CHAPTER XXIV

_The Departure of Constantius_

[Sidenote: The Hour of Banquet]

The remainder of this memorable day lingered on with a tardiness beyond description. The criminal who counts the watches of the night before his execution has but a faint image of that hot and yet pining anxiety, that loathing of all things unconnected with the one mighty event, that mixture of hopelessness and hope, that morbid nervousness of every fiber in his frame, which make up the suspense of the conspirator in even the noblest cause.

When the hour of banquet came, I sat down in the midst of magnificence, as was the custom of my rank. The table was filled with guests; all around me was gaiety and pomp, high-born men, handsome women, richly attired attendants; plate, the work of Tyrian and Greek artists, in its massive beauty; walls covered with tissues; music filling the air cooled by fountains of perfumed waters. I felt as little of them as if I were in the wilderness. The richest wines, the most delicate fruits, palled on my taste. If I had one wish, it was that for the next forty-eight hours oblivion might amount to insensibility! At my wife and daughters I ventured but one glance. I thought that I had never before seen them look so fitted to adorn their rank, to be the models of grace, loveliness, and honor, to society, and the thought smote my heart—how soon may all this be changed!

My eyes sought Constantius; he had just returned from his preparations, and came in glowing with the enthusiasm of the soldier. He sat down beside Salome, and his cheek gradually turned to the hue of death. He sat like myself, absorbed in frequent reverie, and to the playful solicitations of Salome that he would indulge in the table after his fatigue, he gave forced smiles and broken answers. The future was plainly busy with us both; with all that the heart of man could love beside him, he felt the pang of contrast, and when on accidentally lifting his eyes, they met mine, the single conscious look interchanged told the perturbation that preyed on both in the heart’s core.

[Sidenote: Constantius Seeks Salathiel]

I soon rose, and under pretense of having letters to despatch to our friends in Rome, retired to my chamber. There lay the chart still on the table, the route to Masada marked by pencil lines. With what breathlessness I now traced every point and bearing of it! There, within a space over which I could stretch my arm, was my world. In that little boundary was I to struggle against the supremacy that covered the earth! Those fairy hills, those scarcely visible rivers, those remote cities, dots of human habitation, were to be henceforth the places of siege and battle, memorable for the destruction of human life, engrossing every energy of myself and my countrymen, and big with the fates of generations on generations.

It was dusk, and I was still devouring with my eyes this chart of prophecy when Constantius entered.

“I have come,” said he gravely, “to bid you farewell for the night. In two days I hope we shall all meet again.”

“No, my brave son,” I interrupted, “we do not leave each other to-night.”

He looked surprised. “I must be gone this instant. Eleazar has done his part with the activity of his honest and manly mind. Two miles off, in the valley under the date-grove, I have left five hundred of the finest fellows that ever sat a charger. In half an hour Sirius rises; then we go, and let the governor of Masada look to it! Farewell, and wish me good fortune.”

“May every angel that protects the righteous cause hover above your head!” I exclaimed; “but no farewell, for we go together.”

[Sidenote: Constantius Departs]

“Do you doubt my conduct of the enterprise?” asked he strongly. “’Tis true I have been in the Roman service, but that service I hated from the bottom of my soul. I was a Greek and bound to Rome no longer than she could hold me in her chain. If I could have found men to follow me, I should have done in Cyprus what I now do in Judea. The countryman of Leonidas, Cimon, and Timeleon was not born to hug his slavery. I am now a son of Judea; to her my affections have been transplanted, and to her, if she does not reject me, shall my means and my life be given.”

He relaxed the belt from his waist and dropped it with his simitar on the ground. I lifted it and placed it again in his hand.

“No, Constantius,” I replied, “I honor your zeal, and would confide in you if the world hung upon the balance. But I can not bear the thought of lingering here while you are in the field. My mind, within these few hours, has been on the rack. I must take the chances with you.”

“It is utterly impossible,” was his firm answer; “your absence would excite instant suspicion. The Roman spies are everywhere. The natural result follows, that our march would be intercepted, and I am not sure but that even now we may be too late. That inconceivable sagacity by which the Romans seem to be masters of every man’s secret has been already at work; troops were seen on the route to Masada this very day. Let it be known that the prince of Naphtali has left his palace, and the dozen squadrons of Thracian horse which I saw within those four days at Tiberias will be riding through your domains before the next sunset.”

This reflection checked me. “Well then,” said I, “go, and the protection of Him whose pillar of cloud led His people through the sea and through the desert be your light in the hour of peril!”

I pressed his hand; he turned to depart, but came back, and after a slight hesitation said: “If Salome had once offended her noble father by her flight, the offense was mine. Forgive her, for her heart is still the heart of your child. She loves you. If I fall, let the memory of our disobedience lie in my grave!”

His voice stopped, and mine could not break the silence.

“Let what will come,” resumed he with an effort, “tell Salome that the last word on my lips was her name.”

[Sidenote: The Festal Scene]

He left the chamber, and I felt as if a portion of my being had gone forth from me.

This day was one of the many festivals of our country, and my halls echoed with sounds of enjoyment. The immense gardens glittered with illumination in all the graceful devices of which our people were such masters, and when I looked out for the path of Constantius, I was absolutely pained by the sight of so much fantastic pleasure while my hero was pursuing his way through darkness and danger.

At length the festival was over. The lights twinkled fainter among the arbors, the sounds of glad voices sank, and I saw from my casement the evidences of departure in the trains of torches that moved up the surrounding hills. The sight of a starlit sky has always been to me among the softest and surest healers of the heart, and I gazed upon that mighty scene which throws all human cares into such littleness, until my composure returned.

The last of the guests had left the palace before I ventured to descend. The vases of perfumes still breathed in the hall of the banquet; the alabaster lamps were still burning; but excepting the attendants who waited on my steps at a distance, and whose fixed figures might have been taken for statues, there was not a living being near me of the laughing and joyous crowd that had so lately glittered, danced, and smiled within those sumptuous walls. Yet what was this but a picture of the common rotation of life? Or by a yet more immediate moral, what was it but a picture of the desertion that might be coming upon me and mine? I sat down to extinguish my sullen philosophy in wine. But no draft that ever passed the lip could extinguish the fever that brooded on my spirit. I dreaded that the presence of my family might force out my secret, and lingered with my eyes gazing, without sight, on the costly covering of the board.

[Sidenote: A Beautiful Group]

A sound of music from an inner hall to which Miriam and her daughters had retired, aroused me. I stood at the door, gazing on the group within. The music was a hymn with which they closed the customary devotions of the day. But there was something in its sound to me that I had never felt before. At the moment when those sweet voices were pouring out the gratitude of hearts as innocent and glowing as the hearts of angels, a scene of horror might be acting. The husband of Salome might be struggling with the Roman sword; nay, he might be lying a corpse under the feet of the cavalry, that before morn might bring the news of his destruction in the flames that might startle us from our sleep, and the swords that might pierce our bosoms.

And what beings were those thus appointed for the sacrifice? The lapse of even a few years had perfected the natural beauty of my daughters. Salome’s sparkling eye was more brilliant; her graceful form was molded into more easy elegance, and her laughing lip was wreathed with a more playful smile. Never did I see a creature of deeper witchery. My Esther, my noble and dear Esther, who was perhaps the dearer to me from her inheriting a tinge of my melancholy, yet a melancholy exalted by genius into a charm, was this night the leader of the song of holiness. Her large uplifted eye glowed with the brightness of one of the stars on which it was fixed. Her hands fell on the harp in almost the attitude of prayer, and the expression of her lofty and intellectual countenance, crimsoned with the theme, told of a communion with thoughts and beings above mortality. The hymn was done, the voices had ceased, yet the inspiration still burned in her soul; her hands still shook from the chords’ harmonies, sweet, but of the wildest and boldest brilliancy; bursts and flights of sound, like the rushing of the distant waterfall at night, or the strange, solemn echoes of the forest in the first swell of the storm.

Miriam and Salome sat beholding her in silent admiration and love. The magnificent dress of the Jewish female could not heighten the power of such beauty; but it filled up the picture. The jeweled tiaras, the embroidered shawls, the high-wrought and massive armlets, the silken robes and sashes fringed with pearl and diamond, the profusion of dazzling ornament that form the Oriental costume to this day, were the true habits of the beings that then sat, unconscious of the delighted yet anxious eye that drank in the joy of their presence. I saw before me the pomp of princedoms, investing forms worthy of thrones.

My entrance broke off the harper’s spell, and I found it a hard task to answer the touching congratulations that flowed upon me. But the hour waned, and I was again left alone for the few minutes which it was my custom to give to meditation before I retired to rest. I threw open the door that led into a garden thick with the Persian rose and filling the air with cool fragrance. At my first glance upward, I saw Sirius—he was on the verge of the horizon.

[Sidenote: The Fate of Constantius]

The thoughts of the day again gathered over my soul. I idly combined the fate of Constantius with the decline of the star that he had taken for his signal. My senses lost their truth, or contributed to deceive me. I fancied that I heard sounds of conflict; the echo of horses’ feet rang in my ears. A meteor that slowly sailed across the sky struck me as a supernatural summons. My brain, fearfully excitable since my great misfortune, at length kindled up such strong realities that I found myself on the point of betraying the burden of my spirit by some palpable disclosure.

Twice had I reached the door of Miriam’s chamber to tell her my whole perplexity. But I heard the voice of her attendants within and again shrank from the tale. I ranged the long galleries perplexed with capricious and strange torments of the imagination.

“If he should fall,” said I, “how shall I atone for the cruelty of sending him upon a service of such hopeless hazard—a few peasants with naked breasts against Roman battlements? What soldier would not ridicule my folly in hoping success; what man would not charge me with scorn of the life of my kindred? The blood of my tribe will be upon my head forever. There sinks the prince of Naphtali! In the grave of my gallant son and his companions is buried my dream of martial honor; the sword that strikes him cuts to the ground my last ambition of delivering my country.”

The advice of Constantius returned to my mind, but like the meeting of two tides, it was only to increase the tumult within. I felt the floor shake under my hurried tread. I smote my forehead—it was covered with drops of agony. The voices within my wife’s chamber had ceased. But was I to rouse her from her sleep, perhaps the last quiet sleep that she was ever to take, only to hear intelligence that must make her miserable?

I leaned my throbbing forehead upon one of the marble tables, as if to imbibe coolness from the stone. I felt a light hand upon mine. Miriam stood beside me.

[Sidenote: Miriam’s Comfort]

“Salathiel!” pronounced she in an unshaken voice, “there is something painful on your mind. Whether it be only a duty on your part to disclose it to me, I shall not say; but if you think me fit to share your happier hours, must I have the humiliation of feeling that I am to be excluded from your confidence in the day when those hours may be darkened?”

I was silent, for to speak was beyond my strength, but I pressed her delicate fingers to my bosom.

“Misfortune, my dear husband,” resumed she, “is trivial but when it reaches the mind. Oh, rather let me encounter it in the bitterest privations of poverty and exile; rather let me be a nameless outcast to the latest year I have to live, than feel the bitterness of being forgotten by the heart to which, come life or death, mine is bound forever and ever.”

I glanced up at her. Tears dropped on her cheeks, but her voice was firm.

“I have observed you,” said she, “in deep agitation during the day, but I forbore to press you for the cause. I have listened now, till long past midnight, to the sound of your feet, to the sound of groans and pangs wrung from your bosom; nay, to exclamations and broken sentences which have let me most involuntarily into the knowledge that this disturbance arises from the state of our country. I know your noble nature, and I say to you, in this solemn and sacred hour of danger, follow the guidance of that noble nature.”

I cast my arms about her neck and imprinted upon her lips a kiss as true as ever came from human love. She had taken a weight from my soul. I detailed the whole design to her. She listened with many a change from red to pale, and many a tremor of the white hand that lay in mine. When I ceased, the woman in her broke forth in tears and sighs.

“Yet,” said she, “you must go to the field. Dismiss the thought that for the selfish desire of looking even upon you in safety here I should hazard the dearer honor of my lord. It is right that Judea should make the attempt to shake off her tyranny. The people can never be deceived in their own cause. Kings and courts may be deluded into the choice of incapacity, but the man whom a people will follow from their firesides must bear the stamp of a leader.”

“Admirable being!” I exclaimed, “worthy to be honored while Israel has a name! Then I have your consent to follow Constantius. By speed I may reach him before he can have arrived at the object of the enterprise. Farewell, my best-beloved—farewell!”

She fell into my arms in a passion of tears, but at length recovered and said:

[Sidenote: Go, Prince of Naphtali!]

“This is weakness, the mere weakness of surprise. Yes; go, prince of Naphtali. No man must take the glory from you. Constantius is a hero, but you must be a king, and more than a king; not the struggler for the glories of royalty, but for the glories of the rescuer of the people of God. The first blow of the war must not be given by another, dear as he is. The first triumph, the whole triumph, must be my lord’s.”

She knelt down and poured out her soul to Heaven in eloquent supplication for my safety. I listened in speechless homage.

“Now go,” sighed she, “and remember in the day of battle who will then be in prayer for you. Court no unnecessary peril, for if you perish, which of us would desire to live?”

She again sank upon her knees, and I in reverent silence descended from the gallery.