CHAPTER XXXIV

_The Pursuit of an Enemy_

[Sidenote: The Field of Battle]

I determined to give the enemy no respite, and ordered the ravines to be attacked by fresh troops. While they were advancing, I galloped in search of Jubal over the ground of the last charge. He was not to be seen among the living or the dead.

The look of the field, when the first glow of battle had passed, was enough to shake a sterner spirit than mine. Our advance to the gorges of the mountain had left the plain naked. The sea of turbans and lances was gone, rolling, like the swell of an angry ocean, against the foot of the hills. All before us was the cliff or the rocky pass, thronged with helmets and spears. But all behind was death or misery worse than death; hundreds and thousands groaning in agony, crying out for water to cool their burning lips, or imploring the sword to put them out of pain. The legionaries lay in their ranks as they had fought; solid piles of men, horses, and arms, the true monuments of soldiership. The veterans of Rome had sustained the honors of her name.

I turned from this sight toward the rescued city. The sun was resting on its towers; the smoke of the evening sacrifice was ascending in slow wreaths from the altar of the sanctuary. The trumpets and voices of the minstrels poured a stream of harmony on the cool air. The recollection of gentler times came upon my heart. Through what scenes of anxious feeling had I not passed since those gates closed upon me. The contrast between the holy calm of my early days and the fierce struggles of my doomed existence pressed with bitter force. My spirit shook. The warrior enthusiasm was chilled.

[Sidenote: Salathiel the Soldier]

The trampling of horses roused me from this unwarlike reverie. Constantius came up, glowing to communicate the intelligence that the last of the enemy had been driven in, and that his troops only awaited my orders to force the passes. I mounted, heard their shouts, and was again the soldier.

But the iron front of the enemy resisted our boldest attempts to force the ravines,—the hills were not to be turned, and we were compelled, after innumerable efforts, to wait for the movement of the Romans from a spot which thirst and hunger must soon make untenable. This day had stripped them of their baggage, their beasts of burden, and their military engines.

At dawn the pursuit began again. We still found the enemy struggling to escape out of those fatal defiles. The day was worn away in perpetual attempts to break the ranks of the legionaries. The Jew, light, agile, and with nothing to carry but his spear, was a tremendous antagonist to the Roman, perplexed among rocks and torrents, famishing, and encumbered with an oppressive weight of armor. The losses of this day were dreadful. Our darts commanded their march from the heights; every stone did execution among ranks whose armor was now scattered by the perpetual discharge. Still they toiled on, unbroken. We saw their long line laboring with patient discipline through the rugged depth below, and in the face of our attacks they made way till night again covered them.

I spent that night on horseback. Fatigue I never felt in the strong excitement of the time. I saw multitudes sink at my horse’s feet, in sleep as insensible as the rock on which they lay. Sleep never touched my eyelids. I galloped from post to post, brought reenforcements to my wearied ranks, and longed for morn.

It came at last. The enemy had reached the head of the defile, but there a force was poured upon them that nothing could resist. Their remaining cavalry were driven into the torrent; the few light troops that scaled the higher grounds were swept down. I looked upon their whole army as in my hands, and was riding forward with Constantius and my chief officers to receive their surrender, when they were saved by one of those instances of devotedness that distinguished the Roman character.

[Sidenote: The Flight of the Romans]

Wearied of pursuit and evasion, I had rejoiced to see at last symptoms of a determination to wait for us and try the chance of battle. An abrupt ridge of rock, surmounted by a lofty cone, was the enemy’s position, long after famous in Jewish annals. A line of spearmen was drawn up on the ridge, and the broken summit of the cone, a space of a few hundred yards, was occupied by a cohort. Italian dexterity was employed to give the idea that Cestius had taken his stand upon this central spot; an eagle and a concourse of officers were exhibited, and upon this spot I directed the principal attack to be made.

But the cool bravery of its defenders was not to be shaken. After a long waste of time in efforts to scale the rock, indignant at seeing victory retarded by such an obstacle, I left the business to the slingers and archers, and ordered a steady discharge to be kept up on the cohort. This was decisive. Every stone and arrow told upon the little force crowded together on the naked height. Shield and helmet sank one by one under the mere weight of missiles. Their circle rapidly diminished, and, refusing to surrender, they perished to a man.

When we took possession the army was gone. The resistance of the cohort had given the Romans time to escape, and Cestius sheltered his degraded laurels behind the ramparts of Bethhoron, by the sacrifice of four hundred heroes.

This battle, which commenced on the eighth day of the month Marchesvan, had no equal in the war. The loss to the Romans was unparalleled since the defeat of Crassus. Two legions were destroyed; six thousand bodies were left on the field. The whole preparation for the siege of Jerusalem fell into our hands. Then was the hour to have struck the final blow for freedom; then was given that chance of restoration which Providence gives to every nation and every man. But our crimes, our wild feuds, the bigoted fury and polluted license of our factions, rose up as a cloud between us and the light; we were made to be ruined.

[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Fall]

Such were not my reflections when I saw the gates of Bethhoron closing on the fugitives; I vowed never to rest until I brought prisoners to Jerusalem the last of the sacrilegious host that had dared to assault the Temple.

The walls of Bethhoron, manned only with the wreck of the troops that we had routed from all their positions, could offer no impediment to hands and hearts like ours. I ordered an immediate assault. The resistance was desperate, for beyond this city there was no place of refuge nearer than Antipatris. We were twice repulsed, and I headed the third attack myself. The dead filled up the ditch, and I had already arrived at the foot of the rampart, with the scaling-ladder in my hand, when I heard Jubal’s voice behind me. He was leaping and dancing in the attitudes of utter madness. But there was no time to be lost. I sprang upon the battlements, tore a standard from its bearer, and waved it over my head with a shout of victory. The plain, the hills, the valleys, covered with the host rushing to the assault, echoed the cry; I was at the summit of fortune!

In the next moment I felt a sudden shock. Darkness covered my eyes, and I plunged headlong.

I awoke in a dungeon.