CHAPTER XVII

_A Declaration of Love_

[Sidenote: Salathiel Overhears Salome]

We received the friends of our intended son with the accustomed hospitality, but to me the tumult of many voices, and even the sight of a crowd, however happy, still excited the old disturbances of a shaken mind.

I left my guests to the care of Eleazar, and galloped into the fields to gather composure from the air of fruits and flowers. A homeward glance showed me, to my surprise, the whole troop mounted, and in another moment at speed across the hills. I hastened back. Miriam met me. My kinsman had openly disclaimed my alliance.

Indignant and disappointed, I prepared to follow him and demand the cause of this insult. As I passed one of the pavilions, my daughter’s voice arrested me. She was talking to Constantius. Scorning mere curiosity, I yet was anxious for sincere explanation. I felt that if Salome had a wish which she feared to divulge to her father, this was my only hope of obtaining the knowledge. The voices were low, and I could, for a while, catch but a broken sentence.

“I owed it to him,” said she, “not to deceive his partiality. He offered all that it could have done a Jewish maiden honor to receive—his heart, hand, and fortune.”

“And you rejected them all?” said Constantius. “Have you no regrets for the lover—no fears of the father?”

“For the lover I had too high an esteem to give him a promise which I could not keep. I knew his generous nature. I told him at once that there was an invincible obstacle!”

“I should like incomparably to know what that obstacle could be?” said Constantius.

Astonishment fixed me to the spot. I was unable to move a step.

[Sidenote: Constantius and Salome]

The natural playfulness of the sweet and light-hearted girl became manifest, and she replied “that a philosopher ought to know all things without questioning.”

“But there is much in the world that defies philosophy, my fair Salome; and of all its problems, the most perplexing is the mind of woman!—of young, lovely, dangerous woman!”

“Now, Constantius, you abandon the philosopher and play the poet.”

“Yet without the poet’s imagination. No; I need picture no beauty from the clouds—no nymph from the fountains—no loveliness that haunts the trees, and breathes more than mortal melody on the ear. Salome! my muse is before me.”

“You are a Greek,” said she, after a slight interval, “and Greeks are privileged to talk—and to deceive.”

“Salome! I am a Greek no longer. What I shall yet be may depend upon the fairest artist that ever fashioned the human mind. But mine are not the words of inexperience. I am on this day five-and-twenty years old. My life has led me into all that is various in the intercourse of earth. I have seen woman in her beauty, in her talent, in her art, in her accomplishment; from the cottage to the throne—but I never felt her real power before.”

“Which am I to believe—the possible or the impossible? A soldier! a noble! a Greek! and of all Greeks, one of Cyprus! the offerer of your eloquence at every shrine where your own lovely countrywomen stood by the altar!—I too have seen the world.”

“May all the Graces forbid that you should ever see it, but what it would be made by such as you—a place of gentleness and harmony—a place of fondness and innocence—a paradise!”

“Now you are further from the philosopher than ever; but—I must listen no more; the sun is taking its leave of us, and blushing its last through the vines for all the fine romance that it has heard from Constantius. Farewell, philosophy.”

“Then farewell, philosophy,” said Constantius, and caught her hand as she was lightly moving from the pavilion. He led her toward the casement. “Then farewell, philosophy, my sweet; and welcome truth, virtue, and nature. I loved you in your captivity; I loved you in your freedom; on the sea, on the shore, in the desert, in your home, I loved you. In life I will love you, in death we shall not be divided. This is not the language of mere admiration, the rapture of a fancy dazzled by the bright eyes of my Salome. It is the language of reason, of sacred truth, of honor bound by higher than human bonds; of fondness that even the tomb will render only more ardent and sublime. Here, in the sight of Heaven, I pledge an immortal to an immortal.”

[Sidenote: The Love of Constantius]

Astonishment and grief alone prevented my exclaiming aloud against this bond on the affections of my child. The marriage of the Israelite with the stranger was prohibited by our law, and still more severely prohibited by the later ordinances of our teachers. But marriage with a fugitive, an alien, a son of the idolater, whose proselytism had never been avowed, and whose skill in the ways of the world might be at this hour undermining the peace or the faith of my whole family—the idea was tenfold profanation! I checked myself only to have complete evidence.

“But,” said my daughter, in a voice mingled with many a sigh, “if this should become known to my father—and known it must be—how can we hope for his consent? Now, Constantius, you will have to learn what it is to deal with our nation. We have prejudices, lofty, tho blind—indissoluble, tho fantastic. My father’s consent is beyond all hope.”

“He is honorable—he has human feeling—he loves you.”

“Fondly, I believe, and I must not thus return his love; no, tho my happiness were to be the forfeit, I must not pain his heart by the disobedience of his child.”

“But Salome, my sweet Salome! are obstinacy and prejudice to be obeyed against the understanding and the heart? Can a father counsel his child to a crime, and would it not be one to give your faith to this Jubal, if you could not love him?”

“I have decided that already. Never will I wed Jubal.”

“Yet what is it that you would disobey—a cruel and fantastic scruple of your teachers, the perverters of your law? Must we sacrifice reason to prejudice, truth to caprice, the law of nature and of heaven to the forgeries and follies of the Scribes? Mine you are, and mine you shall be, my wife by a law more sacred, more powerful, and more pure. The time of bondage is passed. A new law, a new hope, have come to break the chains of the Jew and enlighten the darkness of the Gentile. You have heard that law; your generous heart and unclouded understanding have received it, and now by that common hope, my beloved, we are one, tho seas and mountains should separate us—tho the malice of fortune and the tyranny of man should forbid our union; still, in flight, in the dungeon, in the last hour of a troubled existence, we are one. Now, Salome, I will go, but go to seek your father.”

[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Assertion]

My indignation rose to its height. I had heard my child taught to rebel. I had heard myself pronounced the slave of prejudice. But the open declaration that my authority was to be to my child a law no more let loose the whole storm of my soul. I rushed forward; Salome uttered a cry and sank senseless upon the ground. Constantius raised her up and bore her to a vase, from which he sprinkled water upon her forehead.

“Leave her!” I exclaimed; “better for her to remain in that insensibility, better to be dead than an apostate. Villain, begone! it is only in scorn that a father’s vengeance suffers you to live. Fly from this house, from this country. Go, traitor, and let me never see you more.”

I tore the fainting girl from his arms. He made no resistance, no reply. Salome recovered with a gush of tears, and feebly pronounced his name.

“I am with you still, my love,” Constantius assured her.

She looked up and, as if she had then first seen me, sprang forward with a look of terror.

[Sidenote: The Wrath of a Father]

“Go,” said I, “go to your chamber, weak girl, and on your knees, atone for your disobedience, for your abandonment of the faith of your fathers. But no, it is impossible; you can not have been so guilty; this Greek—this foreign bringer-in of fables—this smooth intruder on the peace of families, can not have so triumphed over your understanding.”

“I have been rash, sir,” said Constantius loftily; “I may have been unwise, too, in my language; but I have been no deceiver. Not for the wealth of kings—not even for the more precious treasure of the heart I love—would I sully my lips with a falsehood.”

“Begone!” cried I; “I am insulted by your presence. Go and pervert others—hypocrite; or rather, take my contemptuous forgiveness and repent, in sackcloth and ashes, the basest crime of the basest mind. Come, daughter, and leave the baffled idolater to think of his crime.”

I was leading her away—she hesitated, and I cast her from me. Constantius, with his cheek burning and his eye flashing, approached her. My taunts had at length roused him.

“Now, Salome,” said he, haughtily glancing on me, “injured as I am, I disclaim an idle deference for an authority used only to give pain. You are my betrothed; you shall be my bride. Let us go forth and try our chance together through the world.”

She was silent and wept only more violently. But with one hand covering her face, she repelled him with the other.

“Then you will be the wife of Jubal?” said he.

“Never!” she firmly pronounced. “So help me heaven, never!”

“Retire, girl,” I exclaimed, “and weep tears of blood for your rebellion! Go, stranger—ingrate—deceiver—and never darken my threshold more. Aye, now I see the cause of my brave kinsman’s departure. He was circumvented. A wilier tongue was here before him. He disdained to reveal the daughter’s folly to the insulted father. But this shall not avail either of you. He shall return.”

Salome cast an imploring glance to heaven and sank upon her knees before me. Constantius advanced to her; but I bounded between them—my dagger was drawn.

“Touch her, and you die.”

He smiled scornfully, and approached to raise her from the ground.

[Sidenote: Salathiel Seeks Jubal]

“Give that wretched child up to me this moment,” I exclaimed in fury, “or may the bitterness of a father’s curse be on her head!”

He staggered back; then pressing his lips upon her forehead, gave her to me and strode from the pavilion.

I flew to the house of Eleazar. I found him anxious and agitated. Calm as his usual manner was, the late transaction had left its traces on his demeanor and countenance. Jubal was in the apartment, which he traversed backward and forward in high indignation. He made no return to my salute but by stopping short and gazing full on me with a look of mingled anger and surprise.

“Jubal,” said I, “kinsman, we must be friends.” I held out my hand, which he took with no fervent pressure. “I am here only to explain this idle offense.”

“It requires no explanation,” interrupted Jubal sternly; “I, and I alone, am to blame—if there be any one to blame in the matter. The offer may have been hasty, or unwelcome, or unpardonable, from one like me, still without rank in the tribe; it may have been fit that I should be haughtily rejected by the family of the descendant of Aaron; but,” said he, pressing his strong hand upon his throat, as if to keep down a burst of passion, “the subject is at an end—now and forever at an end.”

He recommenced his striding through the chamber.

“Let us hear all, my friend,” said I; “I know that Salome thinks highly of your spirit and of your heart. Was there any palliation offered? Did she disclose any secret reason for a conduct which is so opposite to her natural regard for you, and which, she must feel, is so offensive to me? But insult from my family, impossible!”

[Sidenote: Constantius Accused]

“Hear, then. I had not alighted from my horse when I saw displeasure written in the face of every female in your household. From the very handmaids up to their mistress, they had, with the instinct of woman, discovered my object, and, with the usual deliberation of the sex, had made up their minds without hearing a syllable. Your wife received me, it is true, with the grace that belongs to her above women, but she was visibly cold. My kinswoman Esther absolutely shrank from me and scorned to return a word. Salome fled. As for the attendants, they frowned and muttered at me in all directions, with the most candid wrath possible. In short, I could not have fared worse had I been a Roman come to take possession, or an Arab riding up to rifle every soul in the house.”

“Ominous enough!” said Eleazar, with his grave smile. “The opinions of the sex are irresistible. With half my knowledge of them, Jubal, you would have turned your horse’s head homeward at once, and given up your hopes of a bride at least till the next day, or the next hour, or whatever may be the usual time for the sex’s change of mind. Cheer up, kinsman; caparison yourself in another dress, let time do its work—ride over to Salathiel’s dwelling to-morrow and find a smile for every frown of to-day.”

“But you saw Salome!” said I. “I am impatient to hear how she could have ventured to offend. Could she dare to refuse my brother’s request without a reason?”

“No; her conduct was altogether without disguise. She first tried to laugh me out of my purpose, then argued, then wept; and finally, told me that our alliance was impossible.”

“Rash girl! but she has been led into this folly by others; yet the chief folly was my own. Aye, my eyes were dim, where a mole would have seen. I suffered a showy, plausible villain to remain under my roof till he has, by what arts I know not, wiled away the duty and the understanding—nay, I fear, the religion of my child.” I smote my breast in sorrow and humiliation.

Jubal burst from the apartment and returned with his lance in his hand, quivering with wrath.

“Now all is cleared,” cried he; “the true cause was the magic of that idolater. I know the arts of paganism to bewitch the senses of woman—the incantations, the perfumes, the midnight fires, and images and songs. But let him come within the throw of this javelin and then try whether all his magic can shield him.”

Eleazar grasped his robe as he was again rushing out.

[Sidenote: Eleazar’s Advice]

“Stop, madman! Is it with hands dipped in blood that you are to solicit the heart of Salome? Give me that horrid weapon; and you, Salathiel, curb your wild spirit and listen to a brother who can have no interest but in the happiness of both and all. If Salome, whom I loved an infant on the knee and love to this moment, the most ingenuous and happy-hearted being on earth, has been betrayed into a fondness for this stranger, have we the right to force her inclinations? I know the depth of understanding that lies under her playfulness; can she have been deceived, and least of all by those arts? Impossible! If she has sacrificed her obedience to the noble form and high accomplishments of the Greek, we can only lament her exposure to a captivation made to subdue the heart of woman since the world began.”

“Jubal,” interrupted I, “give me that manly and honest hand; Eleazar’s wisdom is too calm to understand a father or a lover. You shall return with me, you shall be my son; Salathiel has no other. This foolish girl will be sorry for her follies and rejoice to receive you. The Greek is driven from my house. And let me see who there will henceforth disobey.” The lover’s face brightened with joy.

“Well, make your experiment,” said Eleazar, rising. “So ends all councils of war in more confusion than they began. But if I had a wife and daughters——”

“Of course you would manage them to perfection. So say all who have never had either.”

Eleazar’s cheek colored slightly; but with his recovering smile of benevolence he followed us to the porch, and wished us success in our expedition.

[Sidenote: A Forced Betrothal]

We found the household tranquillized again. Miriam received me with one of those radiant smiles that are a husband’s best welcome home. She had succeeded in calming the minds of her daughters, and—a much more difficult task—in suppressing the wrath of the numerous female domestics who had, as usual, constructed out of the graces of the Greek and the beauty of Salome a little romance of their own. In the whole course of my life I never met a female, from the flat-nosed and ebony-colored monster of the tropics to the snow-white and sublime divinity of a Greek isle, without a touch of romance; repulsiveness could not conceal it, age could not extinguish it, vicissitude could not change it. I have found it in all times and places, like a spring of fresh waters starting up even from the flint, cheering the cheerless, softening the insensible, renovating the withered; a secret whisper in the ear of every woman alive, that to the last, passion might flutter its pinions round her brow. The strong prejudices of our nation had here given way, rebellion was but hushed, and I was warned by many a look of the unwelcome suitor that I brought among them.

But from Salome there was no remonstrance. I should have listened to none. The consciousness of my own want of judgment in suffering a man so calculated to attract the eye of innocent youth to become an inmate in my house; the vexation which I felt at the dismissal of my brother’s heir; and last and keenest pang, the inroad made in the faith of a daughter of Israel, combined to exasperate me beyond the bounds of patience. I loved my child with the strongest affection of a heart rocked by all the tides of passion; but I could bear to look upon the pale beauty of her face—nay, in the wrath of the hour, could have seen her borne to the grave—rather than permit the command to be disputed by which she was to wed in our tribe.

[Sidenote: The Flight of Salome]

To shorten a period of which I felt the full bitterness, the marriage preparations were hurried on. Never was the ceremony anticipated with less joy; we were all unhappy. Eleazar remonstrated, but in vain. Jubal retracted, but I compelled him to adhere to his proposal. Miriam was closeted perpetually with the betrothed, and of the whole household Esther alone walked or talked with me, and it was then only to give me descriptions of her sister’s misery or to pursue me through the endless mazes of argument on the hardship of being forced to be happy. The preparations proceeded. The piece of silver was given, the contracts were signed, the presents of both families were made; the portion was agreed upon. It was not customary to require the appearance of the bride until the celebration itself, and Salome was invisible during those days of activity in which, however, I took the chief interest, for nothing could be further from zeal than the conduct of the other agents, Jubal alone excepted. He had regained the easily recovered confidence of youth, and perhaps prided himself on the triumph over a rival so formidable. Two or three petitions for an interview came to me from my daughter. But I knew their purport, and steadily determined not to hazard the temptation of her tears.

The day came, and with it the guests; our dwelling was full of banqueting. The evening arrived when the ceremony was to be performed and the bride led home to her husband’s house in the usual triumph. One of our customs was that a procession of the bridegroom’s younger friends, male and female, should be formed outside the house to wait for the coming forth of the married pair. The ceremony was borrowed by other nations; but in our bright climate and cloudless nights, the profusion of lamps and torches, the burning perfumes, glittering dresses, and fantastic joy of the dancing and singing crowd, had unequaled liveliness and beauty. I remained at my casement, gazing on the brilliant escort that, as it gathered and arranged itself along the gardens, looked like a flight of glow-worms. But no marriage summons came. I grew impatient. My only answer was the sight of Jubal rushing from the house and an outcry among the women. Salome was not to be found! She had been left by herself for a few hours, as was the custom, to arrange her thoughts for a ceremony which we considered religious in the highest degree. On the bridegroom’s arrival, she had disappeared!

The blow struck me deep. Had I driven her into the arms of the Greek by my severity? Had I driven her out of her senses, or out of life? Conjecture on conjecture stung me. I reprobated my own cruelty, refused consolation, and spent the night in alternate self-upbraidings and prayers for my unhappy child.

[Sidenote: The Search in Vain]

Search was indefatigably made. The fiery jealousy of Jubal, the manly anxiety of Eleazar, the hurt feelings of our tribe, insulted by the possibility that their chieftain’s heir should have been scorned, and that the triumph should be to an alien, were all embarked in the pursuit. But search was in vain; and after days and nights of weariness, I returned to my home, there to be met by sorrowing faces, and to feel that every tear was forced by my own obstinacy. I shrank into solitude. I exclaimed that the vengeance, the more than vengeance of my crime, had struck its heaviest blow on me in the loss of my child.