endured by
human nerves.
“_They shall look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed
against me!_”
Vashti, peering down, could dimly see that the deep and shadowy
ravine of Hinnom--that ravine already regarded in Hebrew theology as
the type of hell--was filled with the remains of the dead, who were to
be counted not by hundreds, but by tens of thousands. The bodies lay,
piled promiscuously, some clothed, some naked, in every possible stage
of decay, from that of the newly dead to that of the whitened skeleton
glimmering ghastly through the gloom.
The air that hung above and around the ravine was tainted with an
effluvium so gross as to be all but palpable to the touch, and so
loathsome that but for the perfume box Vashti would have sunk to the
ground overpowered.
More dreadful still, from every part of the gloom came significant and
horrid rustlings, intermingled with sounds like to the tearing of flesh
by some sharp instrument.
“Mark!” said Simon.
He flung over a stone; at its sudden and startling descent a black
cloud of ravens and vultures, gorged with human flesh, rose on the
wing, high above the battlements, their slow-sailing shadows darkening
the face of the sky.
Vashti, as they passed, drew back with a shudder, and as she did so,
her eyes fell upon a sight still more startling and awful. _Now_ she
knew the origin of the weird and midnight cries!
There, beyond the ravine, under the cold light of the pitiless stars,
were rows upon rows of crosses; and to every cross was nailed a naked
human form!
The number of these crosses was past all counting; they circled the
whole city, extending as far back as the Roman wall, whose castellated
outline was dimly visible from the battlements. How many of the
crucified victims were dead; how many were bearing their sufferings
in heroic silence; how many had reached the sullen stupor that is the
immediate precursor of death, it was impossible to tell. Vashti might
have thought all dead, but that every now and then some poor wretch,
now in this quarter and now in that, lifting his hitherto bowed head
would shiver convulsively, and would break the stillness of the night
by a long-drawn mournful cry of pain, a cry that might have caused the
coldest, sternest nature to weep, but seemed to have no effect upon
Simon.
“In God’s name, who are these?” gasped Vashti.
“Jewish deserters. It is thus that Titus receives those that come to
him from the city, nor do I pity them. Let them die; they deserve their
doom. Mark,” he continued, “mark the ill-fortune that has attended all
who have deserted the holy cause! In the early days of the siege Titus
was wont to receive such renegades with favor, a favor, however, that
proved the doom of many, who, eating too freely of the food given to
them, burst, and so died.” He paused, with a vindictive smile, and then
resumed. “They were succeeded by other deserters, who, ere leaving the
city, swallowed gold pieces and precious stones, thinking to recover
them after they had passed the Roman lines. Fatal avarice! The secret
became known to the Syrian and Arabian allies deputed to take charge of
these deserters; they slew them and cut open their bodies to get at the
treasures. In this way were two thousand of them killed in one night.”
Again he smiled vindictively. “At last Titus, growing stern, as he saw
the little progress made by his arms, sent to our walls a herald to
proclaim that he would receive no more deserters; let the whole body
of the people come forth, or none. Regardless of this decree, fresh
parties made their way to the Roman camp, to be sent back to the city,
a shrieking train of victims, with their hands lopped off.” Again that
vindictive smile. “And now,” added Simon, pointing to the ghastly scene
before them, “now he hath taken to this way of dealing with them. _They
are crucified to the number of five hundred a day!_”
The vengeance of history!
These were the men, and the sons of the men, who forty years earlier
had cried “Crucify Him! crucify Him!” And now they themselves were
crucified--some on the very site of Golgotha itself!--in such numbers
that, in the language of Josephus, “room was wanting for the crosses,
and crosses wanting for the bodies.” And the victims, if they but chose
to look, could see overhead in the sky the red gleam of the heavenly
sword. Stay! was it the figure of a sword, or was it not rather _the
likeness of a cross_, intended to remind them of the greatest and most
awful tragedy in the world’s history?
Vashti’s head swam with horror; a mist obscured her vision; air and
landscape seemed slowly turning to one universal blood-red hue. Her
wild wail went forth upon the night air:
“O God, have mercy upon this hapless city!”
It was past the sixth hour of the night when Vashti, with her basket of
bread upon her arm, reached home.
Closing and barring the gate behind her, she went along the short
passage, and crossed the little court.
Entering a chamber upon the ground floor she paused for a moment and
stood in the attitude of listening. She had so expected to hear Arad’s
plaintive cry for food that it was almost a disappointment to find
the house as silent as the tomb. Evidently Arad was sleeping, unless
indeed----! Her heart almost stood still at the dread thought that
suddenly smote her. But no! she was alarming herself without cause. A
two days’ fast, though it might very much weaken a child, would not
kill him. Arad must be sleeping.
She smiled lovingly as she pictured his delight when he should awake
and see what his sister had brought him.
If mother and son were sleeping it could not be otherwise that the
house should be without sound; yet in the prevailing stillness that
hung about the place like a tangible veil there was something so
strange and oppressive as to fill Vashti with vague fears. Her tread
on entering had sounded so hollow that she had paused, almost fearing
to take a second step. For the first time in her life she feared the
darkness.
Plucking up her courage, she moved through the gloom towards the
stairway that stood in one corner of the room. When she was half-way
across the floor her foot touched some object; moved by curiosity she
stooped, and picking the thing up found it to be--_a long knife_!
Now when Vashti had last gone through this room there was no knife
lying upon the floor; her sandal had become loose upon this very spot;
she had knelt to tie the string, and the knife, had it been lying there
at that time, could scarcely have failed to come within the ken of
her vision. Evidently someone must have entered this room during her
absence; doubtless Miriam.
There was nothing strange in the fact that her mother, if so minded,
should leave the upper story and descend to the court, yet Vashti
could not help wondering why Miriam should have removed the knife from
its customary place upon the shelf, since it was the one used only in
the culinary operations, this room being the kitchen of the little
household. But that existing circumstances forbade the hypothesis, the
knife might have been taken as evidence almost of the preparation of a
meal.
As if expecting the darkness to furnish some clew Vashti looked
vacantly around, and there upon the floor distant but a few feet, and
scintillating through the gloom, was a something that had the semblance
of an eye, an eye intently watching all her movements.
It stared at her a while, blinked, glittered again, then the eyelid
seemed to close, and there was darkness where the thing had been.
Vashti gave a little insane laugh of relief, perceiving that what had
frightened her was no eye at all, but a faint point of light upon the
hearth, the last spark of some dying embers. It was clear that during
her absence a fire had been kindled in this room, and by whom, if not
by her mother? and this fact when taken with the knife would seem to
point to the preparation of food. If so, by what means had Miriam
become so fortunate? After what Vashti had seen that night it was
scarcely credible that, Zealots excepted, there could be anyone in this
famishing city so well provided as to be capable of giving relief to
others. Such being the case, then, what was the meaning to be put upon
the fire and the knife?
Instead of hastening at once to her mother’s room Vashti lingered in
this chamber, impressed somehow by the belief that here was to be found
the key to the mystery. Though entirely ignorant as to its nature, she
nevertheless felt certain that she was on the verge of some startling
discovery, and she trembled all over.
Slowly she drew near the hearth; over it the air still hung warm. Her
feet pressed upon some light yielding material like cloth. Cloth it
was, a little woollen garment belonging to Arad; nay more, certain
fringes upon it told her that it was the little caftan he had been
wearing when she last parted from him. What strange whim had induced
her mother to deprive the child of his one and only garment? Had it
been exchanged for another? If so, it was not easy to see the reason,
or why the old one should have been brought down, and left lying by the
hearth.
Wondering whether there were anything else here belonging to Arad she
put forth her hands, and grasped a little girdle and two sandals.
A moment she stood in bewilderment: then, as the ghastly truth came
rushing upon her mind, there broke from her a cry so awful as to seem
scarcely human; the fear of the thing caused her hair to bristle, and
the cold drops to start from every pore.
All the appalling tragedies she had seen that night--what were they
compared with this?
She turned and ran up the staircase, her frenzy of grief giving her a
strength so great that armed men could scarcely have had the power to
stay her.
With a quick tread she entered the upper chamber. It was dark, yet
not quite dark: the light of the stars seen through the open lattice
sufficed to make the nearer objects faintly visible. Miriam lay in the
middle of the apartment asleep upon her pallet. It was not to her that
Vashti first turned. Though knowing well that she would not find him
there, she nevertheless ran at once to Arad’s pallet.
It was empty!
She flew to her mother’s side, knelt, and peered shudderingly into
the somnolent face, a face that wore at this moment the dull heavy
air as of one whose animal wants are satisfied. Her mother actually
_sleeping_, as if this were merely some ordinary night! sleeping, after
such a deed as hers! Sleeping--she who ought never to sleep again!
There was little of the daughter left in Vashti as she fiercely shook
the slumbering woman by the shoulder.
And the soul of the unhappy Miriam starting from blissful dreams to
the dread reality of earthly things awoke to hear sounding through the
gloom of night a voice that, like the voice of the accusing archangel,
addressed her with the awful question:
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ARAD?”