CHAPTER XIII.

FROM RAMOTH GILEAD TO DAMASCUS

“Daughters of Eve! your mother did not well: ... The man was not deceived, nor yet could stand: He chose to lose for love of her, his throne,— With her could die, but could not live alone.”

“Daughters of Eve! it was for your dear sake The world’s first hero died an uncrowned king: But God’s great pity touched the great mistake And made his married love a sacred thing; For yet his nobler sons, if aught be true, Find the lost Eden in their love of you.”—JEAN INGELOW.

For many days Sir Charleroy lay wounded at the house of the Patriarch Harrimai, and she for whom he had periled his life was his constant attendant. He sorely needed her services, and all Gerash, the priest included, conceded the fitness of Rizpah’s rendering the aid she was able to render. The maiden was all willing to minister, and as she ministered her interest in the man deepened. When she began to look up to him as her teacher before the battle with Mamelukes, she began a sort of worship; when she saw him fighting to the death in her behalf, her worship became an engrossing adoration. If there had been any thing more required in order to enlist all the affection of which her being was capable, these opportunities of administering to her suffering lover furnished it. As God loves because He has helped a needy one, so a woman’s heart easily flows out toward the object for whom she has performed pious services. On the other hand, Sir Charleroy was more and more enchanted, for there is life and charm beyond all description to the touch of the queen of a man’s heart when he is in trouble or pain.

Rizpah, in woman’s most queenly garb, the one appointed her at her creation, that of “help-mate,” was beautiful indeed, and queenly indeed, to the man whose heart had enthroned her. When alone, they treated each other with the frank, earnest tenderness, fitting as well as natural, to the betrothed. Though they did not admit it even to themselves, they had fully determined to be one, at all peril, in spite of any opposition, reason approving or disapproving. They often said to one another, “Our betrothal taking place at the very gates of death was therefore a very solemn one that nothing on earth can annul.” The sentiment was perfect and very agreeable; and with them a beautiful and agreeable sentiment became as controlling as if it were a revelation from heaven. In this, they were perfectly human. They even persuaded themselves of God’s favor, thanking Him for what they were pleased to call His Providence, namely the peril and long sickness leading to the betrothal and days of love-life together. They were right in conceding that God’s hand was in the battle; but they were impious in interpreting His Providence to be fully in accord with their desires. In this, too, they were very human. But there were shadows about them; for while at times they drifted along on prismatic tides of Lethean delights, there were other times when they remembered that there was to come a day of explanation, with probable following storms. Both were glad and sorry at once, in view of each day’s improvement of the knight’s physical condition. Convalescent, they both realized, meant a great change in their relationship; perhaps a long separation. Their anxiety was deepened by a change in the demeanor of Rizpah’s father. His eyes no longer questioningly followed the young people; but his words, uttered in tones of steelly coldness and very deliberately, bespoke discovery, conviction, conclusion and determination. One sentence often addressed to the lovers, was to them like the rumblings of an approaching, gathering storm. “Our friend is improving, and I’m very glad that he will be able soon to go to his own dear people.” The lovers discerned a peculiar emphasis on the words “I’m glad” and “his own dear people.” The politic priest, having read, as from an open book, the heart-secret of the young people, was awaiting with self-confidence an opportunity to confound them utterly. The crisis came one Sabbath morning, just after the morning meal of the convalescent. Harrimai had paid his usual visit and uttered his steelly sentences. This time the words seemed especially cruel to Rizpah, for she was nervous, indeed ill; the prolonged services and anxieties she had experienced of late were telling on her strength. As Harrimai departed, she gave way to a flood of tears. Rizpah was not wont to weep, nor was Sir Charleroy skilled in comforting; but both he and she were lovers, hence it seemed very natural to her frankly to pillow her head on the knight’s shoulder, and very natural to him to seek to comfort with a tenderness all new to him. Had one asked Rizpah if she were going back to babyishness, or forward toward heaven, she could not have answered. Had one asked the knight if he were becoming motherly, or turning priest, he could not have answered. He felt very tender, and his work of comforting seemed like an act of high piety. Both were glad of the tears which brought the joy of comforting and being comforted, then, there and that way. They were passing into a superb mood when quite unexpectedly to them, but quite expectedly to himself, Harrimai suddenly re-entered the apartment. He expected to surprise them and he did so, thoroughly. The scene following was exciting, dramatic and decisive.

Rizpah, with a slight scream, disengaged herself from Sir Charleroy’s embrace, and hid her face in her hands. The eyes of the knight and priest met; neither quailed; both remained for a few moments silent; but their fixed gaze said plainly enough, each to each, “We must have a settlement here and now!” Harrimai spoke first, addressing himself to his daughter: “Young woman, this conduct is immodest and disgraceful! In a Hebrew maiden, heaven defying! I’ll speak to thee further of this presently. Now, begone, and leave me to deal with this man!” Harrimai made arrogant by his profession and the implicit obedience he had been wont to receive from his followers, expected to fill the young people with dismay by the suddenness of his assault. But Rizpah, though young, was no tongue-tied spring, and Sir Charleroy of Gerash was still Sir Charleroy of Acre.

The words “dishonorable,” “immodest,” stung the maiden; sullenly, defiantly almost, she settled back in her seat and leaned toward the knight, as if to say, “I cast my lot with this man.” Her eyes plainly, angrily said to the man whom all her life hitherto she had reverently obeyed, “Now do thy worst.” It was impious, passionate, love going headlong from filial duty and religious instruction to the shrine of Astarte. The parent was chagrined at this unexpected repulse, but with his usual adroitness pretending not to notice it, he turned to the knight. “Stranger, this outrage excuses abruptness on my part; who art thou?”

Sir Charleroy arose from his hammock, the excitement and shock of the rencounter finishing his recovery, by rousing all the machineries of his system into normal activities.

“Sir Priest, I’ve nothing to conceal. I love the truth and this maiden too well to lie—I am a Christian knight.”

“I knew it; but thy confession shortens our parley. Now, ‘Christian knight,’ tell me why thou didst attempt to allure to thyself the affections of a mere girl; a Jewish maiden whom thou canst never hope to wed? Dost thou so pay our hospitality; setting at defiance parental authority and our Jewish laws? Dost thou under the favors of this house intrigue to quench all its light?”

“Thou brandst that girl and me with the epithet ‘dishonorable;’ and thou a priest! Men of thy holy calling should never slander, especially not their own kin and strangers.” The knight was livid, but not with fear.

“Can an Israelite slander Crusaders? these professors of high religion, these followers of an impostor, these enemies of my people, these practicers of intrigues, races, jousts, gluttonies and drunkenness; men whose sole serious business is murderous war? Tell me?”

The knight’s face flushed a little, but with complete self-control he replied:

“Some of my comrades have been unworthy men, ’tis true; but some Jews have fallen to every crime and violence. Have all fallen? Thou hast not, perhaps! Shall all be maligned for the few? What says Harrimai?”

“Thou art of those, who come to thrust us out of our land and thrust in here a hated creed!”

“I am of those who live to serve the needy and erring.”

“To the proof; I’ve heard from thy clans only of bloodshed.”

“Our order sprung up four hundred years ago, under the stirring appeals of religionists as pious and humane as thou; or any of thy kind since Aaron. We were begotten in a time when grim famine made the well-fed wondrous kind. Those hours that make men universally akin.”

“Go on; ‘Christian knight,’ I’d like a lesson of that sort.”

“Then remember Noah’s covenant of peace. On our banners often we have our spirit expressed by a dove flying toward a tempest-tossed ark; in the messenger’s beak an olive branch; around the whole the bow of promise.”

“Well what of all this?”

“The ark is the world; the rest is plain.”

“Oh, a charming theory,” sarcastically responded Harrimai.

“I wear it next my heart;” so saying the knight threw aside his cloak and drew from around his body a banner he had hitherto concealed. “See here, ‘_chastity_,’ ‘_temperance_,’ ‘_courtesy_.’ Our mottoes in peace or war! Women, children and pilgrims, in a word the needy the world around, are the wards of all true Christian knights!”

“Mottoes! words! Oh, yes, words! But then the Crusaders have used swords! Their words I’ll meet with words to their confounding, nor while I live will I forget their cruel weapons.” So saying the priest swept out of the sick chamber in manifest rage.

He returned in a moment, and with the self-command of wrath, conscious of power, said: “Thou wouldst make all men _akin_! Thou and thine are dreamers, the world thinks; to-day it laughs to scorn this bootless pursuit of a chimera. Leave us forthwith and in the peace that thou foundst here. When the kinship is reality, thou mayst come to us for further talk; ’till then remember thou art a Christian, I a Jew!”

“Thou art religious! Heavens! what a tender shepherd.”

Harrimai was very much angered, but he retorted with self-control; “Oh, yes, and the God of all hath seven garments. In creation, honor and glory; in providence, majesty; as lawgiver, might and whiteness; of spotless light when he appears as a Saviour. He is clad with zeal when he punishes, and with blood red when He revenges. I would be like Him. By the glory of God! thou follower of Nazereth’s Impostor, sooner than suffer thy blood to contaminate my family lines, I’d hew thee to pieces as Agag was hewn! Rizpah, thou knowest me; wed him and thou’lt be widowed, though carrying the unborn; though widow-hood broke thy heart. I’d rather a thousand times see thee lying dead by thy true Jewish mother than——.” The priest, in a tumult of fanatical passion mingled with the grief of offended pride, lacked for words to express the climax of his feelings; so covering his tearless eyes, as one weeping, he rushed out from those he had assailed. He persuaded himself that he had spoken all for the glory of God; the lovers thought of their solemn betrothal and their love which they were certain was as fine as any earth ever knew, and they felt that they were martyrs. Both sides appealed to God and in a spirit very ungodly, but very human, braced themselves for opposing war.

When the maiden became somewhat calm, Sir Charleroy found words to question:

“Harrimai cannot find heart to blast his idol’s happiness! He does not mean all he said?”

“Alas, he does. It’s part of the Patriarch’s religion to hate such as thou, as he does. He means more, if possible, than he spoke. Our people unveil the bosom and cover the mouth; thine cover the bosom and unveil the mouth. Ye talk, we burn.”

“Has pure love like ours no sanctity in his sight?”

“Alas, he can not believe any love pure that is between Gentile and Israelite. He was sneering at ours a few evenings ago, when he remarked as we were looking at the stars, ‘Hyperius or Venus of the evening is mistakenly called the star of love. Lucifer of the morning is the true emblem of most young love. It rises in maddening brightness, but fades out of sight very soon.’”

“Grim omen! We took Venus for our betrothal star; they say it is so bright at times that it casts a shadow. I feel its shadow now,” said the knight, meditating.

“Yes, shadows and shadows!” exclaimed Rizpah, with a flood of tears, and she swayed back and forth as she wept. She was driven by tempests of fear that made her ready to flee, and held by anchors of passionate loving that made her ready to brave all fears; therefore the swaying and weeping. At intervals the two communed and debated concerning the one all-engrossing theme, their future course.

“Rizpah,” comfortingly spoke the knight, “when in the greatest peril of our lives, we were drawn, by danger, closer to each other.” There was a glance of entreaty in her eyes as if to say, “Go save thy life and let the Jewish maiden die alone;” but the knight drew her to his bosom, and she responded by an embrace of passionate clinging.

“I go from Rizpah only at her command or death’s,” said the knight solemnly.

The maiden shuddered, and again passionately clung to her lover. He interpreted her action, and again comfortingly spoke:

“Fear not; earth has somewhere a refuge for us until death call us!”

“Somewhere? What, go away?”

“Yes. It is that or separation.”

She knew that full well. But to flee from home with the knight, the alternative presented to her mind, startled her. At first thought it seemed a reckless, perilous, unfilial, God-defying act; then it seemed attractive because so daring. A tumult of arguments questionings, fears and yearnings mingled in her mind. She had never learned to arrange arguments, _pro_ and _con_, judicially. What woman whose feelings were aroused ever did that?

He pressed on her flight, enforcing each reason presented with an affectionate embrace; her tongue spoke not, but her embraces replied to each of his. She had a conscience, and it asserted itself until she placated it by a half formed resolution to be very prudent and do nothing rashly. The resolution comforted her at first; then she began to follow it, mentally, to its sequence. She thought of her father praising her piety as her purpose was disclosed. Something within, coming like a voice from her heart, mockingly whispered “Go on.” She pursued the meditations, and heard, in imagination, her neighbors praising her as a martyr of love for faith’s sake. Again the mocking inner voice said, “Go on.” Again her thoughts moved forward until she saw that conscience was driving her to separation from Sir Charleroy; in a word, making her walk in a funeral procession, her own dead heart on the bier. The thought made her shudder and recoil; then the knight’s arms encircled her more closely than before. Again and again she took the foregoing mental journey, again and again recoiled, shuddering from the alternative of separation from her lover, and at each recoil felt his grateful embrace. Each time she traversed the mental course the journey toward duty by the privation of love seemed more onerous. Distaste was followed by repugnance; then utter weariness. At last, utterly wretched, her purposes and perceptions fell into hopeless confusion, and she exclaimed “Charleroy, Charleroy, save me!”

The knight was at a loss to divine fully her meaning, yet tenderly he answered:

“Save Rizpah? She knows I’d do that in death’s teeth!”

“Oh, Charleroy, ’tis not death, but life, that I fear. How shall I live?”

Quickly he ejaculated:

“With me, forever, and safe!”

The maiden remembering many an admonition she had heard concerning the inconstancy of lovers, yet driven forward by the all-abandoning love of her woman’s heart, gave voice to all she felt and feared in one vehement interrogation:

“Oh, Charleroy, if I forsake all for my love of thee shall I ever be discarded by——?”

The knight interpreted her meaning in advance, and answered by an embrace that was all-assuring. He was rejoiced beyond words, for he knew full well that hesitation and questionings like hers were on the rim of full surrender. Suddenly he became very serious and felt that peculiar glow that came over him the day of his departure from England when the bishop blessed him. He appreciated in a measure the responsibility following such a committal of another’s life to himself as Rizpah was making, and he embraced her with an anxious reverence, such as a pietist feels clasping an ideal of his God. It was well for both that the man was thus impressed by the committal of that maiden of her soul and body to his pilotage. Pity the woman who reaches the extremity Rizpah had reached if her conqueror be not white-souled and sincere.

Rizpah an incarnation of passion, a wreath of lotus flowers on a sea of delight, tossed by the winds, borne by the tides, surrendered all thoughts that might disturb, that she might enjoy what she had embraced as her fate to the full.

Sir Charleroy constantly prayed within himself, “My mother’s God help me to deal as purely with my sacred charge as I would with the Virgin Patron of my knightly order, were she here now to seek my knightly services.” The prayer was effectual, for the Knight sincerely sought to make it so.

Decisive action followed this interview between the lovers. That very night they fled together from Gerash, and with only one trusty servant; after many vicissitudes they reached Damascus. For a time Rizpah placated her conscience by asserting that she would not consent to the wedding ceremonial until it could have her father’s approval, or that of some Jewish Rabbi. Finding it impossible to obtain these, she irresolutely suggested the advisability of delaying until some change, quite vaguely apprehended, might come. But there were two Rizpah’s—one that wanted to be a faithful Jewess, and one that wanted only and constantly a darling idol. Sir Charleroy sided with the latter; it was two to one, and the one surrendered. Ere long a Christian missionary at Damascus sealed the vows. They confided their story to him, as if to ask his advice as to what they had best do, but with the impetuosity of lovers they had decided their course before they asked advice, and did not even ask it until they had pledged their vows before this priest. But it was a balm to conscience to ask advice. And the Sacrist answered them briefly: “Venus and Mercury, fabled deities of love and wisdom. They are much alike in the firmament, and revolve in orbits in accord with the earth’s. Methinks it is _wisdom_ to _love_ in the earth. But, children, Venus sets sooner than Mercury; see to it that you make it your wisdom to love as long as you go round with the world.” Then they both said “Amen.” For a moment Sir Charleroy heard within him that impressive sound as of the beating of mighty, departing wings. He dragged his attention quickly from the introspection to gaze into the eyes of his bride. He was glad that a Christian priest had prayed for a blessing upon himself and her, but all sophistry aside, the truth remained. Astarte’s was the presiding spirit at that wedding.