CHAPTER XLIX

_Salathiel’s Strange Quarters_

While, with my head bent on my knees, I hung in the misery of self-abhorrence, I heard the name of Constantius sorrowfully pronounced beside me. The state in which he must be left by my long absence flashed upon my mind; I raised my eyes, and saw Salome. It was her voice that sounded, and I then first observed the work of wo in her form and features. She was almost a shadow; her eye was lusterless, and the hands that she clasped in silent prayer were reduced to the bone. But before I could speak, Miriam made a sign of silence to me, and led the mourner away; then returning, said:

“I dreaded lest you might make any inquiries before Salome, for her husband. Religion alone has kept her from the grave. On our arrival here, we found our noble Constantius worn out by the fatigue of the time, but he was our guardian spirit in the dreadful tumults of the city. When we were burned out of one asylum, he led us to another. It is but a week since he placed us in this melancholy spot, but yet the more secure and unknown. He himself brought us provisions, supplied us with every comfort that could be obtained by his impoverished means, and saved us from famine. But now,”—the tears filled her eyes and she could not proceed.

“Yes—now,” said I, “he is a sight that would shock the eye; we must keep Salome in ignorance as long as we can.”

[Sidenote: The Fate of Constantius]

“The unhappy girl knows his fate but too well. He left us a few days since, to obtain some intelligence of the siege. We sat, during the night, listening to the frightful sounds of battle. At daybreak, unable any longer to bear the suspense or sit looking at Salome’s wretchedness, I ventured to the fountain-gate, and there heard what I so bitterly anticipated—our brave Constantius was slain!”

She wept aloud, and sobs and cries of irrepressible anguish answered her from the chamber of my unhappy child.

[Sidenote: A False Report]

The danger of a too sudden discovery prevented me from drying those tears, and I could proceed only by offering conjectures on the various chances of battle, the possibility of his being made prisoner, and the general difficulty of ascertaining the fates of men in the irregular combats of a populace. But Salome sat fixed in cold incredulity. Esther sorrowfully kissed my hand, for my disposition to give them a ray of comfort; Miriam gazed on me with a sad and searching look, as if she felt that I would not tamper with their distresses, yet she was deeply perplexed for the issue. At last the delay grew painful to myself, and taking Salome to my arms, and pressing a kiss of parental love on her pale cheek, I whispered, “He lives!”

I was overwhelmed with transports and thanksgivings. Precaution was at an end. If battle had been raging in the streets, I could not now have restrained the generous impatience of friendship and love. We left the mansion. There was not much to leave besides the walls; but such as it was, the first fugitive was welcome to the possession. Night was still within the building, which had belonged to some of the Roman officers of state, and was massive and of great extent. But at the threshold the gray dawn came quivering over the Mount of Olives.

We struggled through the long and winding streets, which even in the light were nearly impassable. From the inhabitants we met with no impediment; a few haggard and fierce-looking men stared at us from the ruins,[47] but we, wrapped up in rude mantles and hurrying along, wore too much the livery of despair to be disturbed by our fellows in wretchedness. With a trembling heart I led the way to the chamber, where lay one in whose life our general happiness was centered. Fearful of the shock which our sudden appearance might give his enfeebled frame, and not less of the misery with which he must be seen, I advanced alone to the bedside. He gave no sign of recognition, tho he was evidently awake, and I was about to close the curtains and keep, at least, Salome from the hazardous sight of this living ruin, when I found her beside me. She took his hand and sat down on the bed, with her eyes fixed on his hollow features. She spoke not a word, but sat cherishing the wasted hand in her own and kissing it with sad fondness. Her grief was too sacred for our interference, and in sorrow scarcely less poignant than her own, I led apart Miriam and Esther, who, like me, believed that the parting day was come.

Such rude help as could be found in medicine—at a time when our men of science had fled the city, and a few herbs were the only resource—had not been neglected even in my distraction. But life seemed retiring hour by hour, and if I dared to contemplate the death of this beloved being, it was almost with a wish that it had happened before the arrival of those to whom it must be a renewal of agony.

[Sidenote: Salathiel Faces Difficulties]

Still, the minor cares, which make so humble yet so necessary a page in the history of life, were to occupy me. Food must be provided for the increased number of my inmates, and where was that to be found in the circle of a beleaguered city? Money was useless, even if I possessed it; the friends who would once have shared their last meal with me were exiled or slain, and it was in the midst of a fierce populace, themselves dying of hunger, that I was to glean the daily subsistence of my wife and children. The natural pride of the chieftain revolted at the idea of supplicating for food, but this was one of the questions that show the absurdity of pride, and I must beg if I would not see them die.

The dwelling had belonged to one of the noble families extinguished, or driven away, in the first commotions of the war. The factions which perpetually tore each other, and fought from house to house, had stripped its lofty halls of everything that could be plundered in the hurry of civil feud, and when I took refuge under its roof it looked the very palace of desolation. But it was a shelter, undisturbed by the riots of the crowd, too bare to invite the robber; and even in its vast and naked chambers, its gloomy passages and frowning casements, congenial to the mood of my mind. With Constantius insensible and dying before me, and with my own spirit darkened by an eternal cloud, I loved loneliness and darkness. When the echo of the winds came round me, as I sat during my miserable midnights, watching the countenance of my son, and moistening his feverish lip with the water that even then was becoming a commodity of rare price in Jerusalem, I had communed with memories that I would not have exchanged for the brightest enjoyments of life. I welcomed the sad music, in which the beloved voices revisited my soul; what was earth now to me but a tomb? Pomp—nay, comfort—would have been a mockery. I clung to the solitude and obscurity that gave me the picture of the grave.

But the presence of my family made me feel the wretchedness of my abode. When I cast my eyes round the squalid and chilling halls, and saw wandering through them those gentle and delicate forms, and saw them trying to disguise, by smiles and cheering words, the depression that the whole scene must inspire, I felt a pang that might defy a firmer philosophy than mine—the despair that finds its only relief in scorn.

[Sidenote: The Palace of the Winds]

“Here,” said I to Miriam, as I hastened to the door, “I leave you mistress of a palace. The Asmonean blood once flourished within these walls; and why not we? I have seen the nobles of the land crowded into these chambers. They are not so full now, but we must make the most of what we have. Those hangings, that I remember, the pride of the Sidonian who sold them, are left to us still; if they are in fragments, they will but show our handiwork the more. We must make our own music; and in default of menials, serve with our own hands. The pile in that corner was once a throne sent by a Persian king to the descendant of the Maccabee; it will serve us at least for firing. The walls are thick; the roof may hold out a few storms more; the casements, if they keep out nothing else, keep out the daylight, an unwelcome guest, which would do anything but reconcile us to the state of the mansion, and now, farewell for a few hours.”

Miriam caught my arm, and said, in that sweet tone which always sank into my heart:

[Sidenote: Miriam Chides Salathiel]

“Salathiel, you must not leave us in this temper. I would rather hear your open complaints of fortune than this affectation of contempt for your calamities. They are many and painful, I allow, tho I will not, dare not, repine. They may even be such as are beyond human cure, but who shall say that he has deserved better—or if he has, that suffering may not be the determined means of exalting his nature? Is gold the only thing that is to be tried in the fire?”

She waited my answer with a look of dejected love.

“Miriam, I need not say that I respect and honor your feelings, but no resignation can combat the substantial evils of life. Will the finest sentiments that ever came from human lips make this darkness light, turn this bitter wind into warmth, or make these hideous chambers but the dungeon?”

“My husband, I dread this language,” was the answer, with more than usual solemnity; “it is—must I say it?—even unwise. Shall the creatures of the Power by whom we are placed in life either defy His wrath or disregard His mercy? Might we not be more severely tasked than we are? Are there not thousands at this hour in the world who, with at least equal claims to the divine benevolence (I tremble when I use the presumptuous phrase), are undergoing calamities to which ours are happiness? Look from this very threshold; are there not thousands within the walls of Jerusalem, groaning in the pangs of unhealed wounds, mad, starving, stripped of every succor of man, dying in hovels, the last survivors of their wretched race? and yet we, still enjoying health, with a roof over our heads, with our children round us safe, when the plague of the first-born has fallen upon almost every house in Judea, can complain! Be comforted, my love; I see but one actual calamity among us; and if Constantius should survive, even that one would be at an end.”

I left my gentle despot, and hurried through the echoing halls of this palace of the winds. As I approached the great avenues leading from the gates to the Temple, unusual sounds struck my ears. Hitherto nothing in the sadness of the besieged city was sadder than its silence. Death was lord of Jerusalem, and the numberless ways in which life was extinguished had left but the remnant of its once proud and flourishing population.

[Sidenote: Gathering at Jerusalem]

But now shouts, and still more, the deep and perpetual murmur that bespeaks the movements and gatherings of a crowded city, astonished me. My first conception was that the enemy had advanced in force, and I was turning toward the battlements to witness, or repel the general fate, when I was involved in the multitude whose voices had perplexed me.

It was the season of the Passover. The Roman barrier had hitherto kept back the tribes; but the victory that left it in embers opened the gates; and from the most death-like solitude, we were once more to see the sons of Judea filling the courts of the city of cities.