CHAPTER LI

_A Man of Mystery_

The movement of the Roman mission through the plain was marked by loud shouts. As it approached the gates, our little council descended from the temple porch to meet it, where one of the open places in the center of the city was appointed for the conference. The applauding roar of the people followed the troops through the streets, and when the tribunes and senators entered the square, and gave us the right hand of amity, universal acclamation shook the air. A gleam of joy revisited my heart, and I was on the point of ascending an elevation in the center, to announce the terms of this fortunate armistice, when to my astonishment I saw the spot preoccupied.

[Sidenote: An Intruder]

Whence came the intruder no one could tell, but there he stood, a figure that fixed the universal eye. He was of gigantic stature, brown as an Indian, and thin as one worn to the last extremity by disease or famine. Conjecture was busy. He seemed alternately the fugitive from a dungeon—one of the half-savage recluses that sometimes came from their dens in the wilderness, to exhibit among us the last humiliation of mind and body—a dealer in forbidden arts, attempting to impose on the credulity of the populace, and a prophet armed with the fearful knowledge of our approaching fall. To me there was an expression in his countenance that partook of all; yet there was a something different from all in the glaring eye, the livid scorn of the lip, and the wild and yet grand outline of features which appeared alike overflowing with malignity and majesty.

[Sidenote: The Tempest of a Soul]

No man thought of interrupting him. A powerful interest hushed every voice of the multitude, and the only impulse was eagerness to hear the lofty wisdom or the fatal tidings that must be deposited with such a being. He himself seemed to be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the thoughts that he was commissioned to disclose. He stood for a while with the look of one oppressed by a fearful dream, his bosom heaving, his teeth gnashing, every muscle of his meager frame swelling and quivering. He clasped his bony arms across his breast, as if to repress the agitation that impeded his words; he stamped on the ground, in apparent wrath at the faculties which thus sank under him at the important moment; at last the tempest of his soul broke forth:

“Judah! thou wert as a lion—thou wert as the king of the forest, when he went up to the mountains to slay, and from the mountains came down to devour. Thou wert as the garden of Eden; every precious stone was thy covering; the sardine, the topaz, and the beryl were thy pavements; thy fountains were of silver, and thy daughters who walked in thy groves were as the cherubim and the seraphim.

“Judah! thy temple was glorious as the sun-rising, and thy priests were the wise of the earth. Kings came against thee, and their bones were an offering; the fowls of the air devoured them; the foxes brought their young, and feasted them upon the mighty.

“Judah! thou wert as a fire in the midst of the nations—a fire upon an altar; who shall quench thee? A sword over the neck of the heathen; who shall say unto thee, Smite no more! Thou wert as the thunder and the lightning; thou camest from thy place, and the earth was dark. Thou didst thunder, and the nations shook, and the fire of thy indignation consumed them.”

The voice in which this extraordinary being uttered those words was like the thunder. The multitude listened with breathless awe. The appeal was to them a renewal of the times of inspiration, and they awaited with outstretched hands and quivering countenances the sentence that their passions interpreted into the will of Heaven.

The figure lifted up his glance, which had hitherto been fixed on the ground; and whether it was the work of fancy or reality, I thought that the glance threw an actual beam of fire across the upturned visages of the myriads that filled every spot on which a foot could rest—roof, wall, and ground.

Bowing his head, and raising his hands in the most solemn adoration toward the Temple, he pursued, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, yet indescribably impressive:

“Sons of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob! people elect and holy! will you suffer that house of holiness to be the scoff of the idolater? Will you see the polluted sacrifice laid upon its altars? Will you be slaves in the presence of the house of David?”

[Sidenote: The Outcry of the Multitude]

A rising outcry of the multitude showed how deeply they felt his words. A fierce smile lightened across his features at the sound. He erected his colossal form, and cried out like the roar of a whirlwind:

“Then, men of Judah! be strong, and follow the hand that led you through the sea and through the desert. Is that hand shortened that it cannot save? Break off this accursed league with the sons of Belial. Fly every man to arms, for the glory of the mighty people. Go, and let the sword that smote the Canaanite smite the Roman.”

He was answered with furious exultation. Swords and poniards were brandished in the air. The safety of the Roman officers became endangered, and I, with some of the elders, dreading a result which must throw fatal obstacles in the way of pacification, attempted to control the popular violence by reason and entreaty. But the spirit of the Romans, haughty with conquest and long contempt of the multitude, disdained to take precautions with a mob, and they awaited with palpable contempt the subsiding of this city effervescence. This silent scorn, which probably stung the deeper for its silence, was retorted to by clamors of unequivocal rage. The mysterious disturber saw the storm coming, and flinging a furious gesture toward the Roman camps, which lay glittering in the sunshine along the hills, he rushed into the loftiest language of malediction.

“Take up a lament for the Roman,” he shouted. “He comes like a leviathan; he troubleth the waters with his presence, and the rivers behold him and are afraid.

[Sidenote: The Prophecy of Doom]

“Thus saith the king, He who holdeth Israel in the hollow of His hand: I will spread My net over thee, and My people shall drag thee upon the shore; I will leave thee to rot upon the land; I will fill the beasts of the earth with thee, until they shall come and find thee, dry bones and dust—even thy glory turned into a taint and a scorn.

“Lift up a cry over Rome and say, Thou art the leopard; thy jaws are red with blood, and thy claws are heavy because of the multitude of the slain; thy spots are glorious, and thy feet are like wings for swiftness. But thy time is at hand. My arrow shall smite through thee; My sword shall go through thee; I will lay thy flesh upon the hills; thy blood shall be red in the rivers; the pits shall be full of thee.

“For thus saith the king: I have not forsaken My children. For My pleasure I have given them over for a while to the hands of the oppressor; but they have loved Me—they have come before Me, and offered up sacrifices; and shall I desert the land of the chosen, the sons of the glorious, My people Israel!”

A universal outcry of wrath and triumph followed this allusion to the national vengeance.

“Ho!” exclaimed the figure. “Men of Israel, hear the words of wisdom. The burden of Rome. By the swords of the mighty will I cause her multitude to fall; the terrible and the strong shall be on thee, city of the idolater; they shall hew off thy cuirasses as the hewer of wood, and of thy shields they shall make vessels of water. There shall be fire in thy palaces, and the sword. Thy sons and thy daughters shall they consume, and thy precious things shall be a spoil when the king shall give the sign from the sanctuary.”

He paused, and, lifting up his fleshless arm, stood like a giant bronze pointing to the Temple.

To the utter astonishment of all, a vapor was seen to ascend from the summit of Mount Moriah, wreathing and white like the smoke that used to mark the daily sacrifice. Our first conception was that this great rite was resumed, and the shout of joy was on our lips. But the vapor had scarcely parted from the crown of the hill when it blackened and began to whirl with extraordinary rapidity; it thenceforth less ascended than shot up, perpetually darkening and distending. The horizon grew dim; the cloudy canopy above continued to spread and revolve; lightning began to quiver through, and we heard, at intervals, low peals of thunder. But no rain fell, and the wind was lifeless. Nothing could be more complete than the calm; not a hair of our heads was moved, yet the heart of the countless multitude was penetrated with the dread of some impending catastrophe that restrained every voice, and the silence itself was awful.

In the climate of Judea we were accustomed to the rapid rise and violent devastations of tempests. But the rising of this storm, so closely connected with the appearance of the strange summoner that it almost followed his command, invested a phenomenon, at all times fearful, with a character that might have struck firmer minds than those of the enthusiasts round him. To heighten the wonder, the progress of the storm still seemed faithful to the command. Wherever this man of mystery waved his arm, there rushed a sheet of cloud. The bluest tract of heaven was as black as night, at the moment when he turned his ominous presence toward it, until there was no more sky to be obliterated, and but for the fiery streaks that tore through, we should have stood under a canopy of solid gloom.

At length the whirlwind, that we had seen driving and rolling the clouds like billows, burst upon us, scattering fragments of the buildings far and wide, and cutting a broad way through the overthrown multitude. Then superstition and terror were loud-mouthed. The populace, crushed and dashed down, exclaimed that a volcano was throwing up flame from the mount of the Temple; that sulfurous smokes were rising through the crevices of the ground; that the rocking of an earthquake was felt; and still more terrible, that beings, not to be looked on, nor even to be named, were hovering round them in the storm.

[Sidenote: A Wild Panic]

The general rush of the people, in which hundreds were trampled and in which nothing but the most violent efforts could keep any on their feet, bore me away for a while. The struggle was sufficient to absorb all my senses, for nothing could be more perilous. The darkness was intense, the peals of the storm were deafening, and the howlings and fury of the crowd, trampling and being trampled on, and fighting for life in blindness and despair, with hand, foot, and dagger, made an uproar louder than that of the storm. In this conflict, rather of demons than of men, I was whirled away in eddy after eddy, until chance brought me again to the foot of the elevation.

There I beheld a new wonder. A column of livid fire stood upon it, reaching to the clouds. I could discern the outline of a human form within. But while I expected to see it drop dead or blasted to a cinder, the flame spread over the ground, and I saw its strange inhabitant making signs like those of incantation. He drew a circle upon the burning soil, poured out some unguent which diffused a powerful and rich odor, razed the skin of his arm with a dagger, and let fall some drops of blood into the blaze.

I shuddered at the sight of those palpable appeals to the power of Evil, but I was pressed upon by thousands, and retreat was impossible. The strange being then, with a ghastly smile of triumph, waved the weapon toward the Roman camps.

[Sidenote: The Beginnings of Vengeance]

“Behold,” he cried, “the beginnings of vengeance!”

A thunder-roll that almost split the ear echoed round the hills. The darkness passed away with it. Above Jerusalem the sky cleared, and cleared into a translucence and blue splendor unrivaled by the brightest sunshine. The people, wrought up to the highest expectancy, shouted at this promise of a prouder deliverance, and exclaiming, “Goshen! Goshen!” looked breathlessly for the completion of the plague upon the more than Egyptian oppressor. They were not held long in suspense.

[Sidenote: The Bursting of the Storm]

The storm had cleared away above our heads, only to gather in deeper terrors round the circle of hills on which we could see the enemy in the most overwhelming state of alarm. The clouds rushed on, ridge over ridge, until the whole horizon seemed shut in by a wall of night towering to the skies. I heard the deep voice of the orator; at the utterance of some strange words, a gleam played round his dagger’s point, and the wall of darkness was instantly a wall of fire. The storm was let loose in its rage. While we stood in daylight and in perfect calm, the lightning poured like sheets of rain or gushes of burning metal from a furnace upon the enemy. The vast circuit of the camps was instantly one blaze. The wind tore everything before it with irresistible violence. We saw the tents swept off the ground and driven far over the hills in flames like meteors; the piles of arms and banners blown away; the soldiery clinging to the rocks, flying together in helpless crowds, or scattering, like maniacs, with hair and garments on fire; the baggage and military machines, the turrets and ramparts, sinking in flames; the beasts of burden plunging and rushing through the lines, or lying in smoldering heaps where the lightning first smote them. All was conflagration!