CHAPTER XXXVI

_Death in a Cavern_

[Sidenote: An Ocean Temple]

The cavern thus opened to us[39] seemed to be the magazine of some place of trade. It was crowded with chests and bales, heaped together in disorder. What dangerous owners we might meet cost us no question; life and liberty were before us. I cheered Jubal till his scattered senses returned, and he clasped my feet in humiliation and gratitude.

We were now like men created anew. We forced our way through piles that but an hour before would have been mountains to our despairing strength. The cavern opened into another, which seemed the dwelling of some master of extraordinary opulence. Silken tissues hung on the walls; the ceiling was a Tyrian canopy; precious vases stood on tables of citron and ivory. A large lyre, superbly ornamented, was suspended in an opening of the rock, and gave its melancholy music to the wind. But no human being was to be seen. Was this one of the true wonders that men classed among the fictions of Greece and Asia? The Nereids with their queen could not have sought a more secluded palace. Onward we heard the sounds of ocean. We followed them, and saw one of those scenes of grandeur which nature creates, as if to show the littleness of man.

An arch three times the height of the loftiest temple, and ribbed with marble, rose broadly over our heads. Innumerable shafts of the purest alabaster, rounded with the perfection of sculpture, rose in groups and clusters to the solemn roof; wildflowers and climbing plants of every scent and hue gathered round the capitals, and hung the gigantic sides of the hall with a lovelier decoration than ever was wrought in loom. The awful beauty of this ocean temple bowed the heart in instinctive homage. I felt the sacredness of nature. But this grandeur was alone worthy of the spectacle to which it opened. The whole magnificence of the Mediterranean spread before our eyes, smooth as polished silver and now reflecting the glories of the west. The sun lay on the horizon in the midst of crimson clouds, like a monarch on the funeral pile, sinking in the splendors of a conflagration that lighted earth and ocean.

[Sidenote: On the Edge of the Cavern]

But at this noble portal we had reached our limit. The sides of the cavern projected so far into the waters as to make a small anchorage. Access or escape by land was palpably impossible. Yet, here at least, we were masters. No claimant presented himself to dispute our title. The provisions of our unknown host were ample, and, to our eager tastes, were dangerous from their luxury. The evening that we passed at the mouth of the cave, exhilarated with the first sensation of liberty, and enjoying every aspect and voice of the lovely scene with the keenness of the most unhoped-for novelty, was a full recompense for the toils and terrors of the labyrinth.

The sun went down. The surge that died at our feet murmured peace; the wheeling sea-birds, as their long trains steered homeward, pouring out from time to time a clangor of wild sounds that descended to us in harmony; the little white-sailed vessels, that skimmed along the distant waters like summer flies; the breeze waving the ivy and arbutus, that festooned our banquet-hall, alike spoke to the heart the language of peace.

“If,” said I, “my death-bed were to be left to my own choice, on the edge of this cavern would I wish to take my last farewell.”

“To the dying all places must be indifferent,” replied my companion; “when Death is at hand, his shadow fills the mind. What matters it to the exile, who in a few moments must leave his country forever, on what spot of its shore his last step is planted? Perhaps the lovelier that spot the more painful the parting. If I must have my choice, let me die in the dungeon or in battle: in the chain that makes me hate the earth, or in the struggle that makes it forgotten.”

“Yet,” said I, “even for battle, if we would acquit ourselves as becomes men, is not some previous rest almost essential? and for the sterner conflict with that mighty enemy before whom our strength is vapor, is it not well to prepare the whole means of mental fortitude? I would not perish in the irritation of the dungeon, in the blind fury of man against man, nor in the hot and giddy whirl of human cares. Let me lay my sinking frame where nothing shall intrude upon the nobler business of the mind. But these are melancholy thoughts. Come, Jubal, fill to the speedy deliverance of our country.”

[Sidenote: Jubal’s Remorse]

“Here, then, to her speedy deliverance, and the glory of those who fight her battles!” The cup was filled to the brim, but just as the wine touched his lips he flung it away. “No,” exclaimed he, in bitterness of soul, “it is not for such as I to join in the aspirations of the patriot and the soldier. Prince of Naphtali, your generous nature has forgiven me, but there is an accuser here”—and he struck his withered hand wildly upon his bosom—“that can never be silenced. Under the delusions, the infernal delusions of your enemies, I followed you through a long period of your career, unseen. Every act, almost every thought, was made known to me, for you were surrounded by the agents of your enemies. I was driven on by the belief that you were utterly accursed by our law, and that to drive the dagger to your heart was to redeem our cause. But the act was against my nature, and in the struggle my reason failed. When I stood before you on the morning of the great battle, you saw me in one of those fits of frenzy that always followed a new command to murder. The misery of seeing Salome’s husband once more triumphant finally plunged me into the Roman ranks to seek for death. I escaped, followed the army, and reached Bethhoron in the midst of the assault. Still frantic, I thought that in you I saw my rival victorious. It was this hand, this parricidal hand, that struck the blow.” He covered his face and wept convulsively.

The mystery of my captivity was now cleared up, and feeling only pity for the ruin that remorse had made, I succeeded at last in restoring him to some degree of calmness. I even ventured to cheer him with the hope of better days, when in the palace of his fathers I should acknowledge my deliverer.

With a pressure of the hand and a melancholy smile, “I know,” said he, “that I have not long to live. But if a prayer of mine is to be answered by that greatest of all Powers whom I have so deeply offended, it would be, to die in some act of service for my prince and my pardoner! But hark!”

[Sidenote: A Dying Man]

A groan was uttered close to the spot where we sat. I perceived for the first time an opening behind some furniture; entered, and saw lying on a bed a man apparently in the last stage of exhaustion.

He exclaimed: “Three days of misery—three days left alone, to die—without food, without help, abandoned by all. But I have deserved it. Traitor and villain as I am, I have deserved a thousand deaths!”

I looked upon this outcry as but the raving of pain, and brought him some wine. He swallowed it with avidity, but even while I held the cup to his lips, he sank back with a cry of horror.

“Aye,” cried he, “I knew that I could not escape you; you have come at last. Spirit, leave me to die! Or if,” said he, half rising and looking in my face with a steady yet dim glare, “you can tell the secrets of the grave, tell me what is my fate. I adjure you, fearful being, by the God of Israel; by the gods of the pagan, or if you acknowledge any god beyond the dreams of miserable man, tell me what I am to be?”

I continued silent, struck with the agony of his features. Jubal entered, and the looks of the dying man were turned on him.

“More of them!” he exclaimed, “more tormentors! more terrible witnesses of the tortures of a wretch whom earth casts out! What I demand of you is the fate of those who live as I have lived—the betrayer, the plunderer, the man of blood? But you will give me no answer. The time of your power is not come.”

He lay for a short period in mental sufferings; then, starting upon his feet by an extraordinary effort of nature, and with furious execrations at the tardiness of death, he tore off the bandage which covered a wound on his forehead. The blood streamed down and made him a ghastly spectacle.

[Sidenote: Conscience-Stricken]

“Aye,” cried he, as he looked upon his stained hands, “this is the true color; the traitor’s blood should cover the traitor’s hands. Years of crime, this is your reward. The betrayal of my noble master to death, the ruin of his house, the destruction of his name; these were the right beginnings to the life of the robber.”

A peal of thunder rolled over our heads and the gush of the rising waves roared through the cavern.

“Aye, there is your army,” he cried, “coming in the storm. I have seen your angry visages at night in the burning village; I have seen you in the shipwreck; I have seen you in the howling wilderness; but now I see you in shapes more terrible than all.”

The wind bursting through the long vaults forced open the door.

“Welcome, welcome to your prey!” he yelled, and drawing a knife from his sash, darted it into his bosom. The act was so instantaneous that to arrest the blow was impossible. He fell and died with a brief, fierce struggle.

“Horrible end,” murmured Jubal, gazing on the silent form; “happier for that wretch to have perished in the hottest strife of man or nature, trampled in the charge or plunged into the billows! Save me from the misery of lonely death!”

“Yet,” said I, “it was our presence that made him feel. He was guilty of some crime, perhaps of many, that the sight of us awoke to torment his dying hour. I saw that he gazed upon me with evident alarm, and not improbably my withered face, and those rags of my dungeon, startled him into recollections too strong for his decaying reason.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

“Never.”

I gave a reluctant look at the hideous distortion of a countenance still full of the final agony. I turned away in awe.

“Now, Jubal, to think of ourselves. Soon we shall have fairly tried our experiment. A few days must exhaust our provisions. The surges roll on the one hand; on the other we have the rock.”

“But we shall die at least in pomp,” said Jubal. “No king of Asia will lie in a nobler vault, nor even have sincerer rejoicings at his end; the crows and vultures are no hypocrites.”

The dead man’s turban had fallen off in his last violence, and I perceived the corner of a letter in its folds. I read it; its intelligence startled me. It was from the commandant of the Roman fleet on the coast mentioning that a squadron was in readiness to “attack the pirates in their cavern.”

A heavy sound, as if something of immense weight had rushed into the entrance of the arch, followed by many voices, stopped our conversation.

“The Romans have come,” said I, “and now you will be indulged with your wish—our lives are forfeited—for never will I go back to the dungeon.”

[Sidenote: The Arrival of Pirates]

“I hear no sound but that of laughter,” said Jubal, listening; “those invaders are the merriest of cutthroats. But before we give ourselves actually into their hands, let us see of what they are made.”

We left the chamber and returned to the recess from which we had originally emerged. It commanded a view of the chief avenues of the cavern; and while I secured the door, Jubal mounted the wall, and reconnoitered the enemy through a fissure.

“These are no Romans,” whispered he, “but a set of the most jovial fellows that ever robbed on the seas. They have clearly been driven in by the storm, and are now preparing to feast. Their voyage has been lucky, if I am to judge by the bales that they are hauling in; and if wine can do it, they will be in an hour or two drunk to the last man.”

“Then we can take advantage of their sleep, let loose one of their boats, and away,” said I.

[Sidenote: Plunderers]

I mounted to see this pirate festivity. In the various vistas of the huge cavern groups of bold-faced and athletic men were gathering, all busy with the work of the time; some piling fires against the walls and preparing provisions; some stripping off their wet garments and bringing others out of heaps of every kind and color, in the recesses of the rock; some wiping the spray from rusty helmets and corselets. The vaults rang with songs, boisterous laughter, the rattling of armor, and the creaking and rolling of chests of plunder. The dashing of the sea under the gale filled up this animated dissonance; and at intervals the thunder, bursting directly above our heads, mingled with all and overpowered all.