CHAPTER XLIII

_Before Masada_

Our flight lay toward Masada. The stars were brilliant guides, and the coolness of the Arabian night, which forms so singular a contrast to the overpowering ardors of the day, relieved us from the chief obstacle of desert travel. At daybreak we reached a tract, whose broken and burnt-up ground showed that there had lately encamped the army the sound of whose march had startled my reveries in the island.

It was evening when I caught the glimpse of the fortress. My heart trembled at the sight. An impression of evil was upon me. Yet I must go on or die.

“There,” said I, “you see my home, and yours while you desire it. You will find friends delighted to receive you, and a protection that neither Roman nor Arab can insult. Heaven grant that all may be as when I left Masada!”

The fair girl gratefully thanked me.

[Sidenote: Naomi’s Gratitude]

“I have been long,” said she, “unused to kindness, and its voice overpowers me. But if the duty, the gratitude, the faithful devotedness of the orphan to her generous preserver can deserve protection, I shall yet have some claim. Suffer me to be your daughter.”

She bowed her head before me with filial reverence. I took the outstretched hand, that quivered in mine, and pressed it to my lips. The sacred compact was pledged in the sight of the stars. More formal treaties have been made, but few sincerer.

We rapidly advanced to the foot of the ridge that, now defining and extending, showed its well-known features in all their rugged grandeur. But to come within reach of the gates, I had still one of the huge buttresses of the mountain to go round. My companion, with the quick sympathy that makes one of the finest charms of women, already shared in my ominous fears, and rode by my side without a word. My eyes were fixed on the ground. I was roused by a clash of warlike music. The suspense was terribly at an end.

[Sidenote: Signs of Defeat]

The spears of a legion were moving in a glittering line down the farther declivity. Squadrons of horses in marching order were drawn up on the plain. The baggage of a little army lay under the eye, waiting for the escort now descending from the fortress. The story of my ruin was told in that single glance. All was lost!

The walls of the citadel, breached in every direction, gave signs of a long siege. The White Stag of Naphtali no longer lifted its blazon on the battlements; dismantling and desolation were there. But what horrors must have been wrought before the Romans could shake the strength of those walls!

First and most fearful, what had been the fate of Miriam and my children? In what grave was I to look for my noble brother and my kinsmen?

Conscious that to stay was to give myself and my trembling companion to the cruel mercy of Rome, I yet was unable to leave the spot. I hovered round it, as the spirit might hover round the tomb. Maddening with bitter yearnings of heart, that intense eagerness to know the worst which is next to despair, I spurred up the steep by an obscure path that led me to a postern. There was no sound within. I dashed through the streets. Not a living being was to be seen; piles of firewood lighted under the principal buildings and at the gates showed that the fortress was destined to immediate overthrow. War had done its worst. The broad, sanguine plashes on the pavements showed that the battle had been fought, long and desperately, within the walls. The famous armory was a heap of ashes. Ditches dug across the streets and strewed with broken weapons, and the white remnants of what once was man; walls raised within walls, and now broken down; stately houses loopholed and turned into little fortresses; fragments of noble architecture blocking up the breaches; graves dug in every spot where the spade could open a few feet of ground; fragments of superb furniture lying half burnt where the defenders had been forced out by conflagration—all gave sad evidence of the struggle of brave men against overpowering numbers.

But where were they who had made the prize so dear to the conquerors? Was I treading on the clay that once breathed patriotism and love? Did the wreck on which I leaned, as I gazed round this mighty mausoleum, cover the earthly tenement of my kinsmen, and, still dearer, the last of my name? Was I treading on the grave of those gentle and lovely natures for whose happiness I would rejoicingly have laid down the scepter of the world?

[Sidenote: Salathiel Meets Jubal]

In my agitation I cried aloud. My voice rang through the solitude round me, and returned on the ear with a startling distinctness. But living sounds suddenly mingled with the echo. A low groan came from a pile of ruins beside me. I listened, as one might listen for an answer from the sepulcher. The voice was heard again. A few stones from the shattered wall gave way, and I saw thrust out the withered, bony hand of a human being. I tore down the remaining impediments, and beheld pale, emaciated, and at the point of death by famine, my friend, my fellow soldier, my fellow sufferer—Jubal!

Joy is sometimes as dangerous as sorrow. He gave a glance of recognition, struggled forward, and, uttering a wild cry, fell senseless into my arms. On his recovering, before I could ask him the question nearest my heart, it was answered.

“They are safe—all safe,” said he. “On the landing of fresh troops from Italy, the first efforts of the legions were directed against the fortress. The pirates, in return for the victory to which you led them, had set me at liberty. I made my way through the enemy’s posts; Eleazar, ever generous and noble, received me, after all my wanderings, with the heart of a father, and we determined on defending this glorious trophy of your heroism, to the last man. But with the wisdom that never failed him, he knew what must be the result, and at the very commencement of the siege sent your family away to Alexandria, where they might be sure of protection from our kindred.”

[Sidenote: Salathiel’s Family]

“And they went by sea?” I asked shudderingly, while the whole terrible truth dawned upon my mind. They were in the fleet which I had followed.

“It was the only course. The country was filled with the enemy.”

“Then they are lost! Wretched father, now no father!—man marked by destiny!—the blow has fallen at last! They perished—I saw them perish. Their dying shrieks rang in these ears. I was their destroyer. From first to last I have been their undoing!”

Jubal looked on me with astonishment. My adopted daughter, without any idle attempt at consolation, only bathed my hand with her tears.

“There must be some misconception in all this,” said Jubal. “Before we left that accursed dungeon, they had embarked with a crowd of females from the surrounding country in one of the annual fleets for Egypt. Before we sailed from the pirates’ cavern they were probably safe in Alexandria.”

“No! I saw them perish. I heard their dying cry. I drove them to destruction,” was the only answer that my withering lips could utter. I remembered the horrors of the storm; the desperate efforts of the merchant galley to escape; its fatal disappearance. Faintly, and with many a successive agony, I gave the melancholy reasons for my belief. My auditors listened with fear and trembling.

“There is now no use in sorrow,” said Jubal sternly, “and as little in struggle. I too have lived until the light that brightened my dreary hours is extinguished. I too have known the extremities of passion. If suffering could have atoned for my offenses, I have suffered. A thousand years of existence could not teach me more. Here let us die.”

He unsheathed his poniard.

My young companion, in the anxiety of the moment, forgetting the presence of a stranger, flung back the veil which had hitherto covered her face and figure, and clasping my raised arm, said in a tone so low, yet penetrating, that it seemed the whisper of my own conscience:

[Sidenote: Naomi’s Reprimand]

“Has death no fears?” She fixed her eyes on me and waited breathlessly for the answer.

“Daughter of beauty,” said Jubal, as a smile of admiration played on his sad features, “thoughts like ours are not for the lovely and the young. May the Heaven that has stamped that countenance be your protection through many a year! But to the weary, rest is happiness, not terror. Prince of Naphtali, this fair maiden’s presence forbids darker thoughts; we must speed her on her way to security before we can think of ourselves and our misfortunes.”

“The daughter of Ananus,” said she, in atone of heroic pride, “has no earthly fears. The boldest warrior of Israel never died more boldly than that venerable parent. Within his sacred robes was the heart of a soldier, a patriot, and a king. Let me die for a cause like his; at the foot of the altar, let my blood be poured out for my country; let this feeble form sink in the ruins of the Temple, and death will be of all welcome things the most welcome. But I would not die for a fantasy, for idleness, for nothing. Put up that weapon, warrior, and let us go forth and see whether great things are not yet to be done.”

She significantly pointed toward Jerusalem.

“It is too late,” said Jubal, glancing with a sigh at his own wasted form.

“What?” said the heroine; “is it too late to be virtuous, but not too late to be guilty? Too late to resist the enemies of our country, but not too late to make ourselves worthless to our holy cause? If Heaven demands an account of every wasted talent and misspent hour, what fearful account will be theirs who make all talents and all hours useless at a blow?”

“Maiden, you have not known what it is to lose everything that made earth a place of hope,” said I, gazing with wonder and pity on the fine enthusiasm that the world is so fatally empowered to destroy. “May not the tired traveler hasten to the end of his journey without a crime?”

“May not the slave,” said Jubal, “weary of his chain, escape unchidden from his captivity?”

[Sidenote: Words of Wisdom]

“And may not the soldier quit his post when caprice disgusts him with his duty?” was the maiden’s answer, with a lofty look. “Or, may not the child break loose from the place of instruction and plead his dislike to discipline? As well may man, placed here for the service of the highest of beings, plead his own narrow will against the supreme command, daringly charge Heaven with the injustice of setting him a task above his strength, and madly insult Its power under the pretext of relying on Its compassion.”

She paused, as if surprised at her own earnestness, and blushing, said: “This wisdom is not my own. It was the last gift of an illustrious parent, when in my agony at the sight of his mortal wounds I longed to follow him. ‘Live,’ said he, ‘while you can live with virtue. The God who has placed us on earth best knows when and how to recall us. If self-destruction were no crime in one instance, it would be no crime to universal mankind; the whole frame of society would be overthrown by a permission to evade its duties on the easy penalty of dying. Our obligations to country, family, man, and Heaven would be perpetually flung off, if they were to be held at the caprice of human nature.’”

Jubal looked intently on the young oracle, and tho bending with Oriental deference, was yet unconvinced.

“Is there to be no end to the mind’s anxiety but the tardy decay of the frame? Is there no time for the return of the exile, or what is this very feeling of despair but a voice within—an unwritten command to die?”

Naomi turned to me with a look imploring my aid. But I was broken down by the tidings that had now reached me. Jubal wrapped his cloak round him, and was striding into the shadow of the ruin. Naomi, terrified at the idea of death, seized the corner of his mantle.

“Will you shrink from the evils of life,” she adjured, “and yet have the dreadful courage to defy the wrath of Heaven? Shall worms like us, shall creatures covered with weaknesses and sins, whose only hope must be in mercy, commit a crime that by its very nature disclaims supplication and makes repentance impossible?”

With the energy of terror she threw back the folds of the cloak and arrested the hand, with the dagger already uplifted. She led back the reluctant, yet unresisting, step, and said in a voice still trembling: “Prince of Naphtali, save your brother!”

[Sidenote: Naomi’s Triumph]

I held out my arms to Jubal; the sternness of his soul was past, and he fell upon my neck. Naomi stood, exulting in her triumph, with the countenance that an angel might wear at the return of a sinner.

“Prince of Naphtali,” said she, “if those who were dear to you have perished—which Heaven avert!—you may have been thus but the more marked out for the instrument of solemn services to Israel. The virtues that might have languished in the happiness of home may be summoned into vigor for mankind. Warrior,” and she turned her glowing smile on Jubal, “this is not the time for valor and experience to shrink from the side of our country. Perfidy may still be repelled by patriotism; violence put down by wisdom; the power of the people roused by the example of a hero; even the last spark of life may be made splendid by mingling with the last glories of the people of God.”

Jubal’s wasted cheek reddened with the theme; but his emotion was too deep for language. He led the way; we passed in silence through the deserted streets, and without seeing the face of a human being, reached the dismantled gates of Masada.