CHAPTER XII

_The Prince of Naphtali Confronts Desolation_

[Sidenote: The Choice of a Leader]

War was now inevitable. Attempts had been made by our rulers to propitiate the Roman emperor, but their answer was the march of a legion to Jerusalem. The seizure of some of the people who had made themselves conspicuous in the late capture of the citadel followed, and an order was despatched to the governor of Galilee for the execution of Eleazar. His tribe instantly assembled and all voices were for resistance. My noble kinsman, still pacific, offered himself as the victim. But this generous sacrifice we all denounced, and called for war. The appointment of a leader was next debated in a hurried assemblage, to which every head of a village came in arms. No man could contest the command with Eleazar. But he declined it from a sense of his inexperience in war in a few simple words.

Then, suddenly bursting into ardor, he exclaimed: “Our war is holy! It is not to be hazarded on the claims of hereditary rank, personal freedom, or even on national favoritism. The only claims which the nation must acknowledge in its extremity are the rights of tried talent, experienced intrepidity, and unquestionable service. Such a leader stands among us at this moment.” Every eye was turned upon _me_. “Yes,” exclaimed my noble kinsman, “you have already made your choice. Genius, valor, and success have combined to mark one man for the leader of Israel. He is worthy of the diadem.” Then turning to me and lifting his hand, as if he was letting fall the diadem upon my head, “Go forth,” cried he in a tone of almost prophetic grandeur, “Go forth, prince of Naphtali, leader of Israel, to break the chains of Judah and conquer in the cause of man and Heaven!” The words were received with acclamation.

I vainly protested against the general voice, that I was a priest of the Temple of the house of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi, and bound to Naphtali only by ties of kindred and gratitude. I was answered by a multitude of voices that my summons was actually in the service of the Temple; that war extinguished all office but that of defending the country; that I had long retired from the duties of the priesthood; that Moses was at once the priest and the leader; that Samuel was at once the prophet and the sovereign of Israel; above all, that I had shown myself, by daring and success, almost superior to man, the Heaven-elected leader of Israel.

[Sidenote: Salathiel Becomes a Leader]

I acknowledged that my heart was with the answerers, and I at length gave way to what even I believed to be the will of more than man. A thousand falchions, wielded by as sinewy hands as ever drew sword, were instantly moved round my head. I was placed on a shield, and in this ancient fashion of our countrymen I was inaugurated prince of Naphtali. This was one of the blinding flashes that broke in from time to time on my gloomy career. When the assemblage dispersed and I returned toward my mountain home, I was still in the excitement of the scene. I even began to imagine that my terrible sentence was about to be lightened, perhaps to pass away; my station in life was now fixed; services of the highest rank in the noblest cause were before me, and I felt myself exclaiming, even to the solitude, “I am prince of Naphtali!”[19] My exultation was soon to have a fall.

It was the evening of one of the freshest days of the loveliest season of earth, the spring of Palestine. All nature was clothed with its robe of genial beauty; the olives on the higher grounds had put forth their first green, and with every slight gust that swept across them heaved like sheets of emerald; the birds sang in a thousand notes from every bush; the sheep and camels lay in the meadows visibly enjoying the sweet air; the shepherds sat gathered together on the side of some gentle eminence, talking, or listening to the songs of the maidens who came in long lines to the fountains below. The heavens gave prospect of a glorious day in the colors shown only to the Oriental eyes; hues so brilliant that many a traveler stops on the verge of the valleys arrested, in his haste homeward, by the pomp above. All was the loveliness and joy of pastoral life, in the only country where I ever found it realized. The mind is to be medicined by natural loveliness, and mine was doubly cheered. To return to our home is at all times a delight; but the new conjuncture, the high hopes of the future, and the consciousness that a career of the most distinguished honors might be opening before my steps, made this return more vivid than all the past; and when we reached the foot of the long ascent from which my dwelling was visible I felt an impatience beyond restraint, and spurred up the hill with my tidings. How fine the ear becomes when quickened by the heart! As the mountain road, now more difficult by the darkness of the wild pines and cedars that crowned the summit, compelled me to slacken my pace, I thought that I could distinguish the household voices, the barking of my hounds, and the laugh of the retainers and peasantry that during the summer crowded my doors.

[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Daughters]

I pictured the dearer group that had so often welcomed me. The early and cruel loss of my son had not been repaired. I was not destined to be the father of a race; but two daughters were given to me, and in the absence of all ambition, they were more than a recompense. Salome, the elder, was now approaching womanhood; she had the dark eyes and animated beauty of her mother; the foot of the antelope was not lighter; and her wreathed smile, her laugh of innocence, and her buoyancy of soul forbade sorrow in her sight. How changed I afterward saw that face of living joy! What floods of sorrow bathed those cheeks, that once shamed the Persian rose!

The younger was scarcely more than a child; her mind and her form were yet equally in the bud, but she had an eye of the deepest azure, a living star; and even in her playfulness there was an elevation, a lofty and fervent spirit, that made me often forget her years. She was mistress of music almost by nature, and the cadences and rich modulations that poured from her harp, under fingers slight and feeble, as if the stalks of flowers had been flung across the strings, were like secrets of harmony treasured for her touch alone. Our prophets, the true masters of the sublime, were her rapturous study. Their truths might yet be veiled, but their genius blazed broad upon her sensitive soul.

[Sidenote: A Sound in the Thicket]

I pictured my children hastening through the portal, hand in hand with their noble mother, still in the prime of matronly beauty, to give me welcome. The light thickened, and the intricacy of the forest impeded me. At length, wearied by the delay, I sprang from my horse, left him to make his way as best he could, and pushed forward through a thicket which crept round the skirts of the forest. As I struggled onward, listening with sharpened anxiety for every sound of home, I heard a noise like that of a wild beast rustling close at my side. The thicket was now dark. My eyes were useless. I drew my simitar, and plunged it straight before me. The blow was instantly followed by a shriek. Friend or enemy, silence was now impossible, and I demanded who was nigh. I was answered but by groans; my next step was on a human body. Shocked and startled, I lifted it in my arms and bore the dying man to an open space where the moonlight glimmered. To my unspeakable horror, he was one of my most favored attendants, whom I had left in the principal charge of my household; I had slain him. I tore up my mantle to stanch his wound, but he fiercely repelled my hand. In an undefined dread of some evil to my family, I commanded him to speak, if but one word, and tell me that all was safe. He buried his face in his mantle.

In the whirlwind of my thoughts I flung him from me, that I might go forward and know the good or evil; but he clung round my feet, and exerted his last breath to implore me not to leave him to die alone.

“You have killed me,” said he, in broken accents; “but it was only the hand of the Avenger. I was corrupted by gold. You have terrible enemies among the leaders of Jerusalem; a desperate deed has been done.”

My suspense amounted to agony; I made another effort to cast off the trammels of the assassin, but he still implored.

“Evil things were whispered against you. I was told that you had been convicted of a horrible crime.” The sound shot through my senses; he must have felt the trembling of my frame, for he for the first time looked upon my face.

“My sight is gone,” groaned he, and fell back. I dared not meet the glance even of his clouding eyes. “They said that you were condemned to an unspeakable punishment and that the man who swept the world of you and yours did God service. In my hour of sin the tempter met me, and this day from sunrise have I lurked on your road to strike my benefactor and my lord. In the dark I lost my way in the thicket; but vengeance found me.”

“My wife, my children, are they safe?” I exclaimed.

He quivered, relaxed his hold, and uttering “Forgive!” two or three times, with nervous agony, expired.

[Sidenote: Salathiel Finds Ruin]

A single bound from this spot of death placed me on a point of rock from which I had often gazed on my little world in the valley. The moon was now bright and the view unobstructed. I looked down. Were my eyes dim? There was no habitation beneath me; the grove, the garden, were there, sleeping in the moonlight; but all that had the semblance of life was gone! I rushed down and found myself among ruins and ashes still hot. I called aloud—in terror and distraction, I yelled to the night, but no voice answered me. My foot struck upon something in the grass; it was a sword dyed with recent blood. There had been burning, plunder, slaughter here in this treasure-house of my heart; desolation had been busy in the center of what was to me life—more than life. I raved; I flew through the fields; I rushed back, to convince myself that I was not in some frightful dream. What I endured that night I never endured again; that conflict of fear, astonishment, love, and misery could be contained but once even in my bosom; in all others it must have been death. In the moment of reviving hope I had been smitten. While my spirit was ascending on the wings of justified ambition and sacred love of country, I had been dashed down to earth, a desolate and a desperate man.

What I did thenceforth, or how I passed through that night, I know not; but I was found in the morning with my robe fantastically thrown over me like a royal mantle, and a fragment of half-burned wood for a scepter in my hand, performing the part of a monarch, giving orders for the rebuilding of my palace, and marshaling the movements of an army of shrubs and weeds. I was led away with the lofty reluctance of a captive sovereign, to the household of Eleazar.

[Sidenote: A Fruitless Search]

The wrath and grief of my kinsmen were without bounds. Every defile of the mountains was searched—every straggler seized; messengers were despatched across the frontier with offers of ransom to the chiefs of the desert, in case my family should have escaped the sword. Threats of severe retaliation were used by the Roman governor of the province; all was in vain. The only intelligence was from a shepherd, who, two nights before, had seen a troop which he supposed to be Arabs, ride swiftly by the gates of Kuriathim, our nearest city; but this intelligence only added to the misfortune. The habits of those robbers were proverbially savage; they lived by the torch and the sword; they slaughtered the men without mercy; the females they generally sold into endless captivity. To leave no trace of their route, they slaughtered the captives whom they could not carry through their hurried marches. To leave no trace of what they had done, they burned the place of massacre. But this ruin was from other and more malignant hands!