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ON
Liman
SALATHIEL.
A STORY OF
16461
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.
BY THE
REV. GEORGE CROLY,
GENERAL LIBRARY
iversity of
MICHIGAN

AUTHOR OF LIFE AND TIMES OF GEORGE THE FOURTH," ” “ APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN,”
"
&c. &c. &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON & CO. 200 BROADWAY-COLLINS & HANNAY, PEARL ST.
BOSTON, CARTER, HENDEE & CO.-PHILADELPHIA, EDWARD MIELKE
-BALTIMORE, GEO. H. MCDOWELL & CO.-SAVANNAH, PURSE
& STILES—RALEIGH, TURNER & HUGHES, AND
BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY.
M DCCC XM.
-


SLEIGHT & VAN NORDEN, PRINT.
¿
ветр
0-7-29
recup
TO HIS GRACE
THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE,
KNIGHT OF THE GARTER,
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE,
&c. &c. &c.
MY LORD DUKE,
I feel highly honored by being allowed to pre-
sent these volumes as a tribute of personal respect to
a nobleman distinguished by his zeal for literature;
and standing in the first rank of the manly, high-
principled, and uncompromising friends of his country.
I have the honor to be
Your Grace's very obedient
And humble servant,
THE AUTHOR,
*
-
;.
PREF A C.E.
THERE has appeared from time to time in Europe, du-
ring the last thousand years, a mysterious individual, a so-
journer in all lands, yet a citizen of none; professing the
profoundest secrets of opulence, yet generally living in a
state of poverty; astonishing every one by the vigor of
his recollections, and the evidence of his close and living
intercourse with the eminent characters and events of every
age, yet connected with none-without lineage, or posses-
sion, or pursuit on earth-a wanderer and unhappy.
A number of histories have been invented for him
some purely fictitious, others founded on ill-understood
records. Germany, the land of mysticism, where men
labor to think all facts imaginary, and turn all imagina-
tions into facts, has toiled most in this idle perversion of
truth. Yet those narratives have been in general but a
few pages, feebly founded on the single, fatal sentence of
his punishment for an indignity offered to the Great Author
of the Christian faith.
That exile lives; that most afflicted of the people of
affliction, yet walks this earth; bearing the sorrows of
eighteen centuries on his brow,-withering in soul with
remorse for the guilt of an hour of madness. He has
long borne the scoff in silence; he has heard his princely
rank degraded to that of a menial, and heard without a
murmur; he has heard his unhappy offence charged to
deliberate malice and cruelty, when it was but the misfor-
做
​!
1*
vi·
PREFACE.
•
more.
tune of a zeal blinded and inflamed by the prejudices of
his nation; and he has bowed to the calumny as a portion
of his punishment. But the time of this forbearance is no
He feels himself at last wearing away; and feels,
with a sensation like that of returning to the common
fates of mankind, a desire to stand clear with his fellow-
men. In their presence he will never move again. To
their justice, or their mercy, he will never again appeal.
The wound of his soul rests, never again to be disclosed;
until that day when all things shall be summoned and be
known.
In his final retreat he has collected these memorials.
He has concealed nothing, he has dissembled nothing;
the picture of his hopes and fears, his weakness and his
sorrows, is stamped here with sacred sincerity.
Other narratives may be more specious or eloquent; but
this narrative has the supreme merit of truth; it is the most
true it is the only true.
C...
F
SALATHIE L.
CHAPTER I.
""
"TARRY THOU, TILL I COME.
The words shot through
me-I felt them like an arrow in my heart-my brain whirl-
ed-my eyes grew dim. The troops, the priests, the popu
lace, the world passed away from before my senses like
phantoms.
But my mind had a horrible clearness. As if the veil that
separates the visible and invisible worlds had been rent in
sundér, I saw shapes and signs for which mortal language
has no name. The whole expanse of the future spread un-
der my mental gaze in dreadful vision. A preternatural
light, a new power of mind seemed to have been poured into
my being. I saw at once the full guilt of my crime-the
fierce folly-the mad ingratitude-the desperate profanation.
I lived over again in frightful distinctness every act and
instant of the night of my unspeakable sacrilege. I saw, as
if written with a sunbeam, the countless injuries, that in the
rage of bigotry I had accumulated upon the victim; the bit-
ter mockeries that I had devised; the cruel tauntings that my
lips had taught the rabble; the pitiless malignity that had
forbidden them to discover a trace of virtue where all virtue
was. The blows of the scourge still sounded in my ears.
Every drop of the innocent blood rose up in judgment before
me.
Accursed be the night in which I fell before the tempter!
Blotted out from time and eternity be the hour in which I
took part with the torturers! Every fibre of my frame qui-
vers, every drop of my blood curdles, as I still hear the echo
of the anathema that on the night of woe sprang first from
8
.00
SALATHIEL.
:
my furious lips, the self-pronounced ruin, the words of de-
solation, "HIS BLOOD BE UPON US, AND UPON OUR CHILDREN!"
I had headed the multitude: where others shrank, I urged;
where others pitied, I reviled, and inflamed; I scoffed at the
feeble malice of the priesthood; I scoffed at the tardy cruelty
of the Roman; I swept away by menace and by scorn the
human reluctance of the few who dreaded to dip their hands
in blood. Thinking to do God service, and substituting my
passions for my God, I threw firebrands on the hearts of a
rash, jealous, and bigoted people. I triumphed!
:
In a deed which ought to have covered earth with lamen-
tation, which was to make angels weep, which might have
shaken the universe into dust, I triumphed! The decree
was passed but my frenzy was not so to be satiated. I
loathed the light while the victim lived. Under the penalty
of treason to Cæsar, I demanded instant execution of the
sentence.—“ Not a day of life must be given," I exclaimed ;
·
"not an hour;-death, on the instant; death!" My clamor
was echoed by the roar of millions.
་
But, in the moment of my exultation, I was stricken. In
the acclamation of the multitude came forth the command.
He who had refused an hour of life to the victim, was in
terrible retribution condemned to know the misery of life in-
terminable. I heard through all the voices of Jerusalem—I
should have heard through all the thunders of heaven the
calm low voice, "Tarry thou, till I come!"
I felt my fate at once. I sprang away through the shout-
ing hosts, as if the avenging angel waved his sword above
my head. Wild songs, furious execrations, the rude uproar
of myriads stirred to the heights of popular passion, filled the
air; still through all I heard the pursuing sentence, " Tarry
thou, till I come," and felt it to be the sentence of incurable
agony! I was never to know the shelter of the grave.
Immortality on earth!-The perpetual compulsion of ex-
istence in a world made for change; to feel the weariness
of thousands of years bowing down my wretched head;
alienated from all the hopes, enjoyments, and pursuits of
man, to bear the heaviness of that existence, which palls
even with all the stimulants of the most vivid career of man ;
life passionless, exhausted, melancholy, old: I would rather
have been blown about on the storms of every region of the
universe. I was to be a wild beast, and a wild beast con-
.
1
SALATHIEL.
9
demned to pace the same eternal cage! A criminal bound
to the floor of his dungeon forever!
Immortality on earth!-I was now in the vigor of life
but must it be always so? Must not pain, feebleness, the
loss of mind, the sad decay of all the resources of the hu-
man being, be the natural result of time? Might I not
sink into the perpetual sick bed, hopeless decrepitude, pain
without cure or relaxation, the extremities of famine, of dis-
ease, of madness?-yet this was to be borne for ages of
ages!
Immortality on earth!-Separation from all that cheers
and ennobles life; I was to survive my country; to see the
soil dear to my heart violated by the feet of barbarians yet
unborn. Her sacred monuments, her trophies, her tombs, a
scoff and a spoil; without a resting spot to the sole of my
feet, I was to witness the slave, the man of blood, the savage
of the desert, the furious infidel, rioting in my inheritance,
digging up the bones of my fathers, trampling on the holy
ruins of Jerusalem!
I was to feel the still keener misery of surviving all that
I loved; wife, child, friend, even to the last being with whom
my heart could imagine a human bond, all that bore a drop
of my blood in their veins, were to perish in my sight, and
I was to stand on the verge of the perpetual grave, without
the power to seek its refuge. If new affections could ever
wind their way into my closed up and frozen bosom, it must
be only to fill it with new sorrows; for those I loved must
still be torn from me. In the world I must remain, and re-
main alone!
Immortality on earth!—The grave that closes on the sin-
ner, closes on his sin. His weight of offense is fixed. No
new guilt can gather on him there. But I was to know no
limit to the weight that was already crushing me. The guilt
of life upon life, the surges of an unfathomable ocean of
crime were to roll in eternal progress over my head. If the
judgment of the great day was terrible to him who had passed
but through the common measure of existence, what must
be its terrors to the wretch who was to appear loaded with
the accumulated guilt of a thousand lives!
Overwhelmed with despair, I rushed through Jerusalem,
with scarcely a consciousness of whither I was going. It
was the time of the Passover, when the city was crowded
with the multitude come to the great festival of the year. I
10
SALATHIEL.
felt an instinctive horror of the human countenance, and
I at
shunned every avenue by which the tribes came in.
last found myself at the Gate of Zion, that leads southward
into the open country. I had then no eyes for that wondrous
portal which had exhausted the skill of the most famous
Ionian sculptors, the master-work of Herod the Great.
But
I vainly tried to force my wild way through the crowds that
lingered on their march to gaze upon its matchless beauty;
portal, alone worthy of the wonders to which it led, like the
glory of an evening cloud opening to lead the eye upwards
to the stars.
+
".
On those days the Roman guard were withdrawn; I
ascended the battlements to seek another escape; but the
concourse gathered there to look upon the entrance of the
tribes, fixed me to the spot. Of all the strange and magnifi-
cent sights of Earth, this entrance was the most fitted to
swell the national pride of country and religion. The dis-
persion ordained by Heaven for judgment on the crimes of
our idolatrous kings, had, in that wonder-working power by
which good is brought out of evil, planted our law in the re-
motest extremities of the world. Among its proselytes were
the mighty of all regions, the military leaders, the sages, the
kings; all, at least once in their lives, coming to pay homage
to the great central city of the faith; and all coming with
the pomp and attendance of their rank. The procession
amounted to a number which threw all after-times into the
shade. Three millions of people have been counted at the
Passover. The diversities of the multitude were still more
striking. Every race of mankind, in its most marked pecu-
liarities, there passed beneath the eye.
There came the long train of swarthy slaves and menials
round the chariot of the Indian prince, clothed in the silks
and jewels of the regions beyond the Ganges. Upon them
pressed the troop of African lion-hunters, half-naked, but with
their black limbs wreathed with pearl and fragments of un-
wrought gold. Behind them moved on their camels a pa-
triarchal group, the Arab Sheik, a venerable figure with his
white locks flowing from beneath his turban, leading his sons,
like our father Abraham, from the wilderness to the Mount
of Vision. Then rolled on the glittering chariot of the As-
syrian chieftain, a regal show of purple and gems, and con-
voyed by horsemen covered with armor. The Scythian.
Jews, wrapped in the furs of wolf and bear, iron men of the
:
SALATHIEL.
11
north: the noble Greek, the perfection of the human form,
with his countenance beaming the genius and beauty of his
country: the broad and yellow features of the Chinese rabbins;
the fair skins and gigantic forms of the German tribes;
strange clusters of men unknown to the limits of Europe
or Asia, with their black locks, complexions of the color of
gold, and slight yet sinewy limbs, marked with figures of suns
and stars struck into the flesh; marched crowd on crowd;
and in strong contrast with all, the Italian on the charger or
in the chariot, urging the living stream to the right and left,
with the haughtiness of the acknowledged master of man-
kind. The representative world was before me.
•
But all those distinctive marks of country and pursuit,
though palpably ineradicable by human means, were deeply
overpowered and mingled by the one grand impression of the
place and the time. In their presence was the City of Holi-
ness; the Hill of Zion lifted up its palaces; above it
ascended, like another city, in a higher region of the air,
that TEMPLE to whose majesty the world could show no
equal, to which the eyes of the believer were turned from
the uttermost parts of earth, in whose courts Solomon, the
king of earthly kings for wisdom, had called down the bless-
ing of the Most High, and it had descended on the altar in
fire; in whose sanctuary the Lord, whom heaven and the
heaven of heavens cannot contain, was yet to make his
throne, and give glory to his people.
Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem! when I think of what I saw
thee then, and of what I have since seen thee, the spoiled,
the desolate, the utterly put to shame; when I have seen
the Roman plough driven through the soil on which stood the
Holy of Holies; the Saracen destroying even its ruins; the
last, worst devastator, the barbarian of the Caucasus, the
ruffian Turk, sitting in grim scorn upon the towers of the
city of David; violating the tombs of the prophet and the
king; turning up for plunder the soil, every blade of whose
grass, every atom of whose dust, was sacred to the broken
people of Israel: trampling with savage cruelty, and the
deeper torture of infidel insult, my countrymen that lingered
among its walls only that they might seek a grave in the ashes
of the mighty; I have felt my spirit uproused, and maddened
within me. I have made impious wishes. I have longed
for the lightning to blast the tyrant. I still start from my bed
when I hear the whirlwind, and send forth fierce prayers that
+
12
SALATHIEL.
its rage may be poured on the tents of the oppressor. I un
consciously tear away my white locks, and scatter them in
bitterness of soul towards the east. In the wildness of the
moment, I have imagined every cloud that sailed along the
night a minister of the descending vengeance. I have seen
it a throne of terrible shapes flying on the wings of the
wind, majestic spirits and kings of wrath hurrying through
the heavens to pour down sulphureous hail and fire, as upon
the cities of the Dead Sea. I have cried out with our pro-
phet, as the vision swept along, "Who is he that cometh
from Edom? with dyed garments from Bozra? he that is
glorious in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his
strength! Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and
thy garments, like him that treadeth the wine-press?" and I
have thought that I heard the answer "I, that speak in
righteousness, mighty to save! I will tread them in mine
anger, and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be
sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment :
for the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of
my redeemed is come!"
Then, when the impulse passed away, and my heart wi-
thered within me; my eyes have turned into fountains of tears,
and I have wept until morning came, and the sounds of the
world called back its recollections, and for the sacred hills
and valleys, that I had imagined in the darkness, I saw only
the roofs of some melancholy city, in which I was a forlorn
fugitive; or a wilderness, with but the burning sands and
the robber before me: or found myself tossing on the
ocean, not more fruitless than my heart, nor more restless
than my life, nor more unfathomable than my woe. Yet, to
the last will I hope and love. Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
even in my mirth, if I forget thee!
But those were the thoughts of after-times. On that memo-
rable and dreadful day, I had no perception but of some un-
definable fate, which was to banish me from mankind. I at
length forced my way through the pressure at the gate,
turned to none of the kinsmen who called to me as I passed
their chariots and horses, overthrew with desperate and sud-
den strength all who impeded my progress, and scarcely felt
the ground till I had left the city behind, and had climbed
up through rocks and ruins the mountain that rose drearily
before me, like a barrier shutting out the living world.
SALATHIEL.
13
CHAPTER II.
TERROR had exhausted me: and throwing myself on the
ground, under the shade of the stunted grove of palm-trees
that thinly crowned the summit of the hill, I fell into an
almost instant slumber. But it was unrefreshing and dis-
turbed. The events of the day again came before me,
strangely mingled with those of my past life, and with others
of which I could form no waking remembrance. I saw
myself sometimes debased below man; like the great Assy-
rian king, driven out to feed upon the herb of the forest, and
wander for years exposed to the scorching sun by day, and the
dews that sank chilling upon my naked frame by night. I then
seemed filled with supernatural power, and rose on wings
till earth was diminished beneath me, and I felt myself fear-
fully alone. Yet there was one predominant sensation, that
all this was for punishment, and that it was to be perpetual.
At length, in one of my imaginary flights, I found myself
whirled on the wind, like a swimmer down a cataract, in
helpless terror into the bosom of a thunder-cloud. I felt the
weight of the rolling vapors around me; I saw the blaze;
I was stunned by a roar that shook the firmament.
My eyes suddenly opened, yet my dream appeared only
to be realized by my waking. Thick clouds of heavy and
heated vapor were rapidly rolling up from the precipices
below; and at intervals a sound that I could not distinguish
from distant thunder, burst on the wind. But the sun was
bright, and the horizon was the dazzling blue of the eastern
heaven. As my senses slowly returned, for I felt like a
man overpowered with wine, and a sudden rush of blood
across my sight made me dread that I was growing blind, I
was unable to discover where I was. The discovery itself
was terror. I had in my distraction fled to the mountain on
which no Jew ever looked without shame and sorrow for the
crimes of the greatest king into whose nostrils the Almighty
ever poured the spirit of life, but on which a Jewish priest,
as I was, could not touch without being guilty of defilement.
I sat on the Mount of Corruption, so called from its having
once witnessed the idolatries of our mighty Solomon, when
VOL. I.
2
14
SALATHIEL.
2
:
in his old age he gave way to the persuasions of his heathen
wives-that irreparable crime for which the kingdom was
rent, and the strength of Israel scattered. I saw in the
hollows of the hill the spaces, still bearing the marks of
burning, and barren forever, on which the temples of Mo-
loch, Chemosh, and Ashtaroth, had lifted their impious mag-
nificence, in the sight of the House of the living God. The
very palm-trees under which I had snatched that wild and
bitter sleep, were the remnant of the groves in which the
foul rites of the goddesses of Phoenicia and Assyria once
filled the air with midnight abomination, with horrid yells of
human sacrifice, almost made more fearful by their mingling
with the roar of barbarian revel, the wild dissonance of tim-
brel and horn, the Bacchanalian chorus of the priesthood
and people of impurity.
The vapors that rose hot and sickly before me, were the
smokes from the fires kindled in the valley of Hinnom, where
the refuse of the animals slaughtered for the use of the city,
and the other pollutions and remnants of things abominable
to the Jew, were daily burned. The sullen and perpetual
fires, the deadly fumes, and the aspects of the degraded and
excluded beings, chiefly public criminals, who were em-
ployed in this hideous task, gave the idea of the place of
final evil. Our prophets, in their threats against the national
betrayers, against the proud and the self-willed, the polluted
with idols, and the polluted with that still darker and more
incurable idolatry, the worship of the world, pointed to the
valley of Hinnom! The Pharisee, when he denounced the
unbelief and luxury of the lordly Sadducee, pointed to the
valley of Hinnom! All-the Pharisee, the Essene, the
Sadducee, in the haughty spirit that forgot the fallen state
of Jerusalem, and the crimes that had lowered her ;-the
hypocrite, the bigot, and the skeptic, alike mad with hope-
less revenge, when they saw the Roman cohorts triumphing
with their idolatrous ensigns through the paths once trod by
the holy, or were driven aside by the torrent of cavalry, and
the gilded chariot on which sat some insolent proconsul fresh
from Italy, and looking down on the noblest of our people
as the beaten slaves of the stranger-pointed to the valley
of Hinnom!
How often, as the days of Jerusalem hurried towards their
end, and by some fatality, the violences of the Roman gover-
nors became more frequent and intolerable, have I seen the
1
SALATHIEL.
15
groups of my countrymen, hunted into some by-way of the
city, by the hoofs of the Roman horse, consuming with that
inward wrath, which was soon to flame out in such horrors,
flinging up their wild hands, as if to upbraid the tardy hea-
vens, gnashing their teeth, and with the strong contortions of
the oriental countenance, the stormy brow and flashing eye,
and lip scarcely audible from the force of its own convulsion,
muttering conspiracy. Then, in despair of shaking off that
chain which had bound the whole earth, they would appeal
to the vengeance of the endless future; and shrouding their
heads in their cloaks, stand like sorcerers summoning up
demons, each with his quivering hand stretched out towards
the accursed valley, and every tongue groaning "Gehenna !"
While I lay upon the summit of the mountain, in a state
which gave me the deepest impression that I had ever con-
ceived of the parting of soul and body, I was startled by the
sound of a trumpet. It was from the temple, which, as the
fires below sank with the growing heat of the day, was now
visible to me. The trumpet was the signal of the third hour,
when the first daily sacrifice was to be offered. It was the
week of the class of Abiah, of which I was, and this day's
service fell to me. Though I would have given all that I
possessed on earth to be allowed to rest upon that spot, pol-
luted as it was, and there moulder away into the dust and
ashes that I had made my bed; I dared not shrink from the
most solemn duty of the priesthood.
I rose, but it was not till after many efforts that I was able
to stand; my limbs had a stony weight and insensibility. I
struggled along the summit of the ridge, holding by the stems
of the palm-trees. The second trumpet sounded loudly, and
was re-echoed by the cliffs. I had now no time for delay,
and was about to spring downwards towards a path which
wound round the head of the valley and beyond the fires,
when my ears were again arrested by that peal that had
disturbed me in my sleep, and my glance, which commanded
the whole circuit of the hills round Jerusalem, involuntarily
looked for the thunder-cloud. The sky was without a stain ;
but the eminences towards the west, on whose lovely slopes
of vineyard, rose, and orange grove my eye had so often
reposed as on a vast Tyrian carpet tissued with purple and
gold, were now hung with gloom; a huge and sullen cloud
seemed to be gathering over the heights, and flashes and
gleams of malignant lustre burst from its bosom. The cloud
F
+
:
.

•
=
•

16
SALATHIEL.
"
1
deepened, and the distant murmur grew louder and more
continued.
I hurried to the city gate. To my astonishment, I found
the road, that I had left so choked up with the multitude,
almost empty. The camels stood tethered in long trains
under the trees with scarcely an owner. The tents were
deserted, except by children, and the few old persons neces-
sary for their care. The mules and horses grazed through
the fields without a keeper. I saw tents full of the animals
and other offerings that the tribes brought up to the great
feast, almost at the mercy of any hand that would take them
away. Where could the myriads have disappeared, that had
covered the land a few hours before to the very verge of the
horizon?
A
The city was still more a subject of astonishment.
panic might have driven away the concourse of strangers,
in a time when the violences of the Roman sword had given
every Jew but too frequent cause for the most sensitive alarm.
But all within the gate was equally deserted. The streets
were utterly stripped of the regular inhabitants. What but
a pestilence or a massacre could have thus extinguished the
look of life in one of the most active and populous cities of
the east? The Roman guards were almost the only beings
that I could discover in my passage of the long streets from
the foot of the upper city to the mount of the temple.
All this was favorable to my extreme anxiety to escape
every eye of my countrymen; yet I cannot tell with what a
throbbing of heart, and variety of feverish emotion, I at length
reached the threshold of my dwelling. Though young, I was
a husband and a father. What might not have happened
since the sunset of the evening before? for my evil doings,
for which may He, with whom mercy lies at the right hand
and judgment at the left, have mercy on me, had fatally oc-
cupied the night. I listened at the door, with my heart upon
my lips. I dared not open it. My suspense was at length
relieved by my wife's voice; she was weeping. I fell on
my knees, and thanked Heaven that she was alive.
But my infant! I thought of the sword that smote the
first-born in the land of bondage, and felt that Judah, guilty
as Egypt, might well dread its punishment. Was it for my
first-born that the sobs of its angel mother had arisen in her
loneliness? Another pause of bitter suspense-and I heard
the laugh of my babe as it awoke in her arms.
13
1
SALATHIEL.
172
•..
The first human sensation that I had felt for so many hours,
was almost overpowering; and, without regarding the squa
lidness of my dress, and the look of famine and fatigue that
must have betrayed where I had been, I should have rushed
into the chamber. But at that moment the third trumpet
sounded. I had now no time for the things of this world.
I plunged into the bath, cleansed myself from the pollution
of the mountain, hastily girt on me the sacerdotal tunic and
girdle; and with the sacred fillet on my burning brow, and
the censer in my shaking hand, passed through the cloisters,
and took my place before the altar.

CHAPTER III.
Or all the labors of human wealth and power devoted to
worship, the temple within whose courts I then stood was
the most mighty. In my after years, the years of my un-
happy wanderings, far from the graves of my kindred, I have
seen all the most famous shrines of the great kingdoms of
idolatry. Constrained by cruel circumstance, and the still
sterner cruelty of man, I have stood before the altar of the
Ephesian Diana, the master-piece of Ionian splendor; I
have strayed through the woods of Delphi, and been made a
reluctant witness of the superb mysteries of that chief of the
oracles of imposture. Dragged in chains, I have been forced
to join the procession round the Minerva of the Acropolis,
and almost forgot my chains in wonder at that monument of
a genius which ought to have been consecrated only to the
true God by whom it was given. The temple of the Capito-
line Jove, the Sancta Sophia of the Rome of Constantine,
the still more stupendous and costly fabric in which the third
Rome still bows before the fisherman of Galilee; all have
been known to my step, that knows all things but rest; but
all were dreams and shadows to the grandeur, the dazzling
beauty, the almost unearthly glory of that temple which once
covered the "Mount of Vision" of the City of the Lord.
At the distance of almost two thousand years, I have its
image on my mind's eye with living and painful fulness. I
see the court of the Gentiles circling the whole; a fortress
1
1
2*
18
SALATHIEL.
•
of the whitest marble, with its wall rising six hundred feet
from the valley; its kingly entrance, worthy of the fame of
Solomon; its innumerable and stately dwellings for the
priests and officers of the temple, and above them, glittering
like a succession of diadems, those alabaster porticoes and
colonnades in which the chiefs and sages of Jerusalem sat
teaching the people, or walked, breathing the pure air, and
gazing on the grandeur of a landscape which swept the
whole amphitheatre of the mountains. I see, rising above
this stupendous boundary, the court of the Jewish women
separated by its porphyry pillars and richly sculptured wall;
above this, the separated court of the men; still higher, the
court of the priests; and highest, the crowning splendor of
all, the central TEMPLE, the place of the Sanctuary, and of
the Holy of Holies, covered with plates of gold, its roof
planted with lofty spear-heads of gold, the most precious
marbles and metals every where flashing back the day, till
Mount Moriah stood forth to the eye of the stranger approach-
ing Jerusalem, what it had been so often described by its
bards and people, a "mountain of snow studded with
- jewels."
The grandeur of the worship was worthy of this glory of
architecture. Four-and-twenty thousand Levites ministered
by turns, -a thousand at a time. Four thousand more per-
formed the lower offices. Four thousand singers and min-
strels, with the harp, the trumpet, and all the richest instru-
ments of a land, whose native genius was music, and whose
climate and landscape led men instinctively to delight in the
charm of sound, chanted the inspired songs of our warrior
king, and filled up the pauses of prayer with harmonies that
transported the spirit beyond the cares and passions of a
troubled world.
I was standing before the altar of burnt-offering, with the
Levite at my side holding the lamb; the cup was in my
hand, and I was about to pour the wine on the victim, when
I was startled by the sound of hurried feet. In another mo-
ment the veil of the porch was abruptly thrown back, and a
figure rushed in; it was the high priest, but not in the robes
of ceremony which it was customary for him to wear in the
seasons of the greater festivals. He was covered with the
common vesture of the priesthood, and was evidently anxious
to use it for total concealment. His face was buried in the
fold of his cloak, and he walked with blind precipitation to-
SALATHIEL.
19
wards the subterranean passage which led from the sanctu-
ary to his cloister. But he had scarcely reached it, when a
new feeling stopped him; and he turned towards the altar,
where I was standing in mute surprise. The cloak fell from
his visage; it was pale as death; the habitual sternness of
feature which rendered him a terror to the people, had col-
lapsed into feebleness; while he gazed on the fire, it acci-
dentally blazed up, and I thought I saw the glistening of a
tear on a cheek that had never exhibited human emotion be-
fore. But no time was left for question, even if reverence
had not restrained me. He suddenly grasped the head of
the lamb, as was customary for those who offered up an ex-
piation for their own sins; his lip, ashy white, quivered with
broken prayer; then, snatching the knife from the Levite,
he plunged it into the animal's throat, and with his hands
covered with blood, and with a groan that echoed despair,
again rushed distractedly away!
-
The victim still burned upon the altar, and I was offering
up the incense, when the increasing sounds abroad told me
that the deserted courts were filling once more. But the
sounds grew with an extraordinary rapidity; they were
soon all but tumultuous. The sanctuary in which I stood
was almost wholly lighted by the lamps that burned round
the walls, and the fitful blaze of the altar, whose fires were
never suffered to be extinguished. But when, at length
unable to suppress my alarm at the growing uproar, I went
to the porch, I left comparative day behind me; a gloom
sicklier than that of tempest, and thicker than that of smoke,
overspread the sky. The sun, which I had seen like a fiery
buckler hanging over the city, was utterly gone. While I
looked, the darkness deepened, and the blackness of night,
of night without a star, fell far and wide upon the horizon.
It has been my fate, and a fearful part of my punishment,
always to conceive that the calamities of nature and nations
were connected with my crime. I have tried to reason
away this impression; but it has clung to me like an iron
chain; like the shirt of the Centaur, nothing could tear it
away that left the life: I have felt it hanging over my brain
with the weight of a thunder-cloud. As I glanced into the
gloom, the thought smote me, that it was I who had brought
this Egyptian plague, this horrid privation of the first ele-
ment of life upon my country, perhaps upon the world, per-
haps never to be relieved; for it came condensing depth on
>

20
SALATHIEL.
depth, till it seemed to have excluded all possibility of the
existence of light; it was like that of our old oppressors,
darkness that might be felt, the darkness of an universal
grave.
I formed my fierce determination at once; and resolved
to fly from my priesthood, from my kindred, from my country;
to linger out my days, my bitter, banished, blasted days, in
some wilderness, where my presence would not be a curse,
where but the lion and the tiger should be my fellow dwellers,
where the sands could not be made the more barren for my
fatal tread, nor the fountains more bitter for my desperate
and eternal tears.
The singular presence of mind found in some men in the
midst of universal perturbation, one of the most effective
qualities of our nature, and attributed to the highest vigor
of heart and understanding, is not always deserving of such
proud parentage. It is sometimes the child of mere brute
ignorance of danger, sometimes of habitual ferocity,—in my
instance it was that of madness; the fierce energy that leads
the maniac safe over roofs and battlements. All in the tem-
ple was confusion. The priests lay flung at the feet of the
altars; or, clinging together in groups of helplessness and dis-
may, waited speechless for the devastation that was to visit
them in this unnatural night. I walked through all, without
a fear or a hope under heaven.
Through the solid gloom, and among heaps of men and
sacred things cast under my feet, like the spoil and corpses
of some stormed camp, I made my way to my dwelling
direct and unimpeded, as if I walked in the light of day.
found my wife in deeper terror at my long absence than even
at the darkness. She sprang forward to my voice, and, fall-
ing on my neck, shed the tears of joy and love. But few words
passed between us, and but few were necessary to bid her
with her babe follow me. She would have followed me to
the ends of the earth.
Oh Miriam, Miriam, how often have I thought of thee in
my long pilgrimage! how often, like that of a spirit descend-
ed to minister consolation to the wanderer, have I seen, in
my midnight watching, thy countenance of more than wo-
man's beauty! To me thou hast never died. Thy more
than man's loftiness of soul, thy generous fidelity of love to
a wayward and unhappy heart; thy patient treading with me
along the path that I had sowed with the thorn and thistle for
SALATHIEL.
21
thy feet, but which should have been covered with the wealth of
princes to be worthy of thy loveliness and thy virtues; all
rise in memory and condemnation before the chief of sin.
ners. Age after age have I traveled to thy lonely grave;
age after age have I wept and prayed upon the dust that
was once perfection. In all the hardness forced upon me
by a stern world; in all the hatred of mankind that the in-
solence of the barbarian and the persecutor has bound round
my bosom like a mail of iron, I have preserved one source
of feeling sacred; a solitary fount to feed the little vegeta-
tion of a withered heart, the love of thee: perhaps, to be a
sign of that regenerate time, when the curse shall be with-
drawn; perhaps, to be in mercy, the source from which that
more than desert, thy husband's soul, shall be refreshed, and
the barrenness flourish with the flowers of the paradise of
God!
Throwing off my robe of priesthood, as I then thought, for
ever, I went forth, leading my heroic wife in one hand, and
bearing my child in the other. I had left behind me sump-
tuous things, wealth transmitted from a long line of illustrious
ancestry. I cared not for them. Wealth a thousand times
more precious was within my embrace. Yet when I touched
the threshold, the last sensation of divorce from all that I
had been came over my mind. My wife felt the trembling
of my frame, and, with that gentle firmness which in the
hour of trouble often exalts the fortitude of woman above
the headlong and inflamed courage of the warrior, she bade
me be of good cheer. I felt her lips on my hand at the
moment; the touch gave new energy to my whole being;
and I bounded forward into the ocean of darkness.
Without impediment or error, I made my way over and
among the crowds that strewed the court of the Gentiles.
I heard many a prayer and many a groan; but I had now
no more to do with man; and forced my way steadily to the
great portal. Thus far, if I had been stricken with utter
blindness, I could not have been less guided by the eye.
But, on passing into the streets of the lower city, a scattered
torch, from time to time, struggling through the darkness,
like the lamp in a sepulchre, gave me glimpses of the
scene.
The broad avenues were encumbered with the living in
semblance of the dead. All was prostration, or those atti-
tudes into which men are thrown by terror beyond the
:
1
:
.
22
SALATHIEL.
strength or spirit of man to resist. The cloud that, from
my melancholy bed above the valley of Hinnom, I had seen
rolling up the hills, was this multitude. A spectacle, whose
name shall never pass my lips, had drawn them all by a
cruel, a frantic, curiosity out of Jerusalem, and left it the
solitude that had surprised me. Preternatural eclipse and
horror fell on them, and their thousands madly rushed back
to perish, if perish they must, within the walls of the City of
Holiness. Still the multitude came pouring in; their dis-
tant trampling had the sound of a cataract; and their out-
cries of pain, and rage, and terror, were like what I have
since heard, but more feebly, sent up from the field of
battle.
I struggled on, avoiding the living torrent by the ear, and
slowly threading my way wherever I heard the voices least
and but
numerous; but my task was one of extreme toil;
for those, more than all the treasures of the earth to me,
whose lives depended on my efforts, I should have willingly
lain down, and suffered the multitude to trample me into the
grave. How long I thus struggled I know not. But a yell
of peculiar and universal terror that burst round me, made
me turn my reluctant eyes towards Jerusalem. The cause
of this new alarm was seen at once. A large sphere of fire
fiercely shot through the heavens, lighting its track down
the murky air, and casting a disastrous aud pallid illumina-
tion on the myriads of gazers below. It stopped above the
city; and exploded in thunder, flashing over the whole ho-
rizon, but covering the temple with a blaze which gave it
the aspect of a huge mass of metal glowing in the furnace.
Every outline of the architecture, every pillar, every pinna-
cle, was seen with a livid and terrible distinctness. Again
all vanished. I heard the hollow roar of an earthquake; the
ground rose and heaved under our feet. I heard the crash
of buildings, the fall of fragments of the hills, and, louder
than both, the groan of the multitude. I caught my wife
and child closer to my bosom. In the next moment, I felt
the ground give way beneath me; a sulphureous vapor
took away my breath, and I was caught up in a whirlwind
of dust and ashes!
!
SALATHIEL.
23
CHAPTER IV.
WHEN I recovered my senses, all was so much changed
round me, that I could scarcely be persuaded that either the
past or the present was not a dream. I had no conscious-
ness of any interval between them, more than that of having
closed my eyes at one instant, to open them at the next.
Yet the curtains of a tent waved round me in a breeze fra-
grant with the breath of roses and the balsam-tree. Beyond
the gardens and meadows, from which those odors sprang, a
river shone, like a path of lapis lazuli, in the calm effulgence
of the western sun. Tents were pitched, from which I
heard the sounds of pastoral instruments; camels were
drinking and grazing along the river-side; and turbaned
men and maidens were ranging over the fields, or sitting on
the banks to enjoy the cool of the delicious evening.
While I tried to collect my senses, and discover whether
this was more than one of those sports of a wayward fancy
which tantalize the bed of a sick mind, I heard a low hymn;
and listened to the sounds with breathless anxiety. The
voice I knew at once-it was Miriam's. But in the disorder
of my brain, and the strange circumstances which had filled
the late days, in that total feebleness too in which I could
not move a limb or utter a word, a persuasion seized me
that I was already beyond the final boundary of mortals.
All before me was like that paradise from which the crime
of our great forefather had driven man into banishment. I
remembered the convulsion of the earth into which I had
sunk; and asked myself, could man be wrapped in the
flame, and the whirlwind that tore up mountains like the
roots of flowers, and yet live? Still it was pain to me to
think that the lovely and the young should have so soon
gone down to the grave-that Miriam should have been cut
off from the long enjoyment of life due to her gentle virtue
—that a creature delicate of form, and beautiful as the young
vine, should have been torn away from the world by the
grasp of a death so sudden and terrible.
In this perplexity I closed my eyes to collect my thoughts ;
and probably exhibited some strong emotion of countenance;
24
SALATHIEL.
•
for I was roused by a cry-" He lives, he lives!" I looked
up, Miriam stood before me, clasping her lovely hands with
the wildness of joy unspeakable, and shedding tears, that
large and lustrous fell down her glowing cheeks, like dew
upon the pomegranate. She threw herself upon my pillow,
kissed my forehead with lips that breathed new life into me
then pressing my chill hand between hers, knelt down, and
with a look worthy of that heaven on which it was fixed, ra-
diant with beauty and holiness and joy, as the face of an
angel, offered up her thanksgiving.
The explanation of the scene that perplexed me was given
in a few words, interrupted only by tears and sighs of de-
light. With the burst of the earthquake, the supernatural
darkness was cleared away. I was flung under the shelter
of one of those caves which abound in the gorges of the
mountains round Jerusalem. Miriam, and her infant, were
flung by my side, yet unhurt. While I lay insensible in her
arms, she, by singular good fortune, found herself surround-
ed by a troop of our kinsmen, returning from the city, where
terror had suffered but few to remain. They placed her and
her infant on their camels. Me they would have consigned
to the sepulchre of the priests; but Miriam was not to be
shaken in her pupose to watch over me until all hope was
gone. I was thus carried along; and they were now three
days on their journey homewards. The landscape before
me was Samaria.
My natural destination would have been the cities of the
priests, which lay to the south, bordering upon Hebron. In
those thirteen opulent and noble residences allotted to the
higher ministry of the temple, they enjoyed all that could
be offered by the munificent wisdom of the state;-wealth,
that raised them above the pressures of life, yet not so great
as to extinguish the power of intellectual distinction, or the
love of the loftier virtues. The means of mental cultiva-
tion were provided for them, with more than royal liberality.
Copies of the sacred books, multiplied in every form, and
adorned with the finest skill of the pencil and the sculptor
in gold and other precious materials, attested at once the
reverence of the nation for its law, and the perfection to
which it had brought the decorative arts. The works of
strangers, eminent for genius or knowledge, or even for the
singularity of their subject, were not less to be found in
those stately treasure-houses of mind. There the priest
SALATHIEL.
25
G
might relax his spirit from the sublimer studies of his coun-
try, by the bold and brilliant epic of Greece; the fantastic
passion, and figured beauty of the Persian poesy; or the al-
ternate severity and sweetness of the Indian drama :-
:-that
startling union of all lovely images of nature, the bloom and
fragrance of flowers, the hues of the oriental heaven, and
the perfumes of isles of spice and cinnamon, with the grim
and subterranean terrors of a gigantic idolatry. There he
might spread the philosophic wing from the glittering crea-
tions of Grecian metaphysics, to their dark and early ora-
cles in the East; or, stopping in his central flight, plunge into
the profound of Egyptian mystery, where science lies, like
the mummy, wrapped in a thousand folds that preserve the
form, but preserve it with the living principle gone.
•
Music, of all pleasures the most intellectual, that glorious
painting to the ear, that rich mastery of the gloomier emo-
tions of our nature, was studied by the priesthood with a
skill that influenced the habits of the country. How often
have my fiercest perturbations sunk at the sounds that once
filled the breezes of Judea! How often, when my brain
was burning, and the blood ran through my veins like molten
brass, have I been softened down to painless tears, by the
chorus from our hills, the mellow harmonies of harp and
horn, blending with the voices of the youths and maidens of
Israel! How often have I in the night listened, while the
chant, ascending with a native richness to which the skill
of other nations was dissonance, floated upwards like a
cloud of incense bearing the aspirations of holiness and
gratitude to the throne of Him whom man hath not seen,
nor can see?
But those times are sunk deep in the great gulf, that ab-
sorbs the happiness and genius of man. I have since tra-
versed my country in its length and breadth; I have marked
with my weary feet every valley, and made my restless bed
upon every hill from Idumea to Lebanon, and from the Assy-
rian sands to the waters of the Mediterranean; yet the harp
and voice were dead. I heard sounds on the hills; but they
were the cries of the villagers flying before some tyrant ga-
therer of a tyrant's tribute. I heard sounds in the midnight;
but they were the howl of the wolf, and the yell of the hyæna,
revelling over the naked and dishonored graves which the
Turk had given in his scorn to the people of my fathers.
VOL. I.
3
26
SALATHIEL.
But the study to which the largest expenditure of wealth
and labour was devoted, was as it ought to be, that of the sa-
cred books of Israel. It only makes me rebellious against
the decrees of fate, to think of the incomparable richness
and immaculate character of the volumes over which I have
so often hung; and look upon the diminished and degraded
exterior in which their wisdom now lies before man. Where
are now the cases covered with jewels, the clasps of topaz
and diamond; the golden arks in which the volume of the
hope of Israel lay, too precious not to be humiliated by the
contact with even the richest treasure of earth? Where are
the tissued curtains, that hid, as in a sanctuary, that mighty
roll too sacred to be glanced on by the casual eye? But the
spoiler-the spoiler! The Arab, the Parthian, the human
tiger of the north, that lies crouching for a thousand years in
the sheep-fold of Judah! Is there not a sword ?—Is there
not a judgment ?-Terribly will it judge the oppressor.
The home of my kinsmen was in the allotment of Naphtali.
The original tribe revolted in the general schism of the king-
doms of Judah and Israel; and was swept into the Assyrian
captivity. But on the restoration by Cyrus, fragments of all
the captive tribes returned, and were suffered to resume their
lands. Misfortune wrought its moral on them: the chief
families pledged their allegiance once more to Judah, and
were exemplary in paying homage to the spirit and ordi-
nances of their religion.
We speeded through the hated soil of Samaria. The
hand of Heaven is not as the hand of man. Its blow is not
given but in justice and it leaves a deep and fearful trace
behind.-Its wrath, like its own tempest, gathers long above
the eye; but when it strikes, the scorched and shattered land
gives stern evidence that there the fiery ploughshare has
been driven. By the Babylonish captivity, the whole strength
of the chosen people suffered a shock, from which it never
fully rose again. The richest portion of Canaan, its central
tract, cutting off the northern from the southern tribes, and
lying between its chief river and the sea, was alienated to
worse than strangers-to a mingled race of apostate Jews,
Assyrian plunderers, and refugees from Arabia and Syria.
For a perpetual brand on the Jewish name, the last infliction
of a hostile and impure worship was raised among them; and
on Mount Gerizim stood a temple to which Samaria paid its
homage, the rival of the temple of Jerusalem.
*
SALATHIEL.
27
**
3
The rancorous enmity borne by the Samaritans to the sub-
jects of Judah, for ages made all intercourse between Jeru-
salem and the north difficult. It was often totally interrupted
by war—it was dangerous in peace; and the ferocious cha
racter of the population, and the bitter antipathy of the go.
vernment, made it to the Jew a land of robbers.
But among the evils of the Roman conquest, was mingled
this good, that it suffered no subordinate tyranny. Its sword
cut away at a blow all those minor oppressions which make
the misery of provincial life. If the mountain robber invaded
the plain, as was his custom of old, the Roman cavalry were
instantly on him with the spear, until he took refuge in the
mountains-if he resisted in his native fastnesses, the le-
gionaries pursued him with torch and sword, stifled him if
he remained in his cave, or stabbed him at its mouth.
If quarrels arose between two villages, the cohorts burned
both to the ground:-and the execution was done with a
promptitude and completeness that less resembled the ordi.
nary operations of war, than the work of superhuman power.
The Roman knowledge of our disturbances was instanta-
neous. Signals established on the hills conveyed intelli-
gence with the speed of light from the remotest corners of
the land to their principal stations. Even in our subsequent
conspiracies, the first knowledge that they had broken out
was often conveyed to their partisans in the next district, by-
the movement of the Roman troops. Well had they chosen
the eagle for their ensign. They rushed with the eagle's
rapidity on their victim; and when it was stretched in
blood, they left the spot of vengeance, as if they had left it
on the wing. Their march had the rapidity of the most hur-
ried retreat, and the steadiness of the most secure triumph.
They left nothing behind, but the marks of their irresistible
power.
All the armies of the earth have since passed before me.
I have seen the equals of the legions in courage and disci-
pline; and their superiors in those arms by which human
life is at the caprice of ambition. But their equals I have
never seen in the individual fitness of the soldier for war;
in his fleetness, muscular vigor, and expertness in the use of
his weapons; in his quick adaptation to all the multiplied
purposes of the ancient campaign-from the digging of a
trench, or the management of a catapult, to the assault of a
citadel; in his iron endurance of the vicissitudes of climate ;
3

28
SALATHIEL.
.
!
in the length and regularity of his marches; or in the rapi
dity, boldness, and dexterity of his manœuvre in the field.
Yet, it is but a melancholy tribute to the valor of my coun-
trymen, to record the Roman acknowledgment, that of all
the nations conquered by Rome, Judea bore the chain with
the haughtiest dignity, and most frequently and fiercely con-
tested the supremacy of the sword.
Under that stern supremacy the Samaritan had long
shrunk, and Canaan enjoyed an exemption from the harass-
ing cruelty of petty war. We now passed with our long
caravan unguarded, and moving at will through fields rich
with the luxuriance of an Eastern summer, where our
fathers would have scarcely ventured but with an army.
made no resistance to being thus led away to a region so
remote from my own. To have returned to the cities of the
priests, would have but given me hourly agony.
-
I
Even the gates of Jerusalem were to my feelings anathe-
ma. The whole fabric of my mind had undergone a revo.
lution; like a man tossed at the mercy of the tempest, I
sought but a shore-and all shores were alike to him who
must be an exile for ever!
CHAPTER V.
THE Country through which we passed, after leaving the
boundaries of Samaria--where, with all its peace, no Jew
could tread, but as in a land of strangers-was new to me.
My life had been till now spent in study, or in serving the
altar; and I had heard, with the usual and unwise indiffer.
ence of men devoted to books, the praise of the picturesque
and stately provinces that still remained to our People. I
was now to see for myself; and be compelled, as we ad
vanced, to reproach the idle prejudice that had thus long
deprived me, and might for ever deprive so many of my
consecrated brethren, of an enjoyment cheering to the hu
man heart, and full of lofty and hallowed memory to the
man of Israel.
As we passed along, less traveling than wandering at
pleasure, through regions where every winding of the mar
1
·
SALATHIÉL.
29
•
ble hill, or ascent of the lovely and fruitful valley, showed
us some sudden and romantic beauty of landscape, my kins-
men took a natural pride in pointing out the noble features
that made Canaan a living history of Providence.
What were even the trophy-covered hill of Greece, or
the monumental plains of Italy, to the hills and plains where
the memorial told of the miracles, and the presence of the
Supreme. "Look to that rock," they would exclaim,
"there descended the angel of the Presence! On the
summit of that cloudy ridge stood Ezekiel, when he saw
the vision of the latter days. Look to yonder cleft in the
mountains-there fell the lightning from heaven on the
Philistine.'
""
In our travel we reached a valley, a spot of singular
beauty and seclusion, blushing with flowers, and sheeted
with the olive from its edge down to a stream that rushed
brightly through its bosom. There was no dwelling of man
in it; but on a gentler slope of the declivity stood a gigantic
terebinth-tree. More than curiosity was attracted by this
delicious spot, for the laugh and talking of the caravan had
instantly subsided at the sight. All, by a common impulse,
dismounted from their horses and camels; and though it
was still far from sunset, the tents were pitched, and prepa-
rations made for prayer. The spot reminded me of the val.
ley of Hebron, sacred to the Jewish heart as the burial
place of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac ;-may they sleep in
the bosom of the Lord! The terebinth-tree, under which
the greatest of the patriarchs sat and talked with the angels
-the fountain-the cave of Macpelah, in which his mortal
remnant returned to the earth, to come again in glory,
appeared to lie before me.
From the day of my unspeakable crime, I had never
joined in prayer with my people. I was still a believer in
the faith of Israel. I even clung to it with the nervous vio-
lence of one who, in a shipwreck, feels that his only hope
is the plank in his grasp; and that some more powerful hand
is tearing even that plank away. But the sight of human
beings enjoying the placid consolations of prayer, had from
the first moment overwhelmed me with so keen a sense of
my misfortune-the pious gentleness of attitude and voice-
the calm uplifted hand, and low and solemn aspiration, were
so deep a contrast to the involuntary wildness and broken
3*
30
SALATHIEL.
;
utterings of a heart bound in more than adamantine chains
that I shrank from the rebuke, and howled in solitude.
;
I went forth into the valley, and was soon lost in its thick
vegetation. The sound of the hymn that sank down in
mingled sweetness with the murmuring of the evening air
through the leaves, and the bubbling of the brook below,
alone told me that I was near human beings. I sat upon a
fragment of turf, embroidered as never was kingly footstool,
and with my hands clasped on my eyes, to remove from me
all the images of life, gave way to that visionary and waste.
ful mood of mind, in which ideas come and pass in crowds
without shape, and leaving no more impression than the
drops of a sun-shower on the trees. I had remained long
in this half dreaming confusion, and had almost imagined
myself transported to some intermediate realm of being,
where a part of the infliction was that of being startled by
keen flashes of light from this upper world, when I was
roused by the voice of Eleazar, the brother of Miriam, at
my side.
His manly and generous countenance expressed mingled
anxiety and gladness at discovering me. "The whole
camp," said he, "have been alarmed at your absence, and
have searched, for these three hours, through every part of
our day's journey. Miriam's distraction at length urged me
to leave her; and it was by her instinct that I took my way
down the only path hitherto unsearched, and where, indeed,
from fear or reverence of the place, few but myself would
have willingly come." He called to an attendant, and send-
ing him up the side of the valley with the tidings, we followed
slowly, for I was still feeble. As we emerged into an opener
space, the moon lying on masses of cloud, like a sultana
pillowed on couches of silver, showed me, in her strong illu-
mination of the forest, the flashes which had added to the
bewildered pain of my reverie. While I talked with natu-
ral animation of the splendor of the heavens, and pointed
out the lines and figures on the moon's disk, which made it
probable that it was, like earth, a place of habitation; he
suddenly pressed my hand, and stopping, with his eyes fixed
on my face, "How," said he, " does it happen, my friend,
my brother, Salathiel?"I started, as if my name, the
name of my illustrious ancestor, direct in descent from the
father of the faithful, were an accusation. He proceeded
with but a more ardent pressure of my quivering hand—
:
爨
​.
SALATHIEL.
31
".
"How is it to be accounted for, that you, with such contem-
plations, and the knowledge that gives them the dignity of
science, can yet be so habitually given over to gloom?-Se-
rious crime I will not believe in you; though the best of us
are stained. But your character is pure: I know your na-
ture to be too lofty for the degenerate indulgence of the
passions; and Miriam's love for you, a love passing that of
woman, is, of itself, a seal of virtue. Answer me-Can the
wealth, power, or influence of your brother and his house,
nay, of his tribe, assist you?”
I was silent. He paused; and we walked on awhile,
without a sound but that of our tread among the leaves: but
his mind was full, and it would have way. "Salathiel," said
he, "you do injustice to yourself, to your wife, and to your
friends. This gloom that sits eternally on your forehead,
must wear away all your uses in society: it bathes your in-
comparable wife's pillow in tears; and it disheartens and
distresses us all. Answer me as one man of honor and in-
tegrity would another. Have you been disappointed in your
ambition? I know your claims.-You have knowledge sur-
passing that of a multitude of your contemporaries; you
have talents that ought to be honored; your character is un-
impeached and unimpeachable. Such things ought to have
already lifted you to eminence. Have you found yourself
thwarted by the common trickery of official life? Has some
paltry sycophant crept up before you by the oblique path that
honor disdains? Or have you felt yourself an excluded and
marked man, merely for the display of that manlier vigor,
richer genius, and more generous and sincere impulse of
heart, which, to the conscious inferiority of the rabble of un-
derstanding, is gall and wormwood? Or have you taken too
deeply into your resentment, the common criminal negli-
gence, that besets common minds in power, and makes them
carelessly fling away upon incapacity, and guiltily withhold
from worth, the rewards which were intrusted to them, as a
sacred deposit, for the encouragement of the national ability
and virtue ?"
I strongly disavowed all conceptions of the kind; and as-
sured him that I felt neither peculiar merits nor peculiar in-
juries.. I had seen too much of what ambition and worldly
success were made of, to allow hope to excite, or failure to
depress me. "I am even," added I, "so far from being the
slave of that most vulgar intemperance of a deranged heart,

32
SALATHIEL.
the diseased craving for the miserable indulgencies of worldly
distinction, that would to heaven I might never again enter
the gates of Jerusalem.'
He started back in surprise. The confession had been
altogether unintended; and I looked up to see the burst of
Jewish wrath descending upon me. I saw none. My kins-
man's fine countenance was brightened with a lofty joy.
"Then you have renounced.-But no, it is yet too soon.
At your age, with your prospects, can you have renounced
the career offered to you among the rulers of Israel ?”
"I have renounced.'
<<
Sincerely, solemnly, upon conviction ?”
"From the bottom of my soul; now, and for ever!"
(6
We had reached the open space in front of the terebinth-
tree that stood in majesty, extending its stately branches over
a space cleared of all other trees, a sovereign of the forest.
In silence he led me under a shade to a small tomb, on which
the light fell with broken lustre. This," said he, "is the
tomb of the greatest prophet on whose lips the wisdom of
Heaven ever burned. There sleeps Isaiah!-There is silent
the voice that for fifty years spoke more than the thoughts of
man in the ears of a guilty people. There are cold the hands
that struck the harp of more than mortal sounds to the glory
of Him to whom earth and its kingdoms are but as the dust of
the balance. There lies the heart which neither the desert
nor the dungeon, nor the teeth of the lion, nor the saw of
Manasseh, could tame:—the denouncer of our crimes-the
scourge of our apostacy-the prophet of that desolation
which was to bow the grandeur of Judah to the grave, as the
tree of the mountain in the whirlwind. Saint and martyr,
let my life be as thine; and if it be the will of God, let my
death be even as thine.'
He threw himself on his knees, and remained in prayer
for a time. I knelt with him, but no prayer would issue from
my heart. He at length rose, and leading me into the moon-
light, said in a low voice-"Is there not, where the holy
sleep, a holiness in the very ground? I waive all the super-
stitious feelings of the idolater, worshiping the dust of the
creature, for the king alike of all. I pass over the natural
human homage for the memory of those who have risen above
us by the great qualities of their being. But if there are
supernal influences acting upon the mind of man; if the
winged spirits that minister before the throne still descend to
SALATHIEL.
33
earth on missions of mercy, I will believe that their loved
place is round the grave where sleeps the mortal portion of
the holy. In all our journeys to the temple, it has been the
custom of our shattered and humiliated tribe to pause beside
this tomb, and offer up our homage to that Mightiest of the
mighty, who made such men for the lights of Israel!"
"
He earnestly repeated the question-"Have you aban.
doned your office?"—"Yes," was the answer, totally;
with full purpose never to resume it. In your mountains I
will live with you, and with you I will die." Memory smote
me as I pronounced the word: the refuge of the grave was
not for me!
"Then," said he, "you have relieved my spirit of a load:
you are now my more than brother. He clasped me in his
arms. "Yes, Salathiel, I know that your high heart must
have scorned the prejudices of the Scribe and the Pharisee;
you must have seen through and loathed the smiling hypo-
crisy, the rancorous bigotry, the furious thirst of blood, that
are hourly sinking us below the lowest of the heathen.
Hating the tyranny of the Roman; as I live this hour, I
would rather see the city of David inhabited by none but
the idolator, or delivered over to the curse of Babylon, and
made the couch of the lion and the serpent, than see its
courts filled with those impious traitors to the spirit of the
law, those cruel extortioners under the mask of self-denial,
those malignant revelers in human torture under the name
of insulted religion; whose joy is crime, and every hour of
whose being but wearies the long-suffering of God, and pre-
cipitates the ruin of my country.'
""
tr
He drew from his bosom and unrolled in the moonlight, a
small copy of the Scriptures. "My brother," said he, "have
you read the holy prophecies of him by whose grave we
stand?" My only answer was a smile; they were the chief
study of the priesthood. "True," said he ; " no doubt, you
have read the words of the prophet. But Wisdom is known
of her children, and of them alone. Read here."
I read the famous Haphtorah. "Who hath believed our
report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For
he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of the dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and
when we shall see him, there is no beauty, that we should
desire him. He is despised, and rejected of men ; a man of
sorrow!" He stopped me, laying his hand on my arm; I
1

34
4
SALATHIEL.
felt his strong nerves tremble like an infant's. "Of whom
hath the prophet spoken ?" uttered he in a voice of intense
anxiety. "Of whom? of the Deliverer, that is to restore
Judah; him that is to come,” was my answer.
"Him that
is to come, still to come?" he exclaimed. "God of Heaven,
must the veil be for ever on the face of thy Israel! When
shall our darkness be light; and the chain of our spirit be
broken!" The glow and power of his countenance sank;
he took the roll with a sigh, and replaced it in his robe; then
with his hands clasped across his bosom, and his head bowed,
he led our silent way up the side of the valley.
I
CHAPTER VI.
WE soon reached the hill country, and our road passed
through what were once the allotments of Issacher, Zebulon,
and Asher; but by the Roman division, was now Upper Gali-
lee. My health had been rapidly restored by the exercise
and the balmy air. My more incurable disease was prevented
by the journey from perhaps totally engrossing my mind.
Of all the antagonists to mental depression, travelling is the
most vigorous: not the flight from place to place, as if evil
was to be outrun; nor the enclosure of the weary of life in
some narrow vehicle that adds fever and pestilence to hea-
viness of heart; but the passing at our ease through the open
air and bright landscape of a new country.
To me the novelty and loveliness of the land were com
bined with the memory of the most striking events in human
record. I had, too, the advantage of a companionship, which
would have enlivened travel through the wilderness-brave
and cheerful men, and women on whose minds and forms
Nature laid her finest stamp of beauty. The name of Jew
is now but another title for humiliation. Who that sees that
fallen thing, with his countenance bent to the ground, and
his form withered of its comeliness, tottering through the
proud streets of Europe in some degrading occupation, and
clothed in the robes of the beggared and the despised, could
imagine the bold figures, and gallant bearing of the lion
hunters, with whom, in the midst of shouts and songs of
"
C
SALATHIEL.
35
careless joy, I spurred my barb up the mountain paths of
Galilee!
Yet, fallen as he is, the physiognomy of the Jew retains a
share of its original beauty, sufficient to establish the claim
of the people to have been the handsome race on earth.
Individuals of superior comeliness may often be found among
the multitudes of mankind. But no nation, nor distinct part
of any nation, can rival an equal number of the unhappy
exiles of Israel, in the original impress of that hand which
made man only a little lower than the angels. To conceive
the Jew as he was, we should conceive the stern and watch-
ful contraction of the dark eye expanded; the fierce and
rigid brow lowering no more; the lip no longer gathered in
habitual fear or scorn; the cheek no longer sallow with want
or pining, and the whole man elevated by the returning con-
sciousness that he has a rank among nations. All his defor-
mities have been the birth of his misfortunes. What beauty
can we demand from the dungeon?-what dignity of aspect
from the hewers of wood and drawers of water for mankind?
Where shall we seek the magnificent form and illumined
countenance of the hero, and the sage ?-from the heart
cankered by the chain, from the plundered, the enslaved, the
persecuted of two thousand years?
Of the daughters of my country I have never seen the
equals in beauty. Our blood was Arab, softened down by
various changes of state and climate, till it was finally
brought to perfection in the most genial air, and the most
generous soil of the globe. The vivid features of the Arab
countenance, no longer attenuated by the desert, assumed,
in the plenty of Egypt, that fulness and fine proportion which
still belongs to the dwellers by the Nile; but the true change
was on our entrance into the promised land. Peace, the
possession of property, days spent among the pleasant and
healthful occupations of rural life, are in themselves produc-
tive of the finer developments of the human form; a form
whose natural tendency is to beauty. But our nation had an
additional and unshared source of nobleness of aspect; it
was free. The state of man in the most unfettered republics
of the ancient world was slavery, compared with the mag-
nanimous and secure establishment of he Jewish common-
wealth. During the three hundred golden years from
Moses to Samuel,-before, for our sins, we were given over
to the madness of innovation, and the demand of an earthly
36
SALATHIEL.
1
diadem,—the Jew was free, in the loftiest sense of freedom ;
free to do all good; restricted only from evil; every man
pursuing the unobstructed course pointed out by his genius
or his fortune; every man protected by laws inviolable, or
whose violation was instantly visited with punishment by the
Eternal Sovereign alike of ruler and people.
Freedom! twin-sister of Virtue, thou brightest of all the
spirits descended in the train of Religion from the throne
of God; thou that leadest up man again to the early glories
of his being; angel, from the circle of whose presence hap-
piness spreads like the sun-light over the darkness of the
land! at the waving of whose sceptre, knowledge, and peace,
and fortitude, and wisdom, stoop upon the wing; at the voice
of whose trumpet the more than grave is broken, and slavery
gives up her dead; when shall I see thy coming? When
shall I hear thy summons upon the mountains of my country,
and rejoice in the regeneration and glory of the sons of
Judah?
I have traversed nations; and as I set my foot upon their
boundary, I have said, Freedom is not here! I saw the
naked hill, the morass steaming with death, the field covered
with weedy fallow, the sickly thicket encumbering the land;
-I saw the still more infallible signs, the downcast visage,
the form degraded at once by loathsome indolence and des-
perate poverty; the peasant cheeless and feeble in his field,
the wolfish robber, the population of the cities crowded into
´huts and cells with pestilence for their fellow;-I saw the con-
tumely of man to man, the furious vindictiveness of popular
rage, and I pronounced at the moment, This people is not
free.
In the republics of heathen antiquity, the helot, the client
sold for the extortion of the patron, and the born bondsman
lingering out life in thankless toil, at once put to flight all
conceptions of freedom. In the midst of altars fuming to
liberty, of harangues glowing with the most pompous pro-
testations of scorn for servitude, of crowds inflated with the
presumption that they disdained a master, the eye was in-
sulted with the perpetual chain. The temple of Liberty was
built upon the dungeon.-Rome came, and unconsciously
avenged the insulted name of freedom; the master and the
slave were bowed together; the dungeon was made the
common dwelling of all.
L
SALATHIEL.
37
In the Italian republics of after ages, I saw the vigor that,
living in the native soil of empire, has always sprung up on
the first call. The time was changed since Italy poured its
legions over the world. The volcano was now sleeping;
yet the fire still burned within its womb, and threw out in its
invisible strength the luxuriant qualities of the land of power.
The innate Roman passion for sovereignty was no longer to
find its triumphs in the field; it rushed up the paths of a
loftier and more solid glory with a speed and strength that
left mankind wondering below. The arts, adventure, legis-
lation, literature in all its shapes, of the subtle, the rich and
the sublime, were the peaceful triumphs, whose laurels will
entwine the Italian brow, when the wreath of the Cæsars is
remembered but as a badge of national folly and crime.
But those republics knew freedom only by the name.
All, within a few years from their birth, abandoned its living
principles-justice, temperance, and truth. I saw the sol-
diery of neighbor cities marching to mutual devastation, and
I said, Freedom is not here! I saw abject privation mingled
with boundless luxury; in the midst of the noblest works of
architecture, the hovel; in the pomps of citizens covered
with cloth of gold, gazing groups of faces haggard with beg-
gary and sin; I saw the sold tribunal, the inexorable state
prison, the established spy, the protected assassin, the secret
torture; and I said, Freedom is not here! The pageant
filled. the streets with more than kingly blazonry, the trum-
pets flourished, the multitude shouted, the painter covered
the walls with immortal emblems in honor of freedom; I
pointed to the dungeon, the rack, and the dagger! Bitterer
and deeper sign than all, I pointed to the exile of exiles, the
broken man, whom even the broken trample, of all the
undone the most undone, my outcast brother in the blood of
Abraham!
I am not about to be his defender; I am not regardless of
his tremendous crime; I cannot stand up alone against the
voice of universal man, which has cried out that thus it shall
be; but I say it from the depths of my soul, and as I hope
for rest to my miseries, that I never saw freedom survive in
that land which loved to smite the Jew!
I saw one republic, the mightiest and the last; for the
justice of Heaven on the land, the most terrible; for the
mercy of Heaven to mankind, the briefest in its devastation.
But there all was hypocrisy that was not open horror; the
VOL. I.
4
38
SALATHIEL.
only equal rights were those of the equal robber; the sacred
figure of liberty veiled its face; and the offering on its vio
lated shrine was the spoil of honor, bravery, and virtue.
The daughters of our nation, sharing in the rights of its
sons, bore the lofty impression that virtuous freedom always
stamps on the human features. But they had the softer
graces of their sex in a degree unequalled in the ancient
world. While the woman of the East was immured behind
bolts and bars, from time immemorial a prisoner; and the
woman of the West was a toy, a savage, or a slave; our
wives and maidens enjoyed the intercourses of society, which
their talents were well calculated to cheer and adorn. They
were skilled on the harp; their sweet voices were tuned to
the richest strains of earth; they were graceful in the
dance; the writings of our bards were in their hands; and
what nation ever possessed such illustrious founts of thought
and virtue?
But there was another and still higher ground for that
peculiar expression which makes their countenance still
lighten before me, as something of more than mortal beauty.
The earliest consciousness of every Jewish woman was—
that she might, in the hand of Providence, be the sacred
source of a blessing, and a'glory that throws all imagination
into the shade; that of her might be born a Being, to whom
earth and all its kings should bow! the more than man! the
'more than angel! veiling for a little time his splendors in
the form of man, to raise Israel to the sceptre of the world,
to raise that world into a renewed paradise, and then to re-
sume his original glory, and be Sovereign, Creator, God—
all in all !
This consciousness, however dimmed, was never forgot-
ten;
the misfortunes of Judah never breaking the strong
link by which we held to the future. The reliance on pre-
dictions perpetually renewed, and never more vividly re-
newed than in the midst of our misfortunes; a reliance
commemorated in all the great ceremonies of our nation, in
our worship, in our festivals, in every baptism, in every mar-
riage, must have filled a large space in the susceptible mind
of woman. What but the mind forms the countenance? and
what must have been the molding of that most magnificent
and 'elevating of all hopes, for centuries, on the most plastic
and expressive features in the world!
Sacredly reserved from intermixture with the blood of the
·
:
SALATHIEL.
39
stranger, the hope was spread throughout Israel. The line
of David was pure, but its connection had shot widely through
the land. It was like the Indian tree taking root through a
thousand trees. Every Jewish woman might hope to be the
living altar, on which the Light to lighten the Gentiles was
to descend! The humblest might be the blessed among
women! the mother of the Messiah !
But all is gone. Ages of wandering, woe, poverty, con-
tumely, and mixture of blood, have done their work of evil.
The loveliness may partially remain, but the glory of Judah's
daughters is no more.
CHAPTER VII.
WE continued ascending-through the defiles of the moun-
tain range of Carmel. The gorges of the hills gave us
alternate glimpses of Lower Galilee, and of the great sea
which lay bounding the western horizon with azure. The
morning breezes from the land, now in the full vegetation of
the rapid spring of Palestine, scarcely ceased to fill the hea
vens with fragrance, when the sea-wind sprang up, and,
with the coolness and purity of a gush of fountain waters,
renewed the spirit of life in the air, and made the whole ca-
ravan forget its fatigue. Our bold hunters spurred down the
valleys, and up the hills with the wildness of superfluous
vigor; tossed their lances into the air; sang their mountain
songs; and shouted the cries of the chase and the battle.
On one eventful day a wolf was started from its covert,
and every rein was let loose in a moment; nothing could
stop the fearlessness of the riders, or exhaust the fire of the
steeds. The caravan, coming on slowly with the women
and children, and lengthening out among the passes, was
forgotten. I scorned to be left behind, and followed
my dar.
ing companions at full speed. The wolf led us a long
chase and on the summit of a rock still blazing in the sun-
light, like a beacon, while the plain was growing dim, he
fought his last fight, and, transfixed with a hundred lances,
died the death of a hero.
But the spot which we had reached supplied statelier con-
+
40
SALATHIEL.
templations: we were on the summit of mount Tabor: the
eye wandered over the whole glory of the Land of Promise.
To the south extended the mountains of Samaria, their
peaked summits glowing in the sun with the colored brilli-
ancy of a chain of gems. To the east lay the lake of Ti-
berías, a long line of purple. Northward, like a thousand
rainbows, ascended, lit by the western flame, the mountains
of Gilboa, those memorable hills on which the spear of Saul
was broken, and the first curse of our obstinacy was
branded upon us in the blood of our first king. Closing the
superb circle, ascending step by step the Antilibanus, soar-
ing into the very heavens.
Of all the sights that nature offers to the eye and mind of
man, mountains have always stirred my strongest feelings.
I have seen the ocean when it was turned up from the bot-
tom by tempest, and noon was like night with the conflict of
the billows and the storm that tore and scattered them in
mist and foam across the sky. I have seen the desert rise
around me, and calmly, in the midst of thousands uttering
cries of horror and paralysed by fear, have contemplated
the sandy pillars coming like the advance of some gigantic
city of conflagration flying across. the wilderness, every
column glowing with intense fire, and every blast with death;
the sky vaulted with gloom, the earth a furnace. But with
me, the mountain-in tempest or in calm, the throne of
the thunder, or with the evening sun painting its dells
and declivities in colors dipt in heaven-has been the
source of the most absorbing sensations :-there stands
magnitude giving the instant impression of a power above
man-grandeur that defies decay-antiquity that tells of ages
unnumbered-beauty that the touch of time makes only
more beautiful-use exhaustless for the service of man-
strength imperishable as the globe ;-the monument of eter-
nity, the truest earthly emblem of that everliving, un-
changeable, irresistible Majesty, by whom and for whom all
things were made!
I was gazing on the Antilibanus, and peopling its distant
slopes with figures of other worlds ascending and descend-
ing, as in the patriarch's dream, when I was roused by the
trampling steed of one of my kinsmen returning with the wolf's
head, the trophy of his superior prowess, at his saddle bow.
"So," said he, "you disdained to share the last battle of
that dog of the Galilees? But we shall show you something
better worth the chase, when we reach home. The first
SALATHIEL.
41
·
snow that drives the lions down from Lebanon, or the first
hot wind that sends the panthers flying before it from Assy-
ria, will have all our villages up in arms; every man that can
draw a bow, or throw a lance, will be on the mountains ;
and then we shall give you the honors of a hunter in ex-
change for your philosophy." He uttered this with a jovial
laugh, and a hand grasping mine with the gripe of a giant.
"Yet," said he, and a shade passed over his brow, "I wish
we had something better to do; you must not look down
upon Jubal, and the tribe of your brother Eleazar, as mere
rovers after wolves and panthers.'
""
I willingly declared my respect for the intrepidity and
dexterity which the mountain life ensured. I applauded its
health, activity and cheerfulness. "Yet," interrupted Jubal
sternly, "what can be done while those Romans are every
where around us?" He stopped short, reined up his horse
with a sudden force, that made the animal spring from the
ground, flung his lance high in air, caught it in the fall, and
having thus relieved his indignation, returned to discuss with
me the chances of Roman war. "Look at those,” said he,
pointing to the horsemen who were now bounding across
the declivities to rejoin the caravan; "their horses are
flame, their bodies are iron, and their souls would be both,
if they had a leader.” "Eleazar is brave," I replied.
"Brave as his own lance," was the answer; "no warmer
heart, wiser head, or firmer arm, moves at this hour within
the borders of the land. But he despairs.
." He knows,"
said I, "the Roman power and the Jewish weakness.”
Both, both, too well," was the reply.
"But he forgets
the power that is in the cause of a people fighting for their
law, for their rights, in the midst of glorious remembrances,
nay in the hope of a help greater than that of the sword,
Look at the tract beyond those linden trees."
""
He pointed to a broken extent of ground, darkly distin-
guishable from the rest of the plain. "On that ground, to
this moment wearing the look of a grave, was drawn up the
host of Sisera; under that ground is their grave. By this
stone," and he struck his lance on a rough pillow defaced
by time," stood Deborah the prophetess, prophesying against
the thousands and ten of thousands of the heathen below.
On this hill was drawn up the army of Barak, as a drop in
the ocean, compared with the infidel multitudes. They
were the ancestors of men whom you now see trooping before
1
?
4*
42
SALATHIEL.
you; the men of Naphtali, with their brothers of Zabulon.
On this spot they gathered their might like the storm of
Heaven. From this spot they poured down like its whirl-
winds and lightnings upon the taunting enemy. God was
their leader. They rushed upon the nine hundred scythed
chariots, upon the mailed cavalry, upon the countless infan-
try. Of all, but one escaped from the plain of Jezreel, and
that one only to perish in his flight by the degradation of a
woman's hand!" He wheeled round his foaming horse, and
appealed to me. "Are the Roman legions more numerous
than that host of the dead? Is Israel now less valiant, less
wronged, or less indignant? Shall no prophet arise among
us again? Shall it not be sung again, as it was then sung
to the harps of Israel—'Zabulon and Naphtali were a peo-
ple that jeopardied their lives unto the death in the high
places of the land?"
I looked with involuntary wonder at the change wrought
in him by those proud recollections. The rude and jovial
hunter was no more; the Jewish warrior stood before me
filled with the double impulse of generous scorn of the op-
pression, and of high dependence on the fates of his nation.
His countenance was ennobled, his form seemed to dilate,
his voice grew sonorous as a trumpet. A sudden burst of
the declining sun broke upon his figure, and threw a sheet
of splendor across the scarlet turban, the glittering tunic, the
spear-point lifted in the strenuous hand, the richly-capari-
soned front, and sanguine nostril of his impatient charger.
A Gentile would have worshipped him as the tutelar genius
of war. I saw in him but the man that our history and our
law were ordained, beyond all others, to have made;-the na-
tive strength of character raised into heroism by the con-
viction of a guiding and protecting Providence.
The conversation was not forgotten on either side; and it
bore fruit, fearful fruit, in time.
We had reached on our return a commanding point, from
which we looked into the depths already filling with twilight,
and through whose blue vapors the caravan toiled slowly
along, like a wearied fleet in some billowy sea. Suddenly
a tumult was perceived below: cries of confusion and terror
rose; and the whole caravan was seen scattering in all direc-
tions through the passes. For the first moment we thought
that it had been attacked by the mountain robbers. We
grasped our lances, and galloped down the side of the hill to
charge them; when we were stopped at once by a woman's
SALATHIEL.
43
scream from the ridge which we had just left. It struck
through my heart-the voice was Miriam's. To my un.
speakable horror, I saw her dromedary, mad with fear and
pouring blood, rush along the edge of the precipice. I saw
the figure clinging to his neck. The light forsook my eyes;
and but for the grasp of Jubal, I must have fallen to the
ground. His voice aroused me. When I looked round
again, the shouts had died, the troop had disappeared-it
seemed all a dream!
But, again, the shouts came doubling upon the wind; and
far as the eye could pierce through the dusk, I saw the white
robe of Miriam flying along like a vapor. I threw the reins
on my horse's neck—I roused him with my voice-I rushed
with the fearlessness of despair through the hills-I over-
took the troop-I outstripped them :-still the vision flew be-
fore me.
At length it sank.-The dromedary had plunged
down the precipice; a depth of hideous darkness.-A tor-
rent roared below. I struck in the spur to follow.-My
horse wheeled round on the edge: while I strove to force
him to the leap, my kinsmen came up, with Eleazer at their
head.-Bold as they were, they all recoiled from the fright-
ful depth. Even in that wild moment, I had time to feel that
this was but the beginning of my inflictions, and that I was to
wreck the ruin of all that belonged to me. In conscious-
ness unspeakable, I sprang from my startled steed; and be-
fore a hand could check me, I plunged in.-A cry of aston-
ishment and horror rang in my ears as I fell.-The roar of
waters was then around me.-I struggled with the torrent;
gasped; and heard no more.
This desperate effort saved the life of Miriam. We were
found apparently dead, clasped in each other's arms at some
distance down the stream. The plunge had broke the band
by which she was fixed on the saddle. She floated and we
were thrown together by the eddy. After long effort, we
were restored. But the lamentations of my matchless wife
were restrained beside my couch, only to bust forth when she
was alone.—We had lost our infant.
The chase of the wolves in the mountain, had driven them
across the march of the caravan.
One of those savages
sprang upon the flank of the dromedary. The animal, in
the agony of its wounds, burst away: its proverbial fleet-
ness baffled pursuit; and it was almost fortunate that it at
length bounded over the precipice; as, in the mountain
·
.

44
SALATHIEL.
P
country, its precious burden must have perished by the lion
or by famine. Miriam held her babe with the strong grasp
of a mother; but in the torrent that grasp was dissolved.
All our search was in vain. My wife wept :-but I had in
her rescued my chief treasure of earth; and was consoled
by the same deep feeling which pronounced that I might
have been punished by the loss of all.
CHAPTER VIII.
LET me hasten through some years.-The sunshine of
life was gone; in all my desire to conform to the habits of
my new career, I found myself incapable of contentment.
But the times, that had long resembled the stagnation of a
lakė, were beginning to be shaken. Rome herself, the prey
of conspiracy, gradually held her foreign sceptre with a
feebler hand. Gaul and Germany were covered with ga.
thering clouds; and their flashes were answered from the
Asiatic hills. With the relaxation of the paramount autho-
rity, the chain of subordinate oppression, as always happens,
was made tighter. As the master was enfeebled, the me-
nials were less in awe; and Judea rapidly felt what must
be the evils of a military government without the strictness
of military discipline.
I protest against being charged with ambition. But I had
a painful sense of the guilt of suffering even such powers
as I might possess, to waste away, without use to some part
of mankind. I was weary of the utter unproductiveness of
the animal enjoyments, in which I saw the multitude round
me content to linger into old age. I longed for an opportu-
nity of contributing my might to the solid possessions by
which posterity is wiser, happier, or purer, than the genera-
tion before them :-some trivial tribute to that mighty stream
of time which ought to go on, continually bringing richer
fertility as it flowed. I was not grieved at the change which
I saw overshadowing the gorgeous empire of Rome.
My unspeakable crime may have thrown a deeper tinge
on those contemplations. But by singular fatality, and per-
haps for the increase of my punishment, I was left for long
SALATHIEL.
45
periods in each year to the common impressions of life.-
The wisdom, which even my great misfortune might have
forced upon me, was withheld; and the being who, in the
conviction of his mysterious destiny, must have looked upon
earth and its pursuits, as man looks upon the labors and the
life of flies-as the atoms in the sunshine-as measureless
emptiness and trifling,-was given over to be disturbed by
the impulse of generations on whose dust he was to sit, and
see other generations rise round him, themselves to sink
alike into dust, while he still sat an image of endurance and
warning imperishable.
But there was a season in each year when those recollec-
tions returned with overwhelming vividness. If all other
knowledge of the approach of the passover could have es-
caped me, there were signs, fearful signs, that warned me of
that hour of my woe. A periodic dread of the sight of
man, a sudden, gloomy sense of my utter separation from
the interests of the transitory beings round me, wild dreams,
days of immovable abstraction, yet filled with the breath-
ing picture of all that I had done on the day of my guilt in
Jerusalem, rose before me with such intense reality, that I
lived through the scene. The successive progress of my
crime-the swift and stinging consciousness of condemna-
tion-the flash of fearful knowledge, that showed me futu-
rity;-all-all were felt with the keenness of a being from
whom his fleshly nature had been stripped away, and the
soul bared to every visitation of pain.—I stood like a disem-
bodied spirit in suffering.
Yet I could not be restrained from following my tribe on
their annual progress to the Holy City.-To see from afar
the towers of the temple, was with me like a craving for
life :—but I never dared to set my foot within its gates. On
some pretence or other, and sometimes through real power-
lessness, arising from the conflict of my heart, I lingered
behind, yet within the distance from which the city could be
seen. There among the precipices I wandered through the
day, listening to the various uproar of the mighty multitude,
or wistfully catching some echo of the hymns in the temple
-sounds that stole from my eye many a tear-till darkness
fell, the city slumbered, and the blast of the Roman trum-
pets, as they divided the night, reminded me of the fallen
glories of my country.
In one of those wanderings, I had followed the course of
the Kedron, which, from a brook under the walls of Jerusa-
46
SALATHIEL
1
lem, swells to a river on its descent to the Dead Sea.-The
blood of the sacrifices from the conduits of the altars curdled
on its surface, and stained the sands purple.-It looked like
a wounded vein from the mighty heart above, I still strayed
on, wrapt in sad forebodings of the hour when its stains
might be of more than sacrifice; until I found myself on the
edge of the lake. Who has ever seen that black expanse
without a shudder?-There were the ingulphed cities.
Around it, life was extinct-no animal bounded-no bird
hovered. The distant rushing of the river Jordan, as it
forced its current through the heavy waters, or the sigh of
the wind through the reeds, alone broke the silence of this
mighty grave. Of the melancholy objects of nature, none.
is more depressing than a large expanse of stagnant waters.
No gloom of forest, no wildness of mountain, is so overpow
ering, as this dreary, unrelieved flatness-the marshy bor-
der the sickly vegetation of the shore-the leaden color
which even the sky above it wears, tinged by its sepulchral
atmosphere. But the waters before me were not left to the
dreams of a saddened fancy:-they were a sepulchre.-
Myriads of human beings lay beneath them, entombed in
sulphureous beds.-The wrath of Heaven had been there.
I
The day of destruction seemed to pass again before my
eyes, as I lay gazing on those sullen depths. I saw them
once more a plain covered with richness; cities glittering in
the morning sun; multitudes pouring out from their gates to
sports and festivals: the land exulting with life and luxuri-
ance. Then a cloud gathered above. I heard the voice of
the thunder; it was answered by the earthquake.-Fire
burst from the skies ;-it was answered by a thousand founts
of fire spouting from the plain.-The distant hills blazed,
and threw volcanic showers over the cities.-Round them
was a tide of burning bitumen.-The earthquake heaved
again.—All sank into the gulf. I heard the roar of the dis
tant waters. They rushed into the bed of fire; the doom
was done; the cities of the plain were gone down to the
blackness of darkness for ever.
I was idly watching the bursts of suffocating vapor that
shoot up at intervals from the rising masses of bitumen, when
I was startled by a wild laugh and wilder figure beside me.
I sprang on my feet, and prepared for defence with my poi-
nard: the figure waved his hand in sign to sheathe the un-
"necessary weapon; and said, in a tone strange and melan.
..
SALATHIEL.
47
choly, "you are in my power; but I do not come to injure
you. I have been contemplating your countenance for some
time :-I have seen your features deeply disturbed-your
wringing hands—your convulsed form :-are you even as I
am ?"
The voice was singularly mild: yet I never heard a sound
that so keenly pierced my brain. The speaker was of the
tallest stature of man-every sinew and muscle exhibiting
gigantic strength; yet, with the symmetry of a Greek statue.
But his countenance was the true wonder-it was of the
finest mould of manly beauty: the contour was Greek, but
the hue was Syrian :-yet the dark tinge of country gave
way at times to a more than corpse-like paleness. I had
full leisure for the view; for he stood gazing on me without
a word; and I remained fixed on my defence. At length,
he said, "put up that poinard! You could no more hurt me
than you could resist me :-look here!" He wrenched a
huge mass of rock from the ground, and whirled it far into
the lake, as if it had been a pebble. I gazed with speech-
less astonishment. "Yes;" pursued the figure," they
throw me into their prisons-they lash me-they stretch me
on the rack-they burn my flesh." As he spoke, he flung
aside his robe, and showed his broad breast covered with
scars. "Short-sighted fools! little they know him who
suffers, or him who commands. If it were not my will to
endure, I could crush my tormentors as I crush an insect.
They chain me too," said he with a laugh of scorn.-He
drew out the arm which had been hitherto wrapped in his
robe. It was loaded with links of iron of prodigious thick-
ness. He grasped one of them in his hand, twisted it off'
with scarcely an effort, and flung it up a sightless distance
in the air. "Such are bars and bolts to me!
When my
time is come to suffer, I submit to be tortured! When my
time is passed, I tear away their fetters, burst their dungeons,
and walk forth trampling their armed men.”
I sheathed the dagger. "Does this strength amaze you?"
said the being: "look to yonder dust ;" and he pointed to a
cloud of sand that came flying along the shore. "I could
outstrip that whirlwind;-I could plunge unhurt into the
depths of that sea;-1 could ascend that mountain swifter
than the eagle ;—I could ride that thunder cloud.
As he threw himself back, gazing upon the sky-with his
grand form buoyant with vigor, and his arm exalted-he
48
SALATHIEL.
looked like one to whom height or depth could offer no ob
stacle. His mantle flew out along the blast, like the unfurl.
ing of a mighty wing. There was something in his look and
voice that gave irresistible conviction to his wild words.—
Conscious mastery was in all about him. I should not have
felt surprise to see him spring up into the elements.
My mind grew inflamed with his presence.-My blood
burned with sensations, for which language has no name-a
thirst of power-a scorn of earth-a proud and fiery longing
for the command of the hidden mysteries of nature.-I felt,
as the great ancestor of mankind might have felt, when the
voice of the tempter told him, "Ye shall be even as gods."
""
"Give me your power," I exclaimed; "the world to me
is worthless with man all my ties are broken: let me live
in the desert, and be even as you are: give me your power.
-"My power!" he repeated, with a ghastly laugh that rang
to the skies, and was echoed round the wilderness by what
seemed voices innumerable, until it died away in a distant
groan. "Look on this forehead !"-he threw back the cor-
ner of his mantle. A furrow was drawn round his brow,
covered with gore, and gaping like a fresh wound. Here,"
howled he, "sat the diadem.—I was Epiphanes.'
""
66
You, Antiochus ! the tyrant-the persecutor-the spoiler
-the accursed of Israel!" I bounded backwards in sudden
horror.
I saw before me one of those spirits of the evil dead, who
are allowed from time to time to re-appear on earth in the
body, whether of the dead or the living. For some cause
that none could unfold, Judea had been, within the last few
years, haunted by them more than for centuries. Strange
rites, dangerously borrowed from the idolaters, were resorted
to for our relief from this new terror: the pulling of the
mandrake at the eclipse of the moon-incantations-midnight
offerings-the root Baaras, that was said to flash flame, and
kill the animal that drew it from the ground. Our Saddu-
cees and skeptics, wise in their own conceit, declared that
possession was but a human disease, a wilder insanity. But,
with the rage and misery of madness, there were tremendous
distinctions that raised it beyond all the ravages of the hurt
mind, or the afflicted frame :-the look, the language, the
horror of the possessed, were above man. They defied
human restraint; they lived in wildernesses where the very
insects died: the fiery sun of the East, the inclemency of the
SALATHIEL.
49
fiercest winter, had no power to break down their strength.
-But they had stronger signs;-they spoke of things to
which the wisdom of the wisest is folly-they told of the
remotest future with the force of prophecy-they gave
glimpses of a knowledge brought from realms of being inac.
cessible to living man-last and loftiest sign, they did homage
to HIs Coming, whom a cloud of darkness, the guilty and im-
penetrable darkness of the heart, had veiled from my unhap-·
py nation.—But their worship was terror-they believed and
trembled.
"Power—” said the possessed, and his large and un-
moving eyes seemed lighting up with fire from within.-
"Power you shall have, and hate it; wealth you shall have,
and hate it; life you shall have, and hate it: yet you shall
know the depths of the condition of man.-You shall be the
worm among a nation of worms—you shall be steeped in po-
verty to the lips-you shall undergo the bitterness of death
until-." His brow suddenly writhed, he gnashed his teeth,
and convulsively sprang from the ground, as if an arrow had
shot through him.
The current of his thoughts was changed. Things above
man were not to be uttered to the ear unopened by the grave.
"Come," said he, "son of misfortune, emblem of the nation,
that living shall die, and dying shall live; that trampled by
all, shall trample upon all; that bleeding from a thousand
wounds, shall be unhurt; that beggared, shall wield the
wealth of nations; that without a name, shall sway the coun-
cil of kings; that without a city, shall inhabit in all king-
doms; that scattered like the dust, shall be bound together
like the rock; that perishing by the sword, by the chain, by
famine, by fire, shall be imperishable, unnumbered, glorious
as the stars of heaven."
Overwhelmed with sensations, rushing in a flood through
my heart, I had cast myself upon the ground: the flashing
of the fiery eye before me consumed my blood; and fainting,
I lay with my face upon the sand. But his words were deeply
heard; with every sound of his searching voice they struck
into my soul. He grasped me; and I was lifted up like an
infant in his grasp.
"Come," said he, "and see what is re-
served for you and for your people."
He darted forward with a speed that took away my breath
-he ran-he bounded-he flew. "Now, behold!" he ut-
tered in an accent as composed as if he had not moved a
VOL. I.
5
1
50
SALATHIEL.
limb. I looked, and found myself on one of the hills close
to the great southern gate of Jerusalem. Years had passed
since I ventured so nigh. But I now gazed on the city of
pomp and beauty, with an involuntary wonder that I could
have ever deserted a scene so lovely and so loved.
It was the twilight of a summer evening. Tower and wall
lay bathed in a sea of purple; the Temple rose from its cen-
tre like an island of light: the host of heaven came riding
up the blue fields above; the sounds of day died in harmony.
All was the sweetness, calmness, and splendor of a vision.
painted in the clouds.
"There," said the possessed, "I was master, conqueror,
avenger:-yet I was but the instrument to punish your fu-
rious dissensions-your guilty abandonment of the law of
your leader-your more than Gentile apostacy from the wor-
ship of Him, who is to be worshiped with more than the
blood of bulls and goats. A power hidden from my idola-
trous eyes went before me, and broke down the courage of
your people. I marched through your gates on the neck of
the godless warrior; I plundered the wealth of your rich
nien, made worldly by their wealth; I slew your priesthood,
already the betrayers of their altar; I overthrew your places
of worship, already defiled; I covered the ruins with the
blood of swine; I raised idols in the sanctuary; I bore away
the golden vessels of the temple, and gave them to the in-
sult of the Syrian; I slew your males, I made captives of
your women: I abolished your sacrifices, and pronounced
in my hour of blasphemy, that within the walls of Jerusalem
the flame should never again be kindled to the Supreme.
The deed was mine, but the cause was the iniquity of your
people."
The history of devastation roused in me those feelings na-
tive to the Jew, by which I had been taught to look with ab-
horrence on the devastator. "Let me be gone,” I exclaimed,
struggling from his grasp. "Strange and terrible being, let
me hear no more this outrage to God and man. I am guilty,
too guilty, in having listened to you for a moment. He
laid his hand upon my brow, and I felt my strength dissolve
at the touch. "Go," said he, "but be first a witness of the
future. A fiercer destroyer than Epiphanes shall come, to
punish a darker crime than ever stained your forefathers.
A destruction shall come, to which the past was the sport of
children. Tower and wall, citadel and temple, shall be dust.


!
SALATHIEL.
51
The sword shall do its work-the chain shall do its work-
the flame shall do its work. Bad spirits shall rejoice; good
spirits shall weep; Israel shall be clothed in sackcloth and
ashes for a time impenetrable by a created eye. The world
shall exult, trample, scorn, and slay. Blindness, madness,
misery, shall be the portion of the people. Now, behold!"
He stood, with his arms stretched out towards the temple.
All before me was tranquillity itself; night had suddenly
fallen deeper than usual; the stars had been wrapped in
clouds that yet gathered without a wind; a faint tinge of
light from the summit of Mount Moriah, the gleam of the
never extinguished altar of the Daily Sacrifice, alone marked
the central court of the temple. I turned from the almost
death-like stillness of the scene, with a look of involuntary
disbelief, to the face of my fearful guide: even in the deep
darkness every feature of it was strangely visible.
A low murmur from the city caught my ear; it rapidly
grew loud, various, wild: it was soon intermixed with the
clash of arms. Trumpets now rang: I recognized the
charging shout of the Romans; I heard the tumultuous and
mingled roar of my countrymen in return. The darkness
was converted into light; torches blazed along the battle-
ments and turrets: the Tower of Antonia, the Roman cita-
del, with its massy bulwarks and immense altitude, rose from
a tossing expanse of flame below like a colossal funeral-pile;
I could see on its summit the agitation and alarm, the rapid
signals, the hasty snatching up of spear and shield, of the
garrison, which that night's vengeance was to offer up vic-
tims on the pile. The roar of battle rose, it deepened into
cries of agony, it swelled again into furious exultation
I thought of my countrymen butchered by some new ca-
price of power; of my kinsmen, perhaps at that instant in-
volved in the massacre; of the city, every stone and beam
of which was dear to my embittered heart, given up to the
vengeance of the idolater. The prediction of its ruin was
in my ears; and I longed to perish with my tribe. I panted
with every shout that burst from the battle; every new sheet
of flame that rolled upwards from the burning houses fevered
me; I longed to rush with the speed of the whirlwind. But
the terrible hand was upon my forehead, and I was feeble as
a broken reed. Behold," said the possessed, "those are
but the beginnings of evil." I felt a sudden return of my
strength; I looked up-he was gone!

52 k
SALATHIEL.
CHAPTER IX.
I PLUNGED into the valley; and found it filled with fugitives
incapable from terror of giving me any account of the up-
roar. Women and children, hastily thrown on the mules
and camels, continued to pour through the country. The
road wound through the intervals of the hills, and though
sometimes approaching near enough to the walls to be illu-
minated by the blaze of the torches and beacons, yet from its
general darkness and intricacy, left me to make my way by
the sounds of the conflict. But I was quickly within reach
of ample evidence of what was doing in that night of
havoc. The bend of the road, from which the first view of
the Grand portico was seen, had been the rallying point to
the multitude driven out by the unexpected charge of the
garrison. The tide of the flight had thence ebbed and flow-
ed, and I found the spot covered with the dead and dying.
In my haste I stumbled, and fell over one of the wounded;
he groaned, and prayed me for a cup of water to cool the
thirst that parched him. I knew the voice of Jairus, one of
the boldest of our mountaineers, and bore him to the hill-side,
that he might not be trampled by the crowd. He faintly
thanked me, and said, "If you be a man of Israel, fly to
Eleazar. Take this spear.:-another moment may be too
late." I seized the spear, and sprang forward.
The multitude had repelled the Romans, and forced them
up the broad central street of the city. But a reinforcement
from the Tower of Antonia joined the troops, and were dri.
ving back the victors with ruinous disorder. I heard the war-
cries of the tribes as they called to the rescue and the
charge. "Onward, Judah;" "Ho, for Zebulon ;" "Glory
to Naphtali." I thought of the times of Jewish triumph, and
saw before me the warriors of the Maccabees.
Nerved with new sensations, the strong instincts which
make the war-horse paw the ground at the trumpet, and
make men rush headlong upon death; heightened by the
stinging recollections of our days of freedom, I forced my
path through the multitude that tossed and whirled like the
eddies of the ocean. I found my kinsmen in front, battling
desperately against the long spears of a Roman column, that
SALATHIEL.
53
solid as iron, and favored by the higher ground, was pressing
down all before it. The resistance was heroic, but unavail.
ing; and when I burst forward, I found at my side nothing
but faces black with despair, or covered with wounds. In
front was a wall of shields and helmets, glaring in the light
of the conflagration that was now rapidly spreading on all
sides. The air was scorching, the smoke rolling against us
in huge volumes; blindness, burning, and loss of blood, were
consuming the multitude. But what is in the strength of the
soldier, or the bravery of discipline, to daunt the desperate
energy and regardless valor of men fighting for their country
-and above all men, of the Israelite, fighting in the sight of
the profaned Temple? The native frame, exercised by the
habits of our temperate and agricultural life, was one of sur-
passing muscular strength; and man for man thrown naked
into the field, we could have torn the Roman garrison into
fragments for the fowls of the air. But their arms, and the
help which they received from the nature of the ground,
were too strong for the assault of men fighting with no shield
but their cloaks, and no arms but a pilgrim's staff, or some
weapon caught up from a dead enemy.
Yet to me there came a wild impression, that this night
was to make or unmake me; an undefined feeling, that in
the shedding of my blood in the sight of the Temple, there
might be some palliative, some washing away of my crime.
I sprang forward between the combatants, and defied the
boldest of the legionaries; the battle paused for an instant,
and my name was shouted in exultation by the voices of my
tribe. A shower of arrows from the battlements was poured
upon me. I felt myself wounded, but the feeling only roused
me to bolder daring. Tearing off my gory mantle, I lifted
it on the point of my javelin, and with the poniard in my
right hand, aloud devoted the Romans to ruin in the name of
the Temple.
The enemy, in their native superstition, shrank from a
being who looked the messenger of angry Heaven. The
naked figure, the blood streaming from my wounds, the wild
and mystic sound of my words, reminded them of the diviners
that had often shook their souls in their own land. I burst
into the circle of spears, waving my standard, and calling
on my nation to follow. I smote to the right and left. The
entrance that I had made in the iron bulwark was instantly
filled by the multitude. All discipline gave way. The

5*
54
SALATĤIEL.
weight of the Roman armor was ruinous to men grappled
hand to hand by the light and sinewy agility of the Jew.
We rushed on, trampling down cuirass and buckler, till we
drove the enemy like sheep before us to the first gate of the
Tower of Antonia. Arrows, lances, stones in showers from
the battlements, could not stop the triumphant valor of the
people. We rushed on to assault the gate. Sabinus, the
tribune of the legion, rallied the remnant of the fugitives,
and under cover of the battlements, made a last attempt to
change the fortunes of the night. Exhausted as I was,
bruised and bleeding, my feet and hands lacerated with the
burning ruins, my tongue cleaving to my mouth with deadly
thirst, I rushed upon him. He had been cruelly known to
the Jews, a tyrant, and plunderer, for the many years of his
command. Notrophy of the battle could have been so cheering
to them as his head. But he had the bravery of his country;
and it was now augmented by rage. The despair of being
able to clear himself before imperial jealousy for that night's
He bound.
disasters, must have made life worthless to him.
ed on the drawbridge at my cry. Our meeting was brief;
my poniard broke on his cuirass: his falchion descended with
a blow that would have cloven a head-piece of steel. I
sprang aside, and caught it on the shaft of my javelin stand-
ard, which it cut right in two. I returned the blow with the
fragment. The iron pierced his throat: he flung up his hands,
staggered back, and dropped dead. The roar of Israel rent
the heavens.
Scarcely more alive than the trunk at my feet, I fell back
among the throng. But whatever may be the envy of courts,
no injustice is done in the field. The successful leader is sure
of his reward from the gallant spirits that he has conducted
to victory. I was hailed with shouts of congratulation-I
was lifted on the shoulders of the multitude; the men of
Naphtali proudly claimed me for their own; and when I
clasped the hand of my brave friend Jubal, whom I found in
the foremost rank, covered with dust and blood, he exclaimed,
"Remember Barak; remember Mount Tabor."
But I looked round in vain for one whom I had parted
with but a few days before, and without whom I scarcely
dared return to Miriam. Her noble brother was not to be
seen; had he fallen? Jubal understood my countenance,
and mournfully pointed to the citadel, which rose above us,
frowning down on our impotent rage. "Eleazar is a pri-
SALATHIEL.
55
""
soner?" I interrogated. "There can be no hope for him
from the hypocritical clemency of those barbarians of Italy,'
was the answer; "It was with him that the insurrection
began. He had gone up to lay his offering on the altar
some new Roman insolence commanded that our people
should offer a sacrifice to the image of the emperor, to the
polluted, blood-thirsty tyrant of Rome and mankind. Elea-
zar shrank from this act of horror. The tribune, even that
dog of Rome, whose tongue you have silenced-so may
perish all the enemies of the Holy City!-commanded that
our chieftain should be scourged at the altar. The cords
were round his arms; the spearmen were at his back; they
marched him through the streets, calling on all the Jews to
look upon the punishment that was equally reserved for all.
Our indignation burst forth in groans and prayers. I hastily
gathered the males of our tribe :-we snatched
-we snatched up what
arms we could, and were rushing to his rescue when we saw
him sweeping the guard before him. He had broken his
bands by a desperate effort. We fell upon the pursuers,
and put them to the sword. Blood was now drawn, and we
knew the vengeance of the Romans. To break up and
scatter through the country, would have been only to give
our throats to the cavalry. Eleazar determined to anticipate
the attack. Messengers were sent round to the leaders of
the tribes, and the seizure of the Roman fortress was re-
solved on.
We gathered at night-fall, and drove in the out-
posts. But the garrison were prepared. We were beaten
down by a storm of darts and javelins, and must have been
undone but for your appearing. In the first onset, Eleazar,
while cheering us to the charge, was struck by a stone from
an engine. I saw him fall among a circle of the enemy;
and hastened to his rescue. But when I reached the spot,
he was gone, and my last sight of him was at yonder gate,
as he was borne in, waving his hand-his last farewell to
Naphtali."
Deep silence followed his broken accents; he hung his
head on his hand, and the tears glistened through his fin-
gers. The circle of brave men round us wrapped their
heads in their mantles. I could not contain the bitterness
of my soul. Years had cemented my friendship for the
virtuous and generous hearted brother of my beloved. He
had borne with my waywardness:-he had done all that
man could do to soften my heart, to enlighten my darkness,
56
SALATHIEL.
to awake me to a wisdom surpassing rubies. I lifted up my
voice and wept.
The brazen blast of a trumpet from the battlements sud-
denly raised all our eyes. Troops moved slowly along the
walls of the fortress; they ascended the central tower.
Their ranks opened, and in the midst was seen by the torch-
light a man of Israel. They had brought him to that place
of exposure, in the double cruelty of increasing his torture
and ours by death in the presence of the people. An uni-
versal groan burst from below. He felt it, and meekly
pointed with his hand to Heaven, where no tortures shall
disturb the peace of the departed. The startling sound of
the trumpet stung the ear again; it was the signal for
execution. I saw the archer advance to take aim at him.
He drew the shaft. Almost unconsciously, I seized a sling
from the hands of one of our tribe. I whirled it.
archer dropped dead, with the arrow still on his bow.
.
•
The
To those who had not seen the cause, the effect was
almost a miracle. The air pealed with acclamation; a
thousand slings instantly swept the escort from the battle-
ments; the walls were left naked;-ladders were raised,-
ropes were slung,-axes were brandished; the activity of
our hunters and mountaineers availed itself of every crevice
and projection of the walls; they climbed on each other's
shoulders; they leaped from point to point, where the an-
telope could have scarcely found footing; they ran over
narrow and fenced walls and curtains, where, in open day.
light, and with his senses awake to the danger, no man could
have moved. Torches without number showered upon all
that was combustible. At length, the central magazine
took fire.
We now fought no longer in darkness; the flames rolled
sheet on sheet above our heads, throwing light over the
whole horizon. We were soon in no want of soldiers; the
tribes poured in at the sight of the conflagration; and no
valor could resist their enthusiasm. Some cried out, that
they saw beings mightier than man descending to fight the
battle of the favored nation :-some, that the day of Joshua
had returned, and that a light of more than earthly lústre
was visible in the burning! But the battle was no longer
doubtful. The Romans, reduced in number by the struggle
in the streets, exhausted by the last attack, and aware, from
the destruction of their magazines, that their most successful
SALATHIEL.
57
!
resistance must be ended by famine, called out for terms.
I had but one answer-"The life of Eleazar.” The draw.
bridge fell, and he appeared;—the next moment he was in
my arms!
The garrison marched out. I restrained the violence of
their conquerors, irritated by the memory of years of insult.
Not a hair of a Roman head was touched. They were led
down to the valley of Kedron; were disarmed, and thence
sent without delay under a safeguard to their countrymen in
Idumea. In one night the Holy City was cleared of every
foot of the idolater.
CHAPTER X.
BUT while the people were in a state of the wildest tri-
umph, the joy of their leaders was tempered by many for-
midable reflections. The power of the enemy was still
unshaken the surprise of a single garrison,' though a distin-
guished evidence of what might be done by native valor,
was trivial on the scale of a war that must be conducted
against the whole power of the mistress of the civilized
world. The policy of Rome was known: she never gave
up a conquest while it could be retained by the most lavish
and persevering expenditure of her strength. Her treasury
would be stripped of every talent, and Italy left without a
soldier, before she would surrender the most fruitless spot,
an acre of sand, or a point of rock, in Judea.
I went forth, but not among the leaders, nor among the
people; I turned away equally from the council and the
triumph. A deeper feeling urged me to wander round those
courts where my spirit so often turned in my exile. The
battle had reached even there, and the pollution of blood
was on the consecrated ground. The Roman soldiers had,
in their advance, driven the people to take refuge in the
cloisters of the temple; and the dead lying thickly among
the columns, showed how fierce even that brief and partial
struggle had been. With a torch in my hand, I trod through
those heaps of what once was man, to have one parting look
at the scene where I had passed so many happy and inno-

68
SALATHIEL.
cent hours. I stood before the porch of my cloister, almost
listening for the sound of the familiar voices within. The
long interval of time was compressed into an instant.
I awoke from the reverie, with a smile at the idleness of
human fancy, and struck upon the door.-There was no
answer; but the bolts, loosened by time, gave way, and I
was again the master of my mansion.-It was uninhabited
since my flight; why, I could not conceive.-But, as I passed
from room to room, I found them all as if they had been left
but the hour before. The embroidery, which Miriam
wrought with a skill distinguished even among the daughters
of the temple, was still fixed in its frame before the silken
couch; there lay the harp that relieved her hours of graceful
toil. The tissued sandals were waiting for the delicate feet.
-The veil, the vermilion mantle that designated her rank,
the tabret, the armlets and necklaces of precious stones,
still hung upon the sofas, untouched of the spoiler.
There was but one evidence of time among them-but
that bore its bitter moral. It was the dust, that hung heavy
upon the curtains of precious needlework, and dimmed the
glitter of the gems, and chilled the richness of the Tyrian
purple-decay, that teacher without a tongue, the lonely
emblem of what the bustle of mankind must come to at last;
the dull memorial of the proud, the beautiful, the brave!
All was the silence of the tomb! With the torch in my
hand, throwing its red reflection on the walls and rich remem-
brances round me, I sat, like the mummy of an Egyptian
king in the sepulchre,-in the midst of the things that I had
loved, yet divorced from them by an irresistible law for ever!
I impatiently broke forth into the open air.-The stars
were waning; a grey streak of dawn was whitening the
summit of the Mount of Olives. As I passed by Herod's
palace, and lifted my eyes in wonder at the unusual sight of
a group of Jews keeping watch, where, but the day before,
the Roman governor lorded it, and none but the Roman sol-
dier durst stand; I saw Jubal hurrying out, and making signs
to me through the crowd from the esplanade above. I was
instantly recognized, and all made way for my ascent up
those gorgeous and almost countless steps of porphyry, that
formed one of the wonders of Jerusalem.
"We have been in alarm about you," said he, hastily,
"but, come to the council; we have wasted half the night
in perplexing ourselves. Some are timid, and call out for
SALATHIEL.
59
F
submission on any terms; some are rash, and would plunge
us unprepared into the Roman camps. There are obviously
many who, without regard for the hope of freedom, or the
holiness of our cause, look upon the crisis only as a means
of personal aggrandizement. And lastly, we are not with-
out our traitors, who confound all opinions, and who are
making work for Roman gold and iron. Your voice is enti
tled to weight.-Speak at once, and speak your mind; your
tribe will support it with their lives."
The council was held in the amphitheatre of the palace.—
The heads of families and principal men of the people had
crowded into it, until the council, instead of the privacy of a
few chieftains, assumed the look of a great popular assem-
bly. Thirty thousand had forced themselves into the seats;
every bosom responding to every accent of the orator, a
mighty instrument vibrating through all its strings to the mas
ter's hand. Accustomed as I was, by the festivals of our
nation, to the sight of great bodies of men swayed by a
common impulse, I stopped in astonishment at the entrance
of the colossal circle. Three-fourths of it were almost
totally dark, giving a shadowy intimation of human beings
but by the light of a few scattered torches, or the rising dawn
that rounded the extreme height with a ring of pale and
moon-like rays. But in the centre of the arena a fire blazed
bright, and showed the leaders of the deliberation seated in
the splendid chairs once assigned for the Roman governors
and legionary tribunes. Eleazar filled the temporary
throne.
The chief man of the land of Ephraim was haranguing
the assembly as I entered. "Go to war with Rome!" pro-
nounced he; " "you might as well go to war with the ocean,
for her power is as wide; you might as well fight the storm,
for her vengeance is as rapid; you might as well call up the
armies of Judea against the pestilence, for her sword is as
sweeping, as sudden, and as sure. Who but madmen would
go to war without allies? and where are yours to be looked
for? Rome is the mistress of all nations. Would
Would you make
a war of fortresses? Rome has in her possession all your
walled towns. Every tower from Dan to Beersheba has a
Roman banner on its battlements. Would you meet her in
the plain? Where are your horsemen? The Roman ca-
valry would be upon you before you could draw your swords;
and would trample your boldest into the sand. Would you
'
60
SALATĦIEL.
:
...
1
-
make the campaign in the mountains? Where are your ma
gazines? The Roman generals would disdain to waste a
drop of blood upon you; they would only have to block up
the passes, and leave famine to do the rest. Harvest is not
come; and if it were, you dare not descend to the plains to
gather it. You are told to rely upon the strength of the
country-Have the fiery sands of the desert, or the marshes
of Germany, or the snows of Scythia, or the stormy waters
of Britain, defended them? Does Egypt, within your sight,
give you no example? A land of inexhaustible fertility,
crowded with seven millions and a half of men passionately
devoted to their country, opulent, brave, and sustained by the
countless millions of Africa, with a country defended on both
flanks by the wilderness, in the rear inaccessible to the Ro-
man, exposing the narrowest and most defensible front of
any nation on earth: yet Egypt, in spite of the Lybian va-
lor, and the Greek genius, is garrisoned at this hour by a
single Roman legion! The Roman bird, grasping the thun-
der in its talons, and touching with one wing the sunrise and
the other the sunset, throws its shadow over the world.
Shall we call it to stoop upon us? Must we spread for it the
new banquet of the blood of Israel?"
}
How different is the power of the orator upon men sitting
in the common, peaceful circumstances of public assemblage,
from its tyranny over minds anxious about their own fates!
All that I had ever seen of public excitement was stone and
ice, to the burning interest that hung upon every word of the
speaker. The name of Onias was famous in Judea, but I
now saw him for the first time. His had been a life of am.
bition, compassed often by desperate means, and woe be to
the man who stood between him and power. By the dag-
ger, and by subserviency to the Roman procurators, he had
risen to the highest rank below the throne. In the distrac-
tions of a time which broke off the regular succession of the
sons of Aaron, Onias had even been high-priest; but Elea-
zar, heading the popular indignation, had expelled him from
the temple, after one month of troubled supremacy. I could
read his history in the haughty figure, and daring, yet wily,
visage, that stood in their bold relief before the flame.
But, to the assemblage, his declamation had infinite power;
they listened as to the words of life and death; they had
come, not to delight their ears with the periods of the ora
tor, but to hear what they must do to escape that inexorable
SALATHIEL.
61
fury, which might within a few days or hours be let loose
upon every individual head. All was alternately the deep.
est silence, and the most tumultuous agitation.
At his strong
appeals, they writhed their athletic forms, they gnashed their
teeth, they tore their hair; some crouched to the ground with
their faces buried in their hands, as if shutting out the coming
horrors; some started upright, brandishing their rude wea
pons, and tossing their naked limbs in gestures of defiance;
some sat bending down, and throwing back their long locks,
that not a syllable might escape; others knelt, with their
quivering hands clasped, and their pallid countenances turned
up in agony of prayer.
Many had been wounded, and their foreheads and limbs
hastily bound up were still stained with gore. Turbans
and robes rent and discolored with dust and burning were
on every side, and the whole immense multitude bore the
look of men who had but just struggled out of some great
calamity, to find themselves on the verge of one still more
irremediable.
The orator found that his impression was made; and he
hastened to the close. For this he reserved the sting. "If
it be the desire of those who seek the downfall of Judah that
we should go to war; let it be the first wisdom of those who
seek its safety, to disappoint, to defy, and to denounce them."
The words were followed by a visible agitation among the
hearers. "Let an embassy be instantly sent to the pro-
consul," said he, "lamenting the excesses of the night, and
offering hostages for peace." The silence grew breath-
less; the orator wrapped in his robe, and bending his head
like a tiger crouching, waited for the work of the passions;
then suddenly starting up, and fixing his stormy gaze full on
Eleazar, thundered out, "And at the head of those hostages,
be sent the incendiary who caused this night's havoc, and
sent in chains!"
The words were received with fierce applause by the as-
semblage; and crowds rushed into the arena, to enforce
them by the seizure of Eleazar. I glanced at him; his life
hung by a hair, but not a feature of his noble countenance
was disturbed; I sprang upon the pavement at the foot of
the throne; every moment was precious; the multitude
were raging with the fury of wild beasts. My voice was at
length heard; the name of Salathiel had become powerful,
and the tumult partially subsided. My words were few, but
VOL. I.
· 6
62
1
SALATHIEL.
they came from the heart. I asked them, was it to be
thought of, that men should deliver up men of their own na-
tion, of their purest blood, the last scions of the mightiest
families of Israel, into the hands of the idolater? and for
what crime? For an act which every true Israelite would
glory to have done; for rescuing the altar of the living God
from pollution. I bade them beware of dipping their hands
in righteous blood for the gratification of a revenge, that
had for twenty years poisoned the breast of a hoary traitor to
His priesthood and his country.
"We were threatened with the irresistible power of Rome.
Were we to forget that Rome was at this moment torn with
internal miseries, her provinces in revolt, her senate deci-
mated, her citizens turned into a mass of jailers and pri-
soners; and, darkest sign of degradation, that Nero was
upon her throne ?"
"Whom," said I, "have we conquered this night? a
Roman army.
Where have we conquered them? in the
midst of their walls and machines. By whom was the con-
quest achieved? By the unarmed, undisciplined, unguided
men of Israel. The shepherd and the tiller of the ground
with but the staff and sling smote the cuirassed Roman, as
the son of Jesse smote the Philistine!"
The native bravery of the people lived again, and they
shouted, in the language of the temple, "Glory to the King
of Israel! Glory to the God of David !”
Onias saw the tide turning, and started from his seat to
address the assembly; but he was overpowered with out-
cries of anger. Furious at the loss of his fame and his re-
venge, he rushed through the arena towards the spot where
I stood. Jubal, ever gallant and watchful, bounded from
my side, and seized the traitor's hand in the act of unsheath-
ing a dagger; he wrested the weapon from him, and, at a
sign from me, was ready to have plunged it into his heart.
"Let no
Eleazar's sonorous voice was then first heard.
violence be done upon that slave of his passions. No Jew-
ish blood must stain our holy cause. Return, Onias, to
your tribe, and give the rest of your days to repentance.”
Jubal cast the baffled homicide from his grasp far into the
crowd.
The universal echo was war. "Ruin to the idolater.
War for the temple."-" War," I exclaimed, "is wisdom,
honor, security. Let us bow our necks again, and we shall
1
J
SALATHIEL.
63
be rewarded by the axe. The Romans never forgive, until
the brave man who resists, is either a slave or a corpse; the
work of this night has put us beyond pardon; and our only
hope is in arms, the appeal to that sovereign justice before
which nothing is strong but virtue, truth, and patriotism.
War is inevitable."
My words, few as they were, rekindled the chilled ardor
of the national heart. They were followed by shouts for
instant battle. “War against the world, liberty to Israel.'
Some voices began a hymn; the habits of the people pre-
pared them for this powerful mode of expressing their sym-
pathies. The whole assembly spontaneously stood up, and
joined in the hymn. The magnificent invocation of David,
"Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered," ascended
in solemn harmonies on the wings of the morning.
It was
heard over the awaking city, and answered; the chant of
glory spread to the encampments on the surrounding hills;
and in every pause, we heard the responses rolling on the
air in rich thunder.
#
CHAPTER XI.
THE result of our deliberation was, that Israel should be
summoned to make a last grand effort; that Jerusalem
should be left with a strong garrison as the centre of the
armies; and that every chieftain should set forth to stir up
the energies of his people.
Eleazar and his kinsmen were instantly upon the road
to the mountains; and all was haste, and that mixture of
anxiety and animation which makes all other life tasteless
and colorless to the warrior. With what new vividness did
not the coming conflict invest the varied and romantic coun-
try, through which he had already journeyed so often! The
hill, the marble ravine, the superb sweep of forest, that we
once looked on but with the vague indulgence of a pictu-
resque eye, now filled us with the vision of camps and bat-
tles. Hunters of the lion, we had felt something of this
interest in tracing the ground where we were to combat the
kingly savage. But what were the triumphs of the chase,
મ
..
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SALATHIEL.
:
}
to the mighty chances of that struggle in which a kingdom
was to be the field, and the Roman glory the victim!
Man is belligerent by nature, and the thought of war sum-
mons up sensations and even faculties within him, that in the
common course of life would have been no more discovera-
ble than the bottom of the sea; the moral earthquake must
come to strip the bosom to our gaze. Even Eleazar's calm
and grave wisdom felt the spirit of the time, and he reasoned
on the probabilities of the struggle, with the lofty ardor of a
king preparing to win a new throne. Jubal's sanguine
temper was irrestrainable; he was the war-horse in the
sight of the banners; his bronzed cheek glowed with hope
and exultation; he saw in every cloud of dust a Roman
squadron; and grasped his lance, and wheeled his foaming
charger, with the eager joy of a soldier longing to assuage
his thirst for battle.
The weight on my melancholy mind was beyond the
power of chance or time to remove; but a new strength was
in the crisis. The world to me was covered with clouds
eternal, but it was now brightened by a wild and keen lus-
tre; I saw my way by the lightning. An irresistible con-
viction still told me that the last day of Israel was approach-
ing, and that no sacrifice of valor or virtue could avert the
ruin. In the midst of the loudest exhilaration of the fear-
less hearts around me, the picture of the coming ruin would
grow upon my eyes. I saw my generous friends perish one
by one; my household desolate; every name that I ever
loved past away. When I bent my eyes round the horizon
luxuriating in the golden sunshine of the east, I saw but a
huge altar, covered with the fatal offerings of its slaughtered
people.
And this was seen, not with the misty uncertainty of a
mind prone to dreams of evil; but with a clearness of fore-
sight, a distinct and defined reality, that left no room for
conjecture. Yet, and here was the bitterest part of my me-
ditation, what was all this ruin to me? What wer those
men and women, and households and lands, but as the leaves
on the wind, to me! I might strive in the last extremities
of their struggle. I might undergo the agonies of death
with them a thousand times; and I inwardly pledged myself
never to desert their cause, lovely and generous as it was,
while through pain or sorrow I could cling to it; but this,
however protracted, must have an end. I must see the final
SALATHIEL.
65
hour of them all; and more unhappy, more destitute, more
undone than all, I must be deprived of the consolation of
making my tomb with the righteous, and laying my weary
heart in the slumbers of their grave!
Yet I experienced, strangely mingled with the deepest
despondency of the future, more than the keenest fervor of
the impulse which was now burning around me.
With me
it was not kingly care, nor the animal ardency of the soldier.
It was the high, disturbing stimulation of something like the
infusion of a new principle of existence. I felt as if I had
become the vehicle of a descended spirit. A ceaseless cur-
rent of thought ran through my brain. Old knowledge,
that I had utterly forgotten, revived in me with spontaneous
freshness. Casual impressions and long past years arose,
with their stamps and marks as clear, as if a hoard of me-
dals had been suddenly brought to light, and thrown before
me. I ran over in my recollection persons and names with
even painful accuracy. The feeble claims and conceptions
of those for whom I once felt habitual deference, were now
seen by me in their nakedness. All that was habitual was
done away; I saw intuitively the vanity and giddiness, the
inconsequential reasoning, the heavy and bewildering preju-
dice, that made up what in other days I had called the wis.
dom of the wise.
As I threw out in the most unpremeditated language the
ideas that were glowing and struggling for escape, I found
that the impression of some extraordinary excitement in me
was universal. Accustomed to be heard with the attention
due to my rank, I now saw the ears and eyes of
my fellow.
travellers turned on me with an evident and deferential sur.
prise. When I talked of the hopes of the country, of the
resources of the enemy, of the kingdoms that would be
ready to make common cause with us against the galling
tyranny of Nero, of the glory of fighting for our altars, and
of the imperishable honors of those whose blood earned
peace for their children; they listened as to something
more than man. "Was I the prophet delegated at last to
lead Judea to her glory.
At those discourses, bursting from my lip with unconscious
fire, the old men would vow the remnant of their days to the
field; the young would sweep over the country performing
the evolutions of the Roman cavalry, then return brandishing
!
}
6*
66
SALATHIEL.
their weapons, and demanding to be let loose on the first
cohort that crossed the horizon.
With me every pulse was war. The interest which this
new direction of our minds gave to all things, grew perpe.
tually more intense. We spurred to the barren heath; it
had now no deformity, for upon it we saw the spot from
which battle might be offered to an army advancing through
the valley below. The marsh that spread its yellow stagna-
tion over the plain, might be worth a province for the pro-
tection of our camp. The thicket, the broken bank of the
mountain torrent, the bluff promontory, the rock, the sand,
every repellant feature of the landscape, was invested with
the value of a thing of life and death, a portion of the great
stake in the game that was so soon to be played for restora-
tion or ruin.
Those are the delights of soldiership; the indescribable
and brilliant colorings which the sense of danger, the desire
of fame, and the hope of triumph, throw over life and nature.
Yet if war was ever to be forgiven for its cause, to be justi-
fied by the high remembrances and desperate injuries of a
people, or to be encouraged by the physical strength of a
country, it was the final war of Israel. In all my wander.
ings I have seen no kingdom, for defence, equal to Judea.
It had in the highest degree the three grand essentials,
compactness of territory, density of population, and strength
of frontier. If I were at this hour to be sent forth to select
from the earth a kingdom, I should say, even extinguishing
the recollections of my being, and the love which I bear to
the very weeds of my country; for beauty, for climate, for
natural wealth, and for invincible security, give me Judea.
On
The Land of Promise had been chosen by the Supreme
Wisdom for the inheritance of a people destined to be un-
conquerable while they continued pure. It was surrounded
on all sides but one by mountains and deserts; and that one
was defended by the sea, which at the same time opened to
it the intercourse of the richest countries of the west.
the north, rendered hazardous by the vast population of Asia
Minor, it was protected by the double range of the Libanus
and Antilibanus, a region of forests and defiles, at all sea-
sons nearly impassable to the ancient chariots and cavalry;
and, during winter, barred up with torrents and snows.
The whole frontier to the east and south was a wall of
mountain rising from a desert; a durable barrrier over which
اڑ
SALATHIEL.
67
no enemy exhausted by the privations of an Asiatic march,
could force their way against a brave army waiting fresh
within its own confines. But even if the Syrian wastes of
sand, and the fiery soil of Arabia left the invaders strength
to master the mountain defences, the whole interior was full
of the finest positions for defence that ever caught the sol-
dier's eye.
All the mountains sent branches through the champaign.
As we spurred up the sides of Carmel, we saw an horizon
covered with hills like clouds. Every city was built on an em-
inence, and capable of being instantly converted into a fortress.
But while an army kept the field, the larger operations of
strategy would have found matchless support in the course
of the Jordan, the second defence of Judea; a line passing
through the whole central country from north to south, with
the lake of Tiberias and the lake Asphaltites at either ex-
treme, at once defending and supplying the movements in
front, flank, and rear.
The territory thus defensible had an additional and supe-
rior strength in the character and habits of its population.
In a space of two hundred miles long by a hundred broad,
its inhabitants once amounted to nearly six millions, tillers of
the ground, bold tribes, invigorated by their life of industry,
and connected with each other by the most intimate and fre-
quent intercourse under the Divine command. By the law
of Moses,―may he rest in glory!-every man from twenty
to sixty, was liable to be called on for the general defence;
and the customary armament of the tribes was appointed at
six hundred thousand men!
The munitions of war were in abundance. All the varieties
of troops known in the ancient armies were to be found in Judea
in the highest discipline, from the spearsman to the archer
and the slinger, from the heavy-armed soldier of the fortress
to the ranger of the desert and the mountain. Cavalry were
prohibited; for the purpose of the Jewish, armament was de-
fence. The spirit of the Jewish code was peace. By the
prohibition of cavalry, no conquests could be made on the
bordering kingdoms of interminable plains. The command
that the males of the tribes should go up thrice in the year
to the great festivals of Jerusalem, was equally opposed to
encroachments on the neighboring states. It was not till
Israel abandoned the purity of the original Covenant with
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68
SALATHIEL.
3
Heaven, that the evils of ambition or tyranny were felt within
her borders.
Her whole policy was under a divine sanction; and her
whole preservation was distinguished by the perpetual agen-
cy of miracle, for the obvious purpose of compelling the peo-
ple to know the God of their fathers. But the physical
strength of such a people in such a territory was incalculable.
Severity of climate will not ultimately repel an invader, for
that severity scatters and exhausts the population. Difficul-
ties of country have been perpetually overpassed by a daring
invader in the attack of a feeble or negligent people. To
what nation were their snows, their marshes, or their
sands, a barrier against the great armies of the ancient or
the modern world? The Alps and the Pyrenees have been
passed, as often as they have been attempted. But no em.
pire can conquer a nation of six millions of men determined
to resist; no army that could be thrown across the frontier,
would find the means of penetrating through a compact pop-
ulation, of which every man was a soldier, and every man
was fighting for his own.
The Jew was, by his law, a free proprietor of the soil: he
was no serf, nor broken vassal. He inherited his portion of
the land by an irrevocable title. Debt, misfortune, or time
could not extinguish his right. Capable of being alienated
from him for a few years, the land returned at the Jubilee.
He was then once more a possessor, the master of compe-
This
tence, and restored to his rank among his fellow men.
bond, the most benevolent and the strongest that ever bound
man to a country, was the bond of the Covenant. If Israel
had held the institutions of her Lawgiver inviolate, she would
have seen the Assyrian, the Egyptian, and the Roman, with
all their multitudes, only food for the vulture. But we were
a rebellious people; we sullied the purity of the Mosaic or-
dinances; we abandoned the sublime ceremonial of the di-
vine worship for the profligate rites of paganism; we'rejected
the Lord of the Theocracy for the pomps of an earthly king.
The mighty protection that had been to us as eagles' wings
and as a wall of fire, was withdrawn. Our first punishment
was by our own hand; the union of Israel was a band of flax
in the flame. The tribe.revolted. Then was the time for
the hostile idolater to do his work. We were overwhelmed
by enemies in alliance with our own blood. The banners
of the sons of Jacob were seen waving beside the banners of
་་
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SALATHIEL.
69
the worshippers of Ashtaroth and Apis. An opening was
made into the bosom of the land for all invasion; the barrier
of the mountain and the desert were in vain; the proverbial
bravery of the Jew only rendered his chain more severe;
and the policy that, of old, united the highest wisdom with
the purest truth and the most benevolent mercy, was at once
the scoff and problem of the pagan world.
But opulence, salubrity, and variousness of production, be-
longed to the site of the land of Israel. It lay central be-
tween the richest regions of the world. It was the natural
road of the traffic of India with the west; that traffic which
raised Tyre and Sidon from rocks and shallows on a fragment
of the shore of Judea into magnificent cities; and which was
yet to raise into political power and unrivalled wealth, the
rocks and shallows of the remotest shore of the Mediterra-
nean.
Our mountain ranges tempered the hot winds from the
wilderness. The sea cooled the summer heats with the living
breeze, and tempered the chill of winter. Our fields teemed
with perpetual fruits and flowers.
The extent of the land though narrow, contrasted with that
of the surrounding kingdoms, was yet not to be measured by
the lineal boundaries; a country intersected every where
with chains of hills capable of cultivation to the summit, alike
multiplies its surface, and varies its climate. We had at the
foot of the hill the products of the torrid zone; on its side
those of the temperate; on its summit the robust vegetation
of the north. The ascending circles of the orange grove,
the vineyard, and the forest, covered it with perpetual beauty.
This scene of matchless productiveness is fair and fertile
no more. For ages before my eyes opened on the land of
my fathers, the national misfortunes had impaired its original
loveliness. The schism of the tribes, the ravages of succes.
sive invaders, and still more the continued presence of the
idolater and the alien in the heart of the land, turned large
portions of it into desert. The final fall almost destroyed
the traces of its fruitfulness. What can be demanded from
the soil lorded over by the tyranny of the Moslem, stripped
of its population, and given up to the mendicant, the monk,
and the robber?
But more than human evil smote my unhappy country.
The curse pronounced by our great prophet three thousand
嗨
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SALATHIEL.
4.
years ago, has been deeply fulfilled." The stranger that
shall come from a far land shall say, when he beholdeth the
plagues of the land, and the sicknesses that the Lord hath
laid upon it, the land brimstone and salt and burning, even all
nations shall say- Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto
??
this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger
Then men shall say—' Because they have forsaken the cove-
nant of the Lord God of their fathers!"
The soil has been blasted. Sterility has struck into its
heart. Whole provinces are covered with sands and ashes.
It has the look of an exhausted volcano!
Yet, what might have been the progress of this people!
The glory of Israel is no fine vision of the fancy. The same
prophetic word which has given terrible demonstration of its
reality in our ruin, declares the hope once held forth to our
obedience. Judea was to have borne the first rank among
nations; it was to have been an object of universal wonder
and honor; to have been unconquerable; to have enjoyed
unwearied fertility; to have been protected from the casual-
ties of the elements; to have been free from disease; the
life of its people continuing to the farthest limit of our
nature. A blessing was to be upon the labors, the posses-
sions, and the persons, of the tribes; All Israel, a nation, in
the highest sense of the word-a sovereign race, to which
the world should pay a willing and happy homage.
What must have been the operation of this illustrious in-
stance of the preservative power of Heaven, on the darken-
ed empires; of the scriptural lights perpetually beaming
from Judea; of the living, palpable happiness of obedience
to the Supreme; of the perpetual security of the land in
the Divine protection; of the internal peace, health, plen-
teousness, and freedom! Man is weak and passionate, but
no blindness could have hid from his contemplations this
proof of the human value of virtue.
We must add to this the direct influence of a governing
people, placed in its rank for the express purpose of a guide
to nations. Combining the sacred impulses, knowledge, and
devotedness, of a priesthood, with the actual power and dig-
nity of kings; by its own constitution as safe from all en.
croachment, as prohibited from all aggression; informed by
the immediate wisdom, and sustained in its generous and hal-
lowed enterprise by the uncovered arm of Omnipotence; Ju-
;
1
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SALATHIEL:
71

dea might have changed the earth into a paradise, and raised
universal man to the highest happiness, knowledge, and dig-
nity of his human nature.
"
CHAPTER XII.
WE reached the hills of Naphtali at the close of one of
the most delicious days of summer. All nature was clothed
with its robe of genial beauty; the olives on the higher
grounds had put forth their first green, and with every slight
gust that swept across them, heaved like sheets of emerald;
the birds sang in a thousand notes from every bush; the
sheep and camels lay in the meadows visibly enjoying the
cool air; the shepherds sat gathered together on the side of
some gentle eminence, talking, or listening to the songs
of the maidens that came in long lines to the fountains be.
low. The heavens gave prospect of a glorious day, in the
colors shone only to the Oriental eye; hues so brilliant, that
many a traveler stops on the verge of the valleys, arrested,
in his haste homeward, by the glow and pomp above. All
was the loveliness and joy of pastoral life, in the only coun-
try where I ever found it realized.
The mind is to be medicined by natural loveliness, and
mine was cheered. To return to our home is at all times a
delight; but the new conjuncture, the high hopes of the fu-
ture, and the consciousness that a career of the most distin-
guished honors might be opening before my steps, made this
return more vivid than all the past; and when we reached
the foot of the long ascent from which my dwelling was vi-
sible, I felt an impatience beyond restraint, and spurred up
the hill alone. How fine the ear becomes, when it is quick-
ened by the heart! As the broken mountain road, now made
more difficult by the darkness of the wild pines and cedars
that crowned the summit, compelled me to slacken my pace;
I thought that I could distinguish the household voices, the
barking of my hounds, and the laugh of the retainers and
peasantry, that during the summer crowded my doors.
I pictured the dearer group that had so often welcomed
The early and cruel loss of my son had not been re-
me.
:
The
72
SALATHIEL.
paired. I was not destined to be the father of a race; but
two daughters were given to me, and in the absence of all
ambition, they were more than a recompense. Salome, the
elder, was now approaching to womanhood; she had the
dark eyes and animated beauty of her mother; the foot of
the antelope was not lighter; and her wreathed smile, her
'intellectual sportiveness, her laugh of innocence, and buoy-
ancy of soul, forbade sorrow in her sight. Oh, what I after-
wards saw that face of living joy! What floods of sorrow
bathed those cheeks, that shamed the Persian rose!
The younger was scarcely more than a child; her mind
and her form were yet equally in the bud: but she had an
eye of the deepest azure, a living star; and even in her play-
fulness there was an elevation, a lofty and fervent spirit, that
made me often forget her years. She was mistress of mu-
sic almost by nature; and the cadences and rich modula.
tions that poured from her harp, under fingers slight and
feeble, as if the stalks of flowers had been flung across the
strings, were like secrets of harmony treasured for her
touch alone. Our prophets, the true masters of the sub-
lime, were her rapturous study. Their truth might be
veiled, but their genius blazed broad upon her sensitive
soul.
I imaged my children hastening through the portal,
twined hand in hand with their noble mother, still in the
prime of matron beauty, and still grown dearer to my heart,
to give me welcome. The light thickened, and the intricacy
of the forest impeded me. At length, wearied, by the de-
lay, I sprang from my horse, left him to make his way as he
could, and urged my path through a thicket which crept
round the skirts of the forest, and which alone obstructed the
view of the spot that contained all that earth held precious
to me. As I struggled onward, listening with sharpened
anxiety for every sound of home, I caught a sound like that
of a wild beast rustling close at my side. The thicket was
utterly dark. My eyes were useless. I drew my scimetar
and plunged it straight before me. The blow was instantly
followed by a shriek. Friend or enemy, silence was now
impossible, and I demanded who was nigh. I was answered
but by groans; my next step was on a body. Shocked and
startled, I yet lifted it in my arms, and bore the dying man to
an open space where the moonlight glimmered. To my un-
speakable horror, he was one of my most favored attendants,
▾
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SALATHIEL.
73
·
whom I had left in the principal charge of my household.
I had slain him: I tore up my mantle to stanch his deadly
wound; but he fiercely repelled my hand. In an undefined
dread of some evil to my family I commanded him to speak,
if but one word, and tell me that all was safe. He buried
his face in the ground. In the whirlwind of my thoughts I
flung him from me, that I might go forward, and know the
good or evil; but he clung round my feet, and exerted his
last breath to implore me not to leave him to die alone.
"You have killed me," said he, in broken accents: "but it
was not your hand, but the hand of the Avenger. I was
corrupted by gold. You have terrible enemies among the
leaders of Jerusalem: a desperate deed has been done."
My suspense amounted to agony: I made another effort to
cast off the trammels of the assassin; but he still implored.
"Evil things were whispered against you. I was told that
you had been convicted of a horrible crime.'
"" The sound
shot through my senses; he must have felt the trembling of
my frame; for he for the first time, looked upon my face.
My eyes are gone," groaned he, and fell back. I dared
not meet the glance even of his clouding eyes.
"They
said that you were condemned to an unspeakable punish-
ment; and that the man who swept the world of you and yours,
did God service. In my hour of sin the tempter met me;
and this day from sunrise have I lurked on your road, to
strike my benefactor and my lord. In the dark I lost my
way in the thicket; but vengeance found me. "My family,
my wife, my children, are they safe?" I exclaimed.
quivered, relaxed his hold, and uttering, "Forgive," two or
three times, with nervous agony, expired.
66
-
39
1
He
A single bound from this spot of death placed me on a
point of a rock, from which I had often gazed on my little
world in the valley. The moon was now bright, and the
view unobstructed. I looked down.-Were my eyes dim?
There was no habitation beneath me: the grove, the gar-
den, were there, sleeping in the moonlight; but all that had
the semblance of life was gone! I rushed down and found
myself among ruins and ashes still hot. I called aloud-in
terror and distraction I yelled to the night: but no voice an-
swered me. My foot struck upon something in the grass;
it was a sword, black with recent blood. There had been
burning, plunder, slaughter here, in this treasure-house of
my heart; desolation had been busy in the centre of what
VOL. I.
7

74
SALATHIEL.
3
was to me life, more than life. I raved; I flew through the
fields; I rushed back to convince myself that I was not la-
boring under some frightful dream. What I endured that
night, I never endured again; that conflict of fear; astonish-
ment, love and misery, could be contained but once even in
my bosom in all others it must have been death. In the
moment of reviving hope, I had been smitten. While my
spirit was ascending on the wings of justified ambition and
sacred love of country, I had been dashed down to earth, a
desolate and desperate man.
What I did thenceforth, or how I passed through that night,
I know not; but I was found in the morning with my robe
fantastically thrown over me like a royal mantle, and a frag-
ment of half-burnt wood for a sceptre in my hand, perform-
ing the part of a monarch, giving orders for the rebuilding
of my palace, and marshaling the movements of an army of
shrubs and weeds. I was led away with the lofty reluctance
of a captive sovereign to the household of Eleazar.
The wrath and grief of my kinsmen were without bounds.
Every defile of the mountains was searched-every strag-
gler seized: messengers were despatched across the fron-
tier with offers of ransom to the chiefs of the desert, in case
my family should have escaped the sword. Threats of se-
vere retaliation were used by the Roman governor of the
province; all was in vain. The only glimpse of intelligence
was from a shepherd, who two nights before had seen a troop,
which he supposed to be Arabs, ride swiftly by the gates of
Kuriathim, our nearest city; but this intelligence only added
to the misfortune. The habits of those robbers were pro-
verbially savage: they attacked by the torch and the sword;
they slaughtered the men without mercy, the females they
generally sold into a returnless captivity. To leave no trace
of their route, they slaughtered the captives whom they could
not carry through their hurried marches. To leave no trace
of what they had done, they burned the place of massacre.
-But this ruin was from other and more malignant hands.
1
י
SALATHIEL.
75
CHAPTER XIII.
WHAT I might have suffered in the agony of a bereaved
husband and father was spared me. My visitation was of
another kind; dreadful, yet, perhaps, not so pre-eminently
wretched, nor so deeply striking at the roots of life. My
brain had received an overwhelming blow. Imagination
was to be my tyrant; and every occurrence of life, every
aspect of human being, every variety of nature, day and
night, sunshine and storm, made a portion of its fearful
empire. What is insanity, but a more vivid and terrible
dream? It has the dream-like tumult of events, the rapidity
of transit, the quick invention, the utter disregard of place
and time. The difference lies in the sterner intensity. The
madman is awake; and the open eye administers a horrid
reality to the fantastic vision. The vigor of the senses gives
a living and resistless strength to the vagueness of the
fancy: it compels together the fleeting mists of the mind,
and embodies and inspirits them into shapes of deadly
power.
I was mad, but all my madness was not painful. Books,
my old delight, still lulled my mind. I revolved some fa-
vorite volume; then fancy waved her wand, and built upon.
its contents a world of adventure. Every language ap.
peared to open its treasures to me. I roved through all
lands-I saw all the eminent for rank or genius-I drank of
the fountains of poetry-I addressed listening senates, and
heard the air echo their applause. Wit, beauty, talent, laid
their inestimable tributes at my feet. I was exalted to the
highest triumphs of mind; and then came my fate;—in the
midst of my glory came a cloud, and I was miserable!
This bitter sense of defeat was a characteristic of my
visions. Be the cup ever so sweet, it was dashed by a poi-
son-drop at bottom.
From
I imagined myself the great King of Babylon.
the superb architecture of those palaces, in which Nebu-
chadnezzar forgot that he was but man, I issued my man-
dates to a hundred monarchs. I saw the satraps of the East
bow their jewelled necks before my throne. I rode at the
:
·
76
SALATHIEL.
head of countless armies, Lord of Asia, and future Con-
In the swelling
queror of all the realms that saw the sun.
of my haughty soul I exclaimed, like him, "Is not this the
Great Babylon that I have built?" and, like him in the very
uttering of the words, I was cast out, humbled to the
the field, hideous, brutal, and wretched
grass of
I was Belshazzar.-I sat in the halls of glory. I
heard the harps of minstrels, the voice of singing men and
singing women. The banquet was before me; I was sur-
rounded by the trophies of irresistible conquest. Beauty,
flattery, splendor, the delight of the senses, the keener feast
of vanity, the rich anticipation of triumph measureless and
endless, made me all but a god.-I put the profaned cup of
the temple to my lips.-Thunder pealed: the serene sky,
the only canopy worthy of my banquet and my throne, was
sheeted over with lightning. I swallowed the wine-it was
poison and fire in my veins. The gigantic hand came forth,
and wrote upon the wall-
The moon, the ancient mistress of the diseased mind,
strongly exerted her spells on mine. I loved her light; but
it was only when it mingled softly with the shadows of the
forest and the landscape. I welcomed her return from dark-
ness, as the coming of some guardian genius to shed at once
beauty and healing on its path. Darkness was to me a
source of terror; daylight overwhelmed me: but the gentle
splendor of the crescent had a dewy and refreshing influence
on my faculties. I exposed my feverish forehead to her
beams, as if to bathe it in celestial balm. I felt in her gra-
dual increase, an increase of power to soothe and console.
This indulgence grew into a kind of visionary passion. I
saw in the crescent, as it sailed up the æther, a galley
crowded with forms of surpassing loveliness, faces that bent
down and smiled upon me, and hands that showered trea-
sures to be collected by mine alone. But excess even of
this light always disturbed me. From the full splendor of
the moon, there was no escape; the rays smote upon me
with merciless infliction: I fled to the woods as a hunted
deer; a thousand shafts of light penetrated the shade.-I
hid myself in the depths of my chamber; flames of lambent
silver, curling and darting in forms innumerable, shot round
my couch.-Upon the inequalities of the ground, or the
waves of the fountain and the river, serpents of the most in-
imitable lustre, yet of the most deadly poison, coiled and⚫
,
SALATHIEL.
77
sprang after me with a rapidity that mocked human feet. If
I dared to glance upwards, I beheld a menacing visage dis-
tending to an immeasurable magnitude, and ready to pour down
wrath; or an orb with its mountains and oceans swinging
loose through the heaven, and rolling down upon my soli-
tary brow.
But those were my hours of comparative happiness. I
had visions of intense suffering and terror flights through re-
gions of space, that left earth and the sun incalculable millions
of miles behind; flights ceaseless, hopeless-still hurrying
onward with more than winged speed through worlds of
worlds, and still enduring; the heart sickening and wither-
ing with the consciousness of being swept beyond the bounds
of living things, and of being doomed to this for ever!
Those trials changed into every shape of desperation.
I was driven out to sea in a bark that let in every
wave. I struggled to reach the land-I tore my sinews
with toil—I saw the hills, the trees, the shore, sink in slow,
yet sure succession-I felt in the hands of an invisible
power, bent on my undoing. The storm subsided, the sun
shone, the ocean was without a surge. Still I
Still I struggled;
with the strength of despair I toiled to regain the land-to
retard the viewless force that was perpetually urging me far-
ther from existence. I began to suffer thirst and hunger.
They grew to pain, to torture, to madness. I felt as if mol-
ten lead were poured down my throat. I put my arm to
my mouth, and shuddering, quenched my thirst in my own
veins. It returned instantly with a more fiery sting. There
was nothing in the elements to give me hope-to draw off
thought from my own fate-to deaden the venomed sensibi-
lities that quivered through every fibre. The wind slept-
the sky was cloudless-the sea smooth as glass: not a dis-
tant sail—not a wandering bird-not a springing fish-not
even a floating weed, broke the terrible monotony. The sun
did not pass down the horizon. All above me was unvaried,
motionless sky-all around, unvaried, motionless ocean.
alone moved still urged farther from the chance of life ;-
still undergoing new accessions of agony that made the past
trivial. I tasted the water beside me: it added fire to fire.
I convulsively darted out my withered hands, as if they
could have drawn down the rain, or grasped the dew. I
withered piecemeal, yet with a continuing consciousness in
every fragment of my frame !-


I
1
7*
78
SALATHIEL.
1
I wandered at midnight through a country of moun-
tains. Worn out with fatigue, I lay down upon a rock. I
found it heave under me. I heard a thunder-peal. A sud-
den blaze kindled the sky. Bewildered and stunned, I
started on my feet. The mountains were on flame; a hun-
dred mouths poured down torrents of liquid fire; they came
The
shooting in sulphureous cataracts down the chasms.
forests burned before them like a garment-the rocks melted
-the rivers flew up in sheets of vapor-the valleys were
basins of glowing ore-the clouds of smoke and ashes ga-
thered over my head in a solid vault of gloom, wildly enlight-
ened by the flashes of the conflagration below-the land was
a cavern of fire. In terror inconceivable, I ran, I bounded,
I plunged down declivities, I swam rivers: still the fiery
torrents hunted my steps, as if they had been commissioned
against me alone. I felt them gathering speed on me; when
I bounded, the spot from which I sprang was on flame before
I alighted on the ground. I climbed a promontory with an
effort that exhausted my last nerve. The fatal lava swept
round its foot; and, in another instant, must encircle me.
I ran along the edge of a precipice that made the brain.
turn; the fire chased me from pinnacle to pinnacle. I clung
to the weeds and trunks of trees on its sides, and, in fear of
being dashed to pieces, tremblingly let myself down the wall
of perpendicular rock. Breathless and dying at the bottom
of the descent, I glanced upwards; the flame of the thicket
on the brow showed me my pursuer. I saw the rapid
swelling of the molten tide. In another moment, it plunged
through the air in a white column. The valley was instantly
an expanse of conflagration-every spot was inundated with
the blaze. I flew, with scorching feet-with every sinew of
my frame parched and dried of its substance-with my
eyes blinded, and my lungs burned up with the suffocating
fumes that rushed before, around, and above. At length my
limit was reached. The land afforded no farther room for
Death was in-
flight. I stood on the verge of the ocean.
evitable. I had but the choice. Before me spread the
world of waters, sad, dim, fathomless, interminable; behind
me, the world of flame. By a last desperate effort, I plunged
into the ocean. The indefatigable lava rolled on, mass on
The billows
mass, like armies rushing to the assault.
shrank before the first fiery shock, sheets of vapor rolled
up; still the eruption rolled on, and the returning billows
SALATHIEL.
79
fought against it; the conflict shook the land; the mountain
shore crumbled down; the sands melted and burned vitre-
ous; the atmosphere discharged scalding torrents; the
winds, shaken from their balance, raged with the violence
of more than tempest. Thunder roared in peals that shook
the earth, the ocean, and the heavens. In the midst of all
I lived, tossed like a grain of sand in the whirlwind.
Strange and harassing as those trials of my mind were,
they had yet contained some appeals to individual energy,
some excitement of personal powers, that produced a kind of
cheering self-applause. I was Prometheus on his rock,
chained and remediless, yet still resisting and unconquered.
But the true misery was when I was passive.
I strayed through an Egyptian city. Buildings
numberless, of the most regal design, rose round me; the
walls were covered with sculptures of extraordinary rich-
ness-noble statues lined the public ways-wealth in the
wildest profusion was visible wherever the foot trod. End-
less ranges of porphyry and alabaster columns glittered in
the noon. Superb ascents of marble steps mounted before
me, to heights that strained the eye. Arch over arch, stud-
ded with the lustre of precious stones, climbed until they lay
like rainbows upon the sky. Colossal towers circled with
successive colonnades of dazzling brightness ascended-
airy citadels, looking down upon the earth, and colored with
the infinite dyes and lustres of the clouds. But all was si-
lence in this scene of pomp. There was no tread of human
being heard within the circuit of a city fit for more than man.
The utter extinction of all that gives the idea of life was
startling; there was not the note of a passing bird, not the
cherup of a grasshopper. I instinctively shrank from the
sight of things lovely in themselves, yet which froze my
mind by their image of the tomb. But to escape was impos-
sible; there was an impression of powerlessness upon me,
for whose melancholy I can find no words. My feet were
chainless, but never fetter clung with such a retarding
weight, as that invisible bond by which I was fixed to the
spot. Ages on ages seemed to have heavily sunk away, and
still I stood, bound by the same manacle, standing on the
same spot, looking on the same objects. To this I would
have preferred the fiercest extremes of suffering. The pas-
sion for change is the most incapable of being extinguished
or eluded of all that dwell within the heart of man.
80
SALATHIEL.
But the change at length came. The sun decayed. Twi-
light fell, shade on shade, on tower and column; until total
darkness shrouded the scene of glory. Yet, as if a new fa-
culty of sight were given to me, the thickest darkness did
not blunt the eye. I still saw all things-the minutest figures
of the architecture, the finest carving of the airy castles,
whose height was, even in the sunshine, almost too remote
for vision. Suddenly, there echoed the murmur of many
voices, the trooping of many feet; the colossal gates opened,
and a procession of forms innumerable entered; they were
of every period of life, of every pursuit, of every rank, of
every country. All the various emblems of station, all the
weapons and implements of mankind, all costumes, rich and
strange, civilized and savage; all the attributes and adjuncts
of the occupations of society moved in that mighty train.
The monarch, sceptred and crowned, passed on his throne;
the soldier reining his charger; the philosopher gazing on
his volume; the priest bearing the instruments of sacrifice.
It was the triumph of a power ruling all mankind; but ruling
them when the world has passed away-DEATH!
While I gazed in breathless awe, I found myself involved
in the procession. Resistance was vain: I was conscious
that I might as well have struggled against the tides of the
ocean, or thought to stop the revolution of the globe. We
advanced through the place of darkness by millions of mill-
ions, yet without crowding the majestic avenue, or reaching
its close. I rapidly recognised a multitude of faces, which
I had known from the models and memorials of the past ages.
But the power that marshaled them had no regard to time.
The pale, fixed Asiatic countenance of Ninus moved beside
the glowing cheek and flashing eye of Alexander. The pa-
triarch followed the Cæsar. The thousand years were as
one day-the one day as a thousand years.
The whole stately train suddenly melted upon the eye,
and I was alone, in tenfold darkness-entombed. I lay in
the sepulchre, but with the full vividness of life, and with a
perfect knowledge that there it was my doom to lie forever.
A miraculous foresight gifted me with the fearful privilege of
looking into the most remote futurity. Ages on ages unfolded
themselves, with all their wonders, to tantalize me.
I saw
worlds awake from chaos, and return to it in flood and flame.
I saw systems swept away like the sand. The universe wi-
thered with years, and rolled up like the parchment scroll.
:
SALATHIEL.
81
I saw new regions of space, glowing with a new creation;
the angelic hierarchies rising through new energies, new
triumphs, new orders of existence; developments of power
and magnificence, of sublime mercy and essential glory, too
high for the conception of mortal faculties. Yet I was still
to be entombed! No ray of light, no sound, no trace of ex-
ternal being, no sympathy of flesh or spirit, of earth or hea-
ven, was to reach me. The four narrow walls, the winding.
sheet, the worm, were my world.
I seemed to lie thus for periods beyond all counting; pow-
erless to move a limb; the sleepless, conscious, vivid victim
of misery unspeakable-the bondsman of the sepulchre !-
In those wanderings I experienced not even the slightest
recollection of the cause which so sternly besieged my brain.
Wife, children, country, were a blank. Imagination, that
strangest and most imperious of our faculties, whose soar-
ings from earth to heaven may be among the indications of
power beyond the grave, disdains to linger on the realities of
our being. It delights in the commanding, the bold, the su-
perb. In my instance it had the wildness of disease; but
who has ever felt its workings, even in the dream of health,
without wonder at its passion for the richer and more highly
relieved remembrances; its singular skill in throwing toge-
ther the brilliant portions of life and nature, to the total dis-
regard of the level; its subtlety in the seizure of the circum.
stances of pain, its pointings and sharpenings; its fabrication
of adventure, at once of the most regular consecutiveness,
and the wildest originality; and all characterized by the same
spontaneous swiftness of change, and illimitable command
over space and time, a power of instant flight from continent
to continent, and from world to world;-the transit that
would actually fill up years and ages, the work of a moment!
-the actual moment expanding into years and ages!
What are those but the infant attributes of the disembodied
spirit! the imperfect developments of a state of being to
which time and space are nothing-when man, shaking off
the covering of the grave, shall be clothed with the might of
angels!-the splendid denizen of Infinitude and Eternity!
:
82
SALATHIEL.
CHAPTER XIV.
Ar length the past returned to my mind. Dim recollec-
tions, shadows that alternately advanced and eluded me,
sketches of forms and events, like pictures unfinished by the
pencil, lay before me colorless and undefined. But day by
day the outlines grew more complete, the figures assumed a
body: they lived-they moved they uttered voices; and
while to other eyes I was a solitary and hopeless fugitive from
human converse, to my own I was surrounded with a circle
of all that I loved: yet, with a continued sense of privation,
a mysterious feeling of something imperfect in the indul-
gence, that dashed my cup with bitterness.
With the increase of my strength I became a wanderer to
great distances among the mountains. No persuasion of my
kinsmen could restrain me from those excursions. The mild-
ness of a climate in which the population sleep in the open
air, and the abundance of fruits, met the two chief difficul-
ties of traveling. I felt an irresistible impulse to penetrate
the mountain ranges, that rose in chains of purple and azure
before me.
With the artifice of the diseased mind, I made
my few preparations in secret; and with but scrip and staff,
marched forth to tread hill and valley, city and desert, to the
last limit of the globe.
Through what diversities of scene, or impediments of road
I long passed, no memory rests upon. The same instinct
which guides the bird, led me to the fruit-tree and the stream,
taught me where to shelter for the night, and gave me saga-
city for the avoidance of the habitual dangers of a route sel-
dom tried but by the wolf and the robber. But my frame,
gradually invigorated by exercise, bore me through: and Í
scaled the chain of Libanus with an unwearied foot.
There I reached the skirts of a region where the snow
scarcely melts even in the burning summer of Syria. The
falling of the leaf, and the furious blasts that bursts through
the ravines, told me that I had spent months in my pilgrim-
age, and that I must brave winter on its throne. Still I per-
severed. I felt a new excitement in the new difficulty of
the season; I longed to try my power of endurance against
SALATHIEL.
83
the storm, to wrestle with the whirlwind, to baffle the tor-
rent. The very sight of the snow, as it began to sheet the
sides of the lower hills, gave me a vague idea of a brighter
realm of existence; it united the pinnacles with the clouds;
the noble promontories and forest-covered eminences no
longer rose in stern contrast with the sky; they were dipt
in celestial blue; they wore the silvery and sparkling lustre
of the morning skies; they blushed in the effulgence of the
sunset, with as rich a crimson as the cloud that crowned
them.
But all was not fantastic vision. From the summit of one
of those hills, I saw what was then worth a pilgrimage
through half the world to see, the cedar grove of Lebanon.
After a day of unusual fatigue and perplexity, I had found
my path blocked up by a perpendicular pile of rock. To
all but myself, the difficulty might have been impracticable:
but my habits had given me the spring and muscle of a pan-
ther; I bounded against the marble, and after long effort,
by the help of the weeds, and scattered roots of the wild
vines, climbed my perilous way to the summit. An endless
range of Syria lay beneath; the sea and the wilderness
gleamed on my left and right; and a rich succession of dells,
crowded with the date, the olive, and the grape, in their
autumnal dyes, spread out before me, as far as the eye could
reach in a land whose air is pure as crystal.
A sound of trumpets and wild harmonies arose, and I dis-
covered, at an almost viewless depth below, a concourse of
people moving through the hollows of the mountains. The
tendency of man to man is irresistible; and that unexpected
sight, where but the wild beast and the eagle were to have
been my companions, gave me the first sensation of pleasure
that I had long experienced. Bounding from rock to rock
with a hazardous rapidity which arrested the crowd in asto-
nishment and alarm, I joined them just in time to see the
shafts and slings laid down which they had prepared for my
coming, in the uncertainty whether I were a wolf or a
mountain robber.
They formed one of the many caravans that annually ga-
thered from the shores of the Mediterranean to worship at
Lebanon. Their homage to sacred groves had been trans-
mitted from the earliest antiquity, and was universal in the
realms of paganism. To the Jew, worship on the hill and
under the tree was prohibited; but the forest that Solomon
1
84
SALATHIEL.
had chosen, the trees of which the first Temple was built,
the foliage which shaded the first planters of the earth, must
to the descendant of Abraham be full of reverent interest.
The ground was scriptural; the fiery string of the prophet
Ezekiel had been struck to its praise; the noblest raptures
of our poets celebrated the glory of Lebanon; the names
of the surrounding landscape recalled lofty and lovely
memories; the vale of EDEN led to the mountain of the
Cedars !
To my fellow travelers traditions tinged by the fervid
coloring of the oriental fancy, heightened the native power
of the spot. On the summits of the trees were said to de-
scend at appointed times those ministering spirits whose pur-
pose is to rectify the crimes of man. There stooped on the
wing the bearers of the sword against the heads of evil
monarchs; there brooded the angel of the tempest; there
the invisible ruler of the pestilence blew with his breath,
and nations sickened; there in night and in the interval of
storms was heard the trumpet that, before kings dreamed of
quarrel, announced the collision of guilty empires for their
mutual ruin.
The violation of the grove was supposed to be visited
with the most inexorable calamity; the hand that cut down
a tree for any ordinary use withered from the body; all mis.
fortune fell upon the man; his wealth dissolved away, his
cattle perished, his children died in their prime: if life was
suffered to linger in himself, it was only to perpetuate the
warning of the punishment. But there were gentler dis-
tinctions mingled with those stern attributes. Above the hill
Once in the year
was the pagan entrance to the skies.
:
the celestial gate rolled back on its golden hinges with
sounds surpassing mortal music; the heavens dropped balm;
the prayer offered on that night reached at once the supreme
throne; the tear was treasured in the volume of light and
the worshiper who died before the envious coming of the
morn, ascended to a felicity, earned by others only through
the tardy trial of the grave. The river which ran round the
mountain's foot, bore its share of virtue; its water, unpolluted
by the decay of autumn, or the turbidness of winter, showed
the preservative power of a superior being: it was entitled
the Holy Stream; and sealed vessels of it were sent even
to India and Italy, presents of health and sanctity to kings,
and worthy of kings.
SALATHIEL.
85
As we entered the last defile, the minstrels and singers of
the caravan commenced a pæan. Altars fumed from vari
ous points of the chasm above; and the Syrian priests were
seen in their robes performing the empty rites of idolatry. I
turned away from this perversion of human reason, and
pressed forward through the lingering multitude, until the
forest rose in its majesty before me.
My step was checked in solemn admiration. I saw the
earliest produce of the earth-the patriarchs of the vegeta-
ble world. The first generation of the reviving globe had
sat beneath these green and lovely arches; the final gene-
ration was to sit beneath them. No roof so noble ever rose
above the heads of monarchs, though it were covered with
gold and diamonds.
The forest had been greatly impaired in its extent and
beauty by the sacrilegious hand of war. The perpetual
conflicts of the Syrian and Egyptian dynasties laid the axe to
it with remorseless violation. It once spread over the whole
range of the mountains; its diminished strength now, like
the relics of a mighty army, made its stand among the cen-
tral fortresses of its native region and there majestically
bade defiance to the farther assault of steel and fire. The
forms of the trees seemed made for duration; the trunks
were of prodigious thickness, smooth and round as pillars of
marble; some rising to a great height, and throwing out a
vast level roof of foliage; some dividing into a cluster of
trunks, and with their various heights of branch and leaf,
making a succession of verdurous caves; some propagating
themselves by circles of young cedars, risen where the fruit
had dropped upon the ground: the whole bore the aspect of
a colossal temple of nature-the shafted column, the deep
arch, the solid buttresses branching off into the richest ca-
prices of oriental architecture, the solemn roof high above,
pale, yet painted by the strong sunlight through the leaves
with transparent and tesselated dyes rich as the colors of the
Indian mine.
In the momentary feeling of awe and wonder, I could
comprehend why paganism loved to worship under the
shade of forests; and why the poets of paganism filled that
shade with the attributes and presence of deities. The airy
whisperings, the loneliness, the rich twilight, were the very
food of mystery. Even the forms that towered before the
eye; those ancient trees, the survivors of the general law
VOL. I.
8
86
SALATHIEL.
¡
of mortality, gigantic, hoary, covered with their weedy robes,
bowing their aged heads in the blast, and uttering strange
sounds and groanings in the struggle, gave to the high-
wrought superstition of the soul the images of things un-
earthly; the oracle and the God! Or was this impression
but the obscure revival of one of those lovely truths that
shone upon the days of Paradise, when man drew knowledge
from its fount in Nature; and all but his own passions was
disclosed to the first born of creation.
·
The caravan encamped in the bottom of the valley, and the
grove was soon crowded with worshipers, in whose homage
I could take no share. Fires were lighted on the large
stones, which had for ages served the purpose of altars; and
the names of the Syrian idols were shouted and sung in the
fierce exultation of a worship but slightly purified from its
original barbarism. As the night fell, I withdrew to the en-
trance of the defile, and gave a last glance at Lebanon. In
the grove filled with fires, and echoing with wild music and
dances of riot, I saw the emblem of my fallen country: the
holiness, old as the oldest memory of nations, profaned; yet
the existence preserved, and still to be preserved; Israel
once throned upon its mountains, now diminished of its
beauty; to be yet more diminished; but to live, when all else
perished; to be restored, and to cover its native hills again
with glory. I buried my face in my robe, and throwing my-
self down by the skirt of one of the tents, gave way to medi-
tations sweet and bitter. They passed into my sleep, and I
was once more in the bosom of my family.
I heard my name pronounced; I listened; the name of
my wife followed. I looked to the sky, to the forest, to con-
vince me that this was no mockery of the diseased mind. I
was fully awake. I lifted up the corner of the tent. Savage
figures were sitting over their cups, inflamed into quarrel;
and in the midst of high words and execrations I heard their
story. They were robbers from Mount Amanus; come,
equally, to purify their hands by offering sacrifice at Leba-
non, and to recompense themselves for their lost time by
robbing on the way home. The quarrel had arisen from the
proposal of one of them to extend their expedition into Judea,
a proposal which he sustained by mentioning the success of
his previous enterprises. My name was again sent from
mouth to mouth, and I found that it was inscribed on some
jewel which formed a part of his plunder. The thought
SALATHIEL.
87
""
struck me that this might afford a clue. I burst into the
tent, and demanded my wife and children. The ruffians
started as if they were in the presence of a spectre.
"Where," I repeated, "are my family? I am Salathiel!"
"Safe enough," said the foremost. "Are they alive?" I
cried; "lead me where they are, and you shall have what
ransom you desire." The ruffian laughed. Why, as for
ransom, all the money has been made by them, that is likely
to be made for some time; unless the Greek that bought them
repents of his bargain. The speech was received with loud
laughter. I grew furious. "Villains, you have murdered
them. Tell me the whole, show me where they lie; or I
will deliver you up to the chief of the caravan as robbers and
murderers." They were appalled; with a single stride I
was at the throat of the leading ruffian, and seized the jewel;
it was my bridal present to Miriam! My hand trembled, my
eyes grew dim at the glance. In the next moment I found
myself pinioned, a gag forced into my mouth, a cloak flung
over me; and was left to listen to the discussion, whether I
was to be stabbed on the spot, left to die of famine, or have
my tongue cut out, and, thus, unfitted for telling secrets, be
turned to gain, and sold for a slave.
But my preservation was not distant. The quarrel of the
banditti increased with their wine; blows were given; the
solitary lamp was thrown down in the conflict; it caught
some combustible matter; the tent was in a blaze. By a
violent exertion I loosened the cords from my arms, and in
the confusion fled unseen. The fire spread; and my last
glance at the valley showed the encampment turned into a
sea of fire.
Alone, in pain, and exhausted with deadly fatigue, I yet
had but one thought, that of seeking my family through the
world. I wandered on, through the vast range of wild coun-
try that guards Syria on the side of the desert. I was parch-
ed by the burning noon, I was frozen by the keen winds of
night, I hungered and thirsted; yet the determination was
strong as death, and I persevered. I at length reached the
foot of Mount Amanus, traversed the chain, saw from it
the interminable plains of Asia Minor, the desert of Aleppo,
the shores of Tripoli; and was then left only to choose in
which I should again commence my hopeless pilgrimage.
There is something in great distress of mind, that throws
a strange protection round the sufferer. I passed the Ro.
88
SALATHIEL.`.
man guards unquestioned-the robber left me without inqui-
ring whether I was worth his dagger.-The wolves driven
down by famine, and devouring all else that had life, neglect.
ed the banquet that I might have supplied.-Yet I shrank
from none of the evils, but marched on through garrison,
cave, and forest. But one evening the sky was loaded with
a tempest that drove even me to seek for shelter. I found
it in one of the promontories that so often scare the mariner's
eye on the iron bound shore of Cilicia.
Fatigue soon threw me into a heavy slumber. But the
weight of the tempest towards midnight roused me, and from
the mouth of the cave I gazed on the lightnings, that, red with
resistless rage, disclosed at every explosion immense tracts
of sea rolling in foaming ridges before the gale. In the
intervals of the gusts I heard to my surprise the murmur of
many voices, apparently in prayer, close beside me. But
all my interest was suddenly fixed on the sea, by the sight of a
large war-galley running before the wind. She had neither sail
nor oar. Her masts were gone by the board; and but for
the crowd of people on her deck, whose distracted attitudes I
could clearly see by flashes, she looked a floating tomb.
K
To summon whatever assistance might be at hand, I cried
aloud; to warn the galley of the hazards of the shore, I gath-
ered the brushwood at the mouth of the cavern, and set it on
fire. A shout from the crew told me that my signal was un-
derstood; and I rushed down the bed of a stream that fretted
its way through the precipice. Before I reached the shore,
I saw various fires blazing above, and many figures hurrying
down on a purpose like my own. We had not arrived too soon.
The galley, after desperate efforts to keep the sea, had run
for an inlet of the rock, and was embayed; surge on surge,
each higher than the one before, rolled over the ill-fated ves-
sel, and each swept some portion of her crew into the deep.
We rushed into the waves, and had succeeded in drawing
many to shore; when a broader burst, the concentrated force
of the tempest, thundered on the galley; she was broken into
splinters. Stunned and half suffocated with the surge, I
grasped, in the mere instinct of self-preservation, at whatever
was nearest; and through infinite hazard reached the shore
with a body in my arms. Need I tell the keen succession
of terror, anxiety, hope and joy when I found that this being
whom I saw lifeless, and at length breathing, moving, pro-
nouncing my name, falling on my neck, was Miriam !
SALATHIEL.
89
My daughters, too, were rescued. The nearness of the
shore saved the crew, who, until they saw the beacon on the
rocks, had given themselves up to despair. The chance of
help led them to steer close in land, and I was congratulated
as the general preserver. Miriam's story was brief. Our
dwelling had been surrounded by a troop of robbers. The
household were surprised in their sleep. Resistance was
vain, the rest was plunder and captivity. The robbers, fear-
ful of pursuit, took the road to the mountains at full speed.
My wife and daughters were treated with unusual care, lest
their beauty should be injured, and thus their value in the
slave-market of Tripoli impaired. As the robber told me,
they had been purchased by a Greek merchant of Cyprus,
and by him conveyed to his island, to be sold to some more
opulent master. There they were redeemed by an act of
equal generosity and valor, and were returning to Judea
when the storm overtook them.
CHAPTER XV.
WHEN the first tumult of our spirits was past, I had leisure
to see what changes the interval had made in faces so loved.
Miriam's betrayed the hours of distress and pain that she
must have passed; but her noble style of beauty, the ema-
nation of a noble mind, was as conspicuous as ever. I even
thought, when her large eye fell on me from time to time,
that it shone with a loftier intelligence, as if misfortune had
raised its vision above the things of our trivial world. My
daughters' forms had matured; but Salome, the elder, wore
a portion of her mother's look; her laughing glance still
beamed, yet she was often lost in meditation; and the rapid
changes of her cheek, from the deepest crimson to the pale-
ness of snow, alarmed me with menaces of early decay.
Esther too had undergone her revolution. But it was of the
brightest texture. The seas, the skies, the mountains of
Greece, filled her glowing spirit with images of new life.
She had listened with boundless delight to the traditions of
that most brilliant of all people; the works of the pencil and
the chisel had met her eye in a profuseness and perfection
•
2.
•
8*
90
SALATHIEL.
that she had never contemplated before; her harp echoed
to names of romantic valor and proud patriotism; and as I
gazed on her in those hours, when, in the feeling that she
was unobserved, she gave way to the rich impulses of her
soul, I thought alternately of the prophetess and of the muse.
The shipwreck converted the solitary shore into a little
village; the sailors collected the fragments of the vessel and
formed them into huts; the caves that ran along the level of
the sands, supplied habitations of themselves; and by the
assistance of those dwellers on the precipice who had so un-
expectedly started to light, the first difficulties of a wild coast
were sufficiently combated. The bustling activity of the
Greek mariners, and the adroitness with which they availed
themselves of all contrivances for passing the heavy hour,
their sleights of hand, sports, and dances, their recitations.
of popular poems, and their boat songs, kept the spot in con-
tinual animation. This was my first opportunity of contact
with the actual people, and I acknowledged their right to have
been distinguished among the most showy disturbers of man-
kind. The evil of the character, too, was displayed without
much trouble of disguise. They habitually gamed, till they
had no better stake than the fragments of their own clothing;
but they would game for a shell, for a stone that they picked
up on the sands, for any thing. They quarreled with as per-
fect facility as they gamed: the knife was out quick as
lightning; but to do them justice, their wrath was as brief.
The combatants embraced at a word, danced, kissed, and
wept; then drank, gamed, quarreled, and were sworn
brothers again. But this was Greece-in its lowest rank.
Constantius, the commander of the galley, was a specimen.
of the land which produced a Plato and a Pericles. When
I first saw him led by Miriam, as the generous champion who
had restored her and her children to happiness, I saw virtue
and manliness of the highest order in his features. He was
still in his prime; but a scar across his forehead, and the se-
verities of martial life, gave early seriousness to his counte-
nance. But his conversation had the full spirit of the spring-
time of life. It was incomparably rich, various, and ani-
mated; altogether free from professional pedantry, it had the
interest that belongs to professional feelings. Military ad-
venture, striking traits of warlike intelligence, the composi-
tion of the fleets and armies of the various states that fought
under the wing of the Roman eagle, with their old valor in-

SALATHIEL.
91
ރ
vigorated by their new discipline, were topics on which his
fire was exhaustless. On those I listened to him with the
strong sympathy of one to whom war must henceforth be the
grand pursuit; war for national freedom, war purified of its
evil by the most illustrious cause that ever summoned the
sword.
But Constantius had conversation for us all. His inter-
course with the ruling lands of the earth gave him a copious
store of recollections, picturesque, superb, and strange.
Esther combated and questioned the traveler. Salome lis-
tened to the warrior-listened, and loved. He had higher
topics, of which I was yet to hear. In the inhabitants of the
precipice he found a little colony of his countrymen, fugitive
Christians, driven out by persecution to make their home in
the wilderness of nature. The long range of caverns which
perforated the rock gave them a roof. The fertility of the
soil, and the occasional visit of a bark sent by their concealed
friends, supplied the necessaries and some of the conve-
niencies of life, and there they awaited the close of that
ferocious tyranny which at length roused the world against
Nero; or awaited the close of all suffering in the grave.
A succession of storms rendered traveling impossible, and
detained us among those hermits for some days. I found
them intelligent, and, in general, men of the higher ranks of
knowledge and condition. Some were of celebrated fami-
lies, and had left behind them opulence and authority. A
few were peasants. But misfortune, and, still more, princi-
ple, extinguished all that was abrupt in the inequality of
ranks, without leaving license in its stead. Jew as I was,
and steadily bound to the customs of my country, I yet did
honor to the patience, the humility, and the devotedness, of
those exiled men. I even once attended their worship on
the first day of the week; assured that the abomination of
idols was not to be found there, and that I should hear no-
thing insulting to the name of Israel.
.
The ceremonial was simple. Those who had witnessed
the heaven-commanded magnificence of the Temple, might
smile at the barrenness of the walls of rock, figured only
with the wild herbage; or those who had borne to see the
extravagant and complicated rites of paganism, might scorn
the few and obvious forms of the homage. But there was
the spirit of strong prayer-the breathing of the heart, the
unanswerable sincerity. Every violence of the mere ani.
I
92
SALATHIEL.
J
mal frame was unknown. I saw no pagan convulsion-no
fierceness of outcry and gesture-not even the vehement so-
lemnity of the Jew. All was calm; tears stole down, but
they stole in silence; knees were bowed, but there was no
prostration; prayers, fervent and lofty, were poured forth,
but it was in accents uttered less from the lip than from the
soul, appeals of hallowed confidence to a Being that was
sure to hear; the voice of children to a Father and a God,
who, wherever two or three were gathered together, was in
the midst of them.
At length the storms cleared away, and the sky wore the
native azure of the climate. A messenger despatched to
Cyprus, returned with a vessel for the embarkation of the
Greeks. Camels and mules were procured from the neigh-
boring country for our journey, and the morning was fixed,
on which we were to separate. Yet with so much reason
for joy, few resolutions could have been received with less
favor. Constantius almost shunned society, or shared in it
with a silence and depression that made his philosophy more
than questionable. Miriam was engaged in long conferences.
with Salome, from which they both came sad.
Esther was
thus my chief companion, and she talked of the shore, the
sea, and even of the tempests, with heightened interest. The
Greeks, sailor and soldier alike, loved too well the romantic
ease and careless adventure of the place, to look with com-
placency on the little vessel in which they were to be borne
once more into the land of restraint. The fugitive colony
were not the slowest in their regrets. They had been deep-
ly prepared for human vicissitude, and had humbled them-
selves to all things; yet, such is the strong and natural con-
nection of man with man, they lamented the solitude to which
they must again be left, like the commencement of a new
exile.
There are few things more singular that the blindness
which, in matters of the highest importance to ourselves,
often hides the truth that is plain as noon to all other eyes.
The cause which deprived Constantius of his eloquence, and
Salome of her animation, was obvious to every one but me.
Nor was the mystery yet to be disclosed to my tardy know-
ledge.
I had strayed through the cliffs, as was my custom after
the heat of the day, and was taking a last look at the sea
from one of the thickets on the edge of the precipice. The
n
SALATHIEL.
333
sands far below me were covered with preparation for the
voyage, which, like our journey, was to commence with the
rising sun. The little vessel lay, a glittering toy, at anchor,
with her thread-like streamers playing in the breeze. The
sailors were fishing, preparing their evening meal, heaving
water and provisions down the rocks, or enjoying themselves
over flagons of Syrian wine round their fires; all was the
activity of a sea-port; but, from the height on which I lay,
all was but the activity of a mole-hill. "And is it of such
materials," mused I, "that ambition is made? is it to com-
mand, to be gazed on, to be shouted after by such mites and
atoms as those, that life is exhausted in watching and weari-
ness; that our true enjoyments are sacrificed; that the pre-
sent and the future are equally cast from us; that the hand
is dipped in blood, and the earth desolated? What must
Alexander's triumph have looked, to one who saw it from the
towers of Babylon? a triumph of emmets!" I smiled at the
moral of three hundred feet of precipice.
1
A step in the thicket put philosophy to flight. My wife
stood before me; and never saw I even her beauty more
beautiful. The exertion of the ascent had colored her
cheek; the breeze had scattered her raven locks across a
forehead of the purest white; her lip wore the smile so long
absent; and there was altogether an air of hope and joy in
her countenance, that made me instinctively ask, of what
good news she was the bearer. Without a word she sat
down beside me, and pressed my hands between hers; she
fixed her eyes on mine, tried to speak, and failing, fell on my
neck and bust into tears. Alarmed at her sobs, and the wild
beating of her heart, I was about to rise for assistance, when
she detained me, and the smile returned; she bared her fore-
head to the breeze, and recovering, disburdened her soul.
"How many billows," said she, gazing on the sea, "will
roll between that little bark and this shore to-morrow! There
is always something melancholy in parting. Yet, if that ves-
sel could feel, with what delight would she not wing her way
to Cyprus, lovely Cyprus?"
I was surprised! "Miriam, this from you? Can you re-
gret the place of paganism—the land of your captivity!"
"No," was the answer, with a look of lofty truth: "I ab-
horred the guilty profanations of the pagan; and who can
love the dungeon? Even were Cyprus a paradise, I should
have felt unhappy in the separation from my country and

94
SALATHIEL.
from you. Yet those alone who have seen the matchless
loveliness of the island-the perpetual animation of life in a
climate, and in the midst of scenes made for happiness-can
know the sacrifice that must be made by its people in leaving
it, and leaving it perhaps forever,"
"The crew of that galley are not to be tried by long ex-
ile.
In two days, at farthest, they will anchor in their own
harbors."
"And how deeply must the sacrifice be, enhanced by the
abandonment of rank, wealth, professional honors! and this
is the sacrifice on which I have been sent to consult my hus-
band."
I was totally at a loss to conceive of whom she spoke.
"Our friend-our deliverer from captivity or death-the
generous being, who, through infinite hazards, restored your
wife and children to happiness and home-"
"Constantius! impossible.-At the very age of ambition,
with his talents, his knowledge of life, his prospects of the
highest distinction ?—"
"Constantius will never return to Cyprus in that galley-
will never draw sword for Rome again-will never quit the
land given by Heaven to our fathers; if such be the will of
Salathiel."
Strange. But his motives? he is superior to the fickle-
ness that abandons an honorable course of life through the.
pure love of novelty or is he weary of the absurdities of pa-
ganism?"
66
Thoroughly weary-more than weary; he has abjured
them forever and ever.
"You rejoice me. But it was to be expected from his
manly mind. You have brought an illustrious convert, my
beloved; and if your captivity has done this, it was the will
of Heaven. Constantius shall be led with distinction to the
temple, and be one of ourselves. Judea may yet require
such men. Our holy religion may exult in such conquests
from the darkness of the idolatrous world."
The voice of the hermits at their evening prayer now arose,
and held us in silence, which neither seemed inclined to
break. Many thoughts pressed on my mind; the addition
to our circle of a man whom I honored and esteemed;
the accession of a practised soldier to our cause; the near
approach of the hour of conflict; the precarious fate of those
I loved, in the great convulsion which was to rend away the
SALATHIEL.
95
Roman yoke, or leave Judea a tomb. I accidentally looked
up, and saw that Miriam had been as abstracted as myself.
But war and policy were not in the contemplations of the
beaming countenance; nor their words on the lips that qui-
vered and crimsoned before me. Her eyes were fixed on the
sky, and she was in evident prayer, which I desired not to
disturb. She at length caught my glance, and blushed like
one detected; but quickly recovering-said, in a tone never
to be forgotten, "My husband! my lord! my love! would
that I dared open my whole spirit to you! would that you
could read for yourself the truths written in my heart!"
"Miriam !"
"This is no reproach. But I know your strength of opin-
ion-your passion for all that concerns the glory of Israel;
your right, the right of talents and character to the fore-
most rank among the priesthood; and those things repel
me."
66
Speak out at once.
We can have no concealments, Mi-
riam; candor, candor in all things."
"You have heard the prayers of those exiles; you ac-
knowledge their acquirements and understandings; they
have sacrificed much, every thing-friends, country, the
world. Can such men have been imposed on? can they have
imposed on themselves? Is it possible that their sacrifices.
could have been made for a fiction ?"
"The question is difficult. We are strangely the slaves of
habit and impulse. Men every day abandon the most obvi-
ous good for the most palpable follies. Enthusiasm is a
minor madness."
“But are those exiles enthusiasts? They are grave men,
experienced in life; their language is totally pure from ex-
travagance; they reason with singular clearness; they live
with the most striking command over the habits of their ori-
ginal condition. Greeks, you see no haste of temper, no vio-
lence of language among them. Once idolators, they shrink
from the thought of idols. Now fugitive and persecuted, they
pray for their persecutors; sharing the lair of wild beasts,
and driven out from all that they knew and loved, they utter
no complaint-they even rejoice in their calamity, and offer
up praises to the mercy that shut the gates of earth upon their
steps, only to open the gates of heaven."
"I am no persecutor, Miriam. Nay, I honor the self-de-
nial, as I doubt not the sincerity of those men. But if they
96
SALATHIEL.
have thrown off a portion of their early blindness, why not
desire the full illumination? Why linger half way between
falsehood and truth? It is not, as you know, our custom to
solicit proselytes. But such men might be not unworthy of
the hope of Israel.”
"It is to the hope of Israel that they have come, that they
cling, that they look up for a recompense; a glorious recom-
pense for their sufferings."
Let them then join us at sunrise, and come to our holy
city."
"Salathiel, the time is declared, when men shall worship.
not in that mountain alone, but through all lands; when the
yoke of our law shall be lightened, and the weary shall have
rest; when the altar shall pass away, as the illustrious vic-
tim has passed; and the wisdom of Heaven shall be the pos-
session of all mankind."
(6
I looked at her in astonishment. Miriam, this from you!
from a daughter of the blood of Aaron! from the wife of
a servant of the temple! have you become a Christian ?"
I have done nothing in presumption. I have prayed to
the Source of light that he would enlighten my understand-
ing; I have night and day examined the law and the pro-
phets. Bear with my weakness, Salathiel, if it be proved
weakness. But if it be wisdom, knowledge, and truth, I im-
plore you by our love, by the higher interests of your own
soul, to follow my example."
It was impossible to answer harshly to a remonstrance
expressed with the overflowing fondness of the heart: I
could only remind her of the unchangeable promises made
to Judaism.
"But it is of those promises I speak," urged she; "we
have seen the day that our father Abraham longed to see;
that mighty Being, the Lord of Eternity, the express image
of the glory of the Invisible, the hope of the patriarch, the
promise of the prophet, has come.
""
"Yet Israel is divided and enslaved, torn by capricious
tyranny, and hurrying to the common convulsions and com-
mon ruin of doomed nations. Is this the triumphant king-
dom of prophecy?"
"I have doubted like you; but I have been at length con-
vinced out of the mouths of the prophets themselves. Have
they not declared that Israel should suffer before it tri-
umphed, and suffer too for a period that strikes the mind
+
SALATHIEL.
97
with terror? that the King of Israel should be excluded from
his kingdom,-nay, take upon him the form of a servant,
nay, die, and die by a death of pain and shame, the death of
a slave and criminal ?”
"It is so written. But it is beyond our power to re-
concile."
"Pray then for the power, and it will be given to you.
Ask for the spirit of holy intelligeħce, and it will enlighten
you. Pride is the crime of our nation. Humility, the
righteous resolution to follow truth, and leave prejudice to
its fate, would take the film from the eye of our people.
Salathiel, my lord, the being treasured in my heart. Read
the Scriptures. I have prayed for you.-Read-
""
"But how can the promise of the kingdom be resisted?
it fills the whole volume of prophecy. It is the theme first,
last, and without end, of all the inspired masters of Israel.
What splendor and reality of history was ever more vivid
and real than the glorious promises of Isaiah ?"
·
"But what force and minuteness of picturing ever ex-
celled Isaiah's description of the lowliness, the obscurity,
the rejection, the agonies, and the death of the Messiah?
Why shall we suppose that the one description is true, and
the other false? Has not the same inspiration given both ?
Why shall we conceive that the Messiah and his kingdom
must appear together? We see the time of his first coming
defined to a year by our great prophet Daniel. But where
do we see the time of the triumphant kingdom defined?
Why may it not follow at a distance of ages? We know
that we shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, and in
our flesh shall see God. Why shall not the triumph be re.
served for that day of glory? Are our people now fit to be
a*nation of kings? Or are the best of us, in our present
imperfection, in the mortal feebleness of our nature, fit to
share in a triumph in which angels are to minister? fit
dwellers of a city from which error and evil are to be ex-
cluded; in which there is to be no tear, no human suffering,
no remembered bitterness; 'a city whose builder and maker
is God;' within whose walls live holiness, power, sublime
intelligence, and imperishable virtue; on whose throne sits
in light the Omnipotent!"
Sensations to which I dared not give utterance oppressed
me: my crime, my fate, rose up before the mental eye. I
had no answer to this admirable woman. Her pure and
VOL. I.
9
ས་
3

98
SALATHIEL.
1
.
4.
fervid zeal, her love, and holiness of heart, touched every
chord in mine. But the veil was dark upon my mind. Let
no man blame the stubbornness of the Jew, till he has
weighed the influence of feelings born with a people,
strengthened by their history, reinforced by miracle, and
authenticated by the words of inspiration. That Judaism
was purity itself to the worship and morals of the pagan
world; that it was the continued object of a particular Pro-
vidence; that it alone possessed the revelations of God;
were facts that defied doubt. And that those high distinc-
tions should be made void, and the slavish and profligate
mind of paganism be admitted into our privileges; still more,
that it should be admitted, to the exclusion of the chosen
line, seemed to me a conclusion that no reasoning could
substantiate, a fantastic and airy fiction, to which no reason-
ing could be applied.
The moon ascended in calm glory; and her orb, slightly
tinged by the many-colored clouds that lay upon the hori
zon, threw a faint silver upon the precipice. The sounds
below were hushed; the moving figures, the vessel, the sea,
the cliffs, were totally veiled in purple mist. We could not
have been more alone if we were seated on a cloud; and
the beauty, the exalted gesture, and the glowing wisdom of
the being before me, were like those that we conceive of
spirits delegated to lead the disembodied mind upwards from
world to world.
A sea bird, winging its way above our heads, broke the
reverie: I reminded my teacher that it grew late, and our
absence might produce anxiety.

66
Salathiel," said she, with mingled fervor and softness,
-"you know I love you; never was heart more fondly
bound to another than mine is to you. I am grateful for
your permission to receive Constantius into our tribe. But
one obligation, infinitely dearer, you can confer on me,-
read this scroll." She drew from her bosom a letter, written
"I
to his church by one of the Christian leaders in Asia.
desire not to offend your convictions, nor to hasten you into
a rash adoption of those of others. But in this scroll you
will find philosophy without its pride, and knowledge without
its guile; you will find more, the disclosure of those mys-
teries which have so long perplexed our people: read; and
may He who can bring wisdom out of the lips of babes, and

SALATHIEL.
99
make the wisdom of the wise foolishness, shed his light upon
the generous heart of my husband!”
At another time, I might have started in horror from this
avowal of her faith. But the scene, the circumstances, an
unaccountable internal impression-a voice of the soul, pro-
hibited me. I took her trembling hand, and, without a word
led her down to our dwelling.
GENERAL
University o
LIBRA
MICHIGAN
CHAPTER XVI.
No tidings sooner make themselves known, than those of
the heart. We found our daughters waiting anxiously at
the entrance of the cave, which had been fitted up for our
temporary shelter. Before a word could be exchanged, a
glance from Miriam told the success of her mission; and
sorrow was turned into delight. Esther danced around me,
and was eloquent in her gratitude. Salome shed silent
tears; and when I attempted to wipe them away, fell faint-
ing into my arms. We spent a part of the night in the open
air: the last wine and fruits of our store were brought out:
the Cypriot exiles came down from their rocks: the crew
of the galley, already on board, danced, sang, and drank to
the success of the voyage; and it was not till the moon, our
only lamp, was about to be extinguished in the waters, that
we thought of closing our final night on the Syrian shore.
We traveled along the coast as far as Berytus; then
turning to the eastward, crossed the Libanus, and the moun-
tain country that branches into Upper Galilee. Our coming
had been long announced; and we found Eleazar, Jubal,
and our chief kinsmen, waiting at one of the passes to lead
us home in triumph. The joy of our tribe was honest, if it
was tumultuous; and many a shout disturbed the solitude as
we moved along.
My impatience increased, when we reached the well-
known hills that sheltered what was once my home. Yet I
remembered too keenly the shock of seeing its desolation
not to dread the first sight of the spot; and rode away from
the group at full speed, that my nervousness might have time
to subside before their arrival. But at the foot of the last
肇
​
100
SALATHIEL.
ascent I drew the rein. Every tree, every bush, almost
every stone, had been familiar to me in my wanderings;
and were now painful memorials of the long malady of my
mind.
Eleazar, who watched me during the latter part of the
journey, with something of a consciousness of my thoughts,
put spurs to his horse, and found me standing, pale and
palpitating. "Come," said he, "we must not alarm
Miriam by thinking too much of the past; let us us try if the
top of the hill will not give us a better prospect than the
bottom.
I shrank from the attempt. "No!" said I," the horror
that the prospect once gave me must not be renewed.
Let us change the route, no matter how far around; the
sight of that ruin would distract me to the last hour of my
life."
He only smiled in reply; and catching my bridle galloped
forward. A few seconds placed us on the summit of a hill.
Could I believe my eyes! All below was as if rapine never
had been there. The gardens, the cattle, the dwellings,
lay a fairy picture under the eye. "This is miracle!" I ex-
claimed. "No; or it is but the miracle of a little activity,
and a great deal of good-will," was the answer.
"Your kinsmen did this at the time when you were slum.
bering with the wolf and bear in the Libanus; Nature did
her part in covering your fields and gardens; and those
sheep and cattle are a tribute of gratitude from your brother,
for the preservation of his life."
Our troop now ascended the height. The land lay be-
neath them in the richness of summer. They were ardent
in their expressions of surprise and pleasure. We rushed
down the defile, and I was once more master of a home.
Public events had rapidly ripened in my absence. Popu-
lar wrath was stimulated by increased exaction. Law was
more palpably perverted into insolence and injury. Order
was giving way on all sides. The Roman garrisons, ne-
glected and ill paid, were adopting the desperate habits of
the populace; and in the general scorn of religion and
right, the country was becoming a horde of robbers. The
ultimate causes of this singular degeneracy might be remote,
and set in action by a vengeance above man; but the imme-
diate were plain to every eye.
The general principles of Rome, in the government of her
1
!
SALATHIEL.
101
When the soldier had
conquests, were manly and wise.
done his work; and it was done vigorously, yet with but lit-
tle violence beyond that which was essential for complete
subjugation; the sword slept as an instrument of evil, and
awoke only as an instrument of justice.
The Roman supremacy extinguished the innumerable and
harassing mischiefs of minor hostility. If neighbor king-
doms quarreled, a legion marched across the border, and
brought the belligerents to sudden reason; dismissed the
armies to their hearths and altars, and sent the angry chiefs
to reconcile their claims in an Italian dungeon. If a dis-
puted succession threatened to embroil the general peace,
the proconsul ordered the royal competitors to embark for
Rome, and there settle the right before the senate.
The barbaric invasions, which had periodically ravaged
the Eastern empires, even in their day of power, were re-
pelled with a terrible vigor. The legions left the desert
covered with the tribe, for the food of the vulture; and
showed to Europe the haughty leaders of the Tartar, Gothic
and Arab myriads in fetters, dragging wains, digging in
mines, or sweeping the highways.
If peace could be an equivalent for freedom, the equiva
lent was never so amply secured. The world within this iron
boundary flourished; the activity and talent of man were
urged to the highest pitch: the conquered countries were
turned from wastes and forests into fertility: ports were dug
upon naked shores; cities swelled from villages: population
spread over the soil once pestilential and breeding only the
poisonous weed and the serpent. The sea was covered with
trade; the pirate and the marauder were unheard of, or
hunted down. Commercial enterprise shot its lines and
communications over the map of the earth; and regions
were then familiar, which even the activity of the revived
ages of Europe had scarcely made known.
Those were the wonders of great power steadily directed
to a great purpose. General coercion was the simple prin-
ciple; and the only talisman of a Roman Emperor was the
chain, but where it was casually commuted for the sword :
yet the universality of the compression atoned for half its
evil. The natural impulse of man is to improvement; he re-
quires only security from rapine. The Roman supremacy
raised round him an impregnable wall. It was the true go-
vernment for an era when the habits of reason had not pen.
UorM
9*

102
SALATHIEL.
etrated the general human mind. Its chief evil was in its
restraint of those nobler and loftier aspirations of genius and
the heart, which from time to time raise the general scale of
mankind. Nothing is more observable than the decay of
original literature, of the finer architecture, and of philoso-
phical invention, under the empire. Even military genius,
the natural product of a system that lived but on military.
fame, disappeared; the brilliant diversity of warlike talent,
that shone on the very verge of the succession of the Cæsars,
sank, like falling stars, to rise no more. No captain was
again to display the splendid conceptions of Pompey's bound-
less campaigns; the lavish heroism and inexhaustible
resource of Antony; or the mixture of undaunted personal
enterprise and profound tactic, the statesman-like thought,
irrestrainable ambition, and high-minded forgiveness, that
made Cæsar that very emblem of Rome. But the Imperial
power had the operation of one of those great laws of nature,
which through partial evil sustain the earth-a gravitating
principle, which, if it checked the ascent of some gifted be-
ings beyond the dull level of life, yet kept the infinite multi-
tude of men and things from flying loose beyond all utility
and all control.
Yet it was only for a time. The empire was but the
ripening of the republic, a richer, more luxuriant, and more
transitory object for the eye of the world; and the storm
was already gathering that was to shake it to the ground.
The corruptions of the palace first opened the Imperial ruin.
They soon extended through every department of the state.
If the habitual fears of the tyrant, in the midst of a head-
long populace who had so often aided and exulted in the
slaughter of his predecessors, could scarcely restrain him
in Rome; what must be the excesses of his minions, where
no fear was felt! where complaint was stifled by the dagger!
and where the government was bought by bribes, to be
replaced only by licensed and encouraged rapine!
The East was the chief victim. The vast northern and
western provinces of the empire pressed too closely on
Rome; were too poor, and were too warlike, to be the fa-
vorite objects of Italian rapacity. There a new tax raised
an insurrection; the proconsular demand of a loan was an-
swered by a flight, which stripped the land; or by the march
of some unheard.of tribe, pouring down from the desert to
avenge their countrymen. The character too of the people
SALATHIEL.
103
influenced the choice of their governors. Brave and expe-
rienced soldiers, not empty and vicious courtiers, must com-
mand the armies that were thus liable to be hourly in battle,
and on whose discipline depended the slumbers of every
pillow in Italy. Stern as is the life of camps, it has its vir-
tues; and men are taught consideration for the feelings,
rights, and resentments of man, by a teacher that makes its
voice heard through the tumult of battle and the pride of
victory. But all was reversed in Asia, remote, rich, habitu-
ated to despotism, divided in language, religion, and blood ;
with nothing of that fierce, yet generous, clanship, which
made the Gaul of the Belgian marshes listen to the trumpet
of the Gaul of Narbonne, and the German of the Vistula
burn with the wrongs of the German of the Rhine.
Under Nero, Judea was devoured by Roman rapine. She
had not even the sad consolation of owing her evils to the
rapine of those nobler beasts of prey in human shape that
were to be found in the other provinces-she was devoured
by locusts. The polluted palace supplied her governors; a
slave lifted into office by a fellow slave; a pampered profli-
gate exhausted by the expenses of the capital; a condemned
and notorious extortioner, with no other spot to hide his head ;
were the gifts of Nero to my country. Pilate, Felix, Festus,
Albinus, Florus, each more profligate and cruel as our ca-
tastrophe approached, tore the very bowels of the land. Of
the last two, it was said that Albinus should have been
grateful to Florus for proving that he was not the basest of
mankind, by the evidence that a baser existed; that he had
a respect for virtue, by his condescending to commit those
robberies in private, which his successor committed in public;
and that he had human feeling, by his abstaining from blood
where he could gain nothing by murder: while Florus dis-
dained alike concealment and cause, and slaughtered for the
public pleasure of the sword.
A number of partial insurrections, easily suppressed, dis-
played the wrath of the people, and indulged the cruelty of
the procurator. They indulged also his avarice. Defeat
was followed by confiscation; and Florus even boasted that
he desired nothing more prosperous than insurrection in every
village of Judea. He was about to be gratified, before he
had prepared himself for this luxury.
A menial in my house was detected with letters from an
agent of the Roman governor. They required details of my
}
104
SALATHIEL.
habits and resources, which satisfied me that I was become
an object of vengeance. From the time of my return, I had
seen with bitterness of soul the insults of my country. I
had summoned my friends to ascertain what might be our
means of resistance, and found them as willing and devoted
as became men: but our resources for more than the first
burst of popular wrath, the seizure of some petty Roman
garrison, or the capture of a convoy, were nothing. The
jealousies of the chief men of the tribes, the terror of Rome,
the positions of the Roman troops cutting off military com-
munication between the north and south of Judea, made the
attempt hopeless; and it was abandoned for the time. Even
those letters which marked me for a victim made no change
in the determination, that if I could not escape danger by
individual means, no public blood should be laid to my
charge.
For a few months all was tranquil: the habits of rural life
were calculated to keep depressing thoughts at a distance.
My wife and daughters returned to their graceful pursuits,
with the added pleasure of novelty, after so long a cessation.
I hunted through the hills with Constantius; or, traversing
the country which might yet be the scene of events, availed
myself of the knowledge of a master of the whole science of
Roman war. At home, the works of the great poets of the
west, with whom our guest had made us familiar, varied the
hours; but I found a still more stirring and congenial interest
in the histories of Greek valor, and in the study of the mighty
minds that made and unmade empires. With the touching
and picturesque narrative of Herodotus in my hand, I pant-
ingly followed the adventures of the most brilliant of nations.
I fought the battle with them against the Persian; I saw
them gathered in little startled groups on the hills, flying in
their little galleys from island to island, the land deserted,
the sea covered with fugitives, the Persian fleets, loaded
with Asiatic pomp, darkening the waters like a thunder-cloud;
and in a moment all changed. The millions of Asia scattered,
like dust before the wind-Greece lifted to the height of
martial glory, and commencing a career of triumph still
more illustrious, that triumph of the mind, in which, through
the remotest vicissitudes of earth, she was to have no con-
queror. With Arrian I pursued the campaigns of that ex-
traordinary man, whose valor, vanity, and fortune, make him
one of the landmarks of human nature. In Alexander, I
SALATHIEL.
105
delighted in tracing the native form of the Greek through
the embroidered robes of royalty and triumph. In his ro-
mantic intrepidity and deliberate science; his alternations
of profound thought and fantastic folly; the passion for
praise, and the contempt for its offerers; the rash temper,
and the noble magnanimity; the love for the fine arts, and
the thirst for that perpetual war before which they fly; the
martial and philosophic scorn of privation, and the feeble
lapses into self-indulgence; the generous forecast, which
peopled deserts and founded cities, and the giddy and fatal
neglect which left his diadem to be fought for, and his family
to be the prey of rival rebellions; I saw him the man of the
republic, the Athenian of the day of popular splendor and
folly, with only the difference of the sceptre.
To me, those studies were like a new door opened into
the boundless palace of human nature. I felt that sense of
novelty, vigor, and fresh life, that the frame feels in breathing
the morning air over the landscape of a new country. It
was a voyage upon an unknown sea, where every headland,
and dell, and tree fringing the waters, administers to the
delight of curiosity. In this there was nothing of the com-
mon pedantry of worn-out studies. My knowledge of life
had hitherto been limited by my original destination. A
Jew and a priest, there was but one solemn avenue, through
which I was to see the glimpses of the external world. The
vista was now opened and deepened beyond all limit: visions
of conquest, of honor among nations, of praise to the last
posterity, clustered round my head. There were times when
in this exultation my doom was forgotten. The momentary
oblivion may have been permitted; merely to blunt the edge
of incurable misfortune. Incessant suffering would have
made a double miracle essential to my existence. I was
permitted at intervals to recruit the strength, that was to be
tried till the end of time.
(C
I was one day immersed in Polybius, with my master in
soldiership at my side, guiding me by his living comment
through the wonders of the Punic campaigns; when Eleazer
entered, with a look that implied his coming on a matter of
importance. Constantius rose to withdraw. "No," said
my brother, “the subject of my mission is one that should
not be concealed from the preserver of our kindred. It may
be one of happiness to us all. Salome is arrived at the age,
and more than the age, when the daughters of Israel marry.

106
SALATHIEL.
She must give way to our general wish, and play the matron
at last."
He turned with a smile to Constantius, and asked
his assent to the opinion: he received no answer. The
young Greek had plunged more deeply than ever into the
passage of the Alps.
"And who is the suitor ?" I inquired.
"One worthy of her and you. A generous, bold, warm-
hearted kinsman, in the spring of life, sufficiently opulent, for
he will probably be my heir, prepared to honor you, and I
believe long and deeply attached to her."
"Jubal! There is not a man in our tribe to whom I would
so gladly give her. Let my friend Jubal come. Congratu-
late me, Constantius; you shall now at last see festivity in
our land, in scorn of the Roman. You have seen us in flight
and captivity; you shall now be witness of some of the hap-
piness that was in Judah before we knew the flapping of an
Italian banner; and if fortune smile, shall be, when Rome is
like Babylon."
Constantius suddenly rose from his volumes, and thrusting
them within the folds of his tunic, was leaving the apart-
ment. “No,” said I, "you must remain; Miriam and Sa-
lome shall be sent for, and in your presence the contract
signed."
For the first time, I perceived the excessive pallidness of
his countenance; and asked, whether I had not trespassed
too much on his patience with my studies?
His only reply was-"Is there no liberty of choice in the
marriages of Israel? Will you decide without consulting her
whom this contract is to render happy or miserable while she
lives?" He rushed from the room.
Miriam came-but alone. Her daughter had wandered
out into one of our many gardens. She received Eleazar
with sisterly fondness; but her features wore the air of con-
straint. She heard the mission; but," she had no opinion to
give in the absence of Salome.-She knew too well the hap-
piness of having chosen for herself, to wish to force the con-
sent of her child.-Let Salome be consulted."
The flourish of music, and the trampling of horses, broke
up our reluctant conference. Jubal was already come, with
a crowd of his friends. We hastened to receive him at the
porch; and he bounded into the court on his richly caparison-
ed barb, at the head of a troop in festal habiliments.
The man of Israel loved pomp of dress, and handsome
SALATHIEL.
107
:
steeds. The crowd before me might have made a body-
guard of a Persian king. Jubal had long looked on my
daughter with the admiration due to her singular beauty; it
was the custom to wed within our tribe: he was the favorite
and the heir of her uncle; she had never absolutely banished
him from her presence; and in the buoyancy of natural spirits,
the boldness of a temperament born for a soldier, and per-
haps in the allowable consciousness of a showy form, he had
admitted none of the perplexities of a trembling lover. Sa-
lome was at length announced, and the proposed husband
was left to plead his own cause.
CHAPTER XVII.
We received the friends of our intended son with the ac-
customed hospitality; but to me the tumult of many voices,
and even the sight of a crowd, however happy, still excited
the old disturbance of a shaken system.
I left my guest to the care of Eleazar; and galloped into
the fields to gather composure from the air of fruits and flow.
ers. A homeward glance showed me, to my surprise, the
whole troop mounted; and in another moment at speed across
the hills. I hastened back. Miriam met me. My kinsman
had openly disclaimed my alliance.
Indignant and disappointed, I prepared to follow, and
demand the cause of this insult. As I passed under a vine
that shadowed one of the pavilions, my daughter's voice ar-
rested me. She was talking with Constantius, and in tears.
Scorning mere curiosity, I yet was anxious for sincere ex-
planation. I felt that if Salome had a wish which she feared
to divulge to her father, this was my only hope of obtaining
the knowledge. The voices were feeble, and I could for a
while catch but a broken sentence.
"I owed it to him," said she, "not to deceive his partiality.
He offered all that it could have done a Jewish maiden honor
to receive ;—his heart, hand, and fortune.”
"And you rejected them all?" said Constantius.
"Have
· you no regrets for the lover-no fears for the father ?”
“For Jubal I had too high an esteem, to give him a pro-
+
108
SALATHIEL.
mise which I could not keep. I knew his generous na
ture. I told him at once, that there was an invincible ob-
stacle !"
"I should like incomparably to know, what that obstacle
could be ?" said Constantius.
I
The natural playfulness of this sweet and light-hearted
girl had already superseded the tear; and she replied-
"That a philosopher ought to know all things without ques-
tioning.
""
"But there is much in the world that defies philosophy,
my fair Salome; and of all its problems, the most perplex-
ing is the mind of woman!-of young, lovely, dangerous
woman ?"
"Now, Constantius, you abandon the philosopher, and talk
the language of the poet.
"Yet without the poet's imagination. No; I need picture
no beauty from the clouds-no nymph from the fountains
-no loveliness that haunts the trees, and breathes more
than mortal melody on the ear. Salome! my muse is before
me."
"You are a Greek," said she, after a slight interval; “and
the Greeks are privileged to talk, and to deceive."
"Salome! I am a Greek no longer. What I shall yet be,
may depend upon the fairest artist that ever fashioned the
human mind. But mine are not the words of inexperience.
I am on this day five-and-twenty years old. My life has led
me into all that is various in the intercourse of earth. I have
seen woman in her beauty, in her talent, in her art, in her
accomplishment, from the cottage to the throne; but I never
felt her real power."
"Which am I to believe-the possible or the impossible?
A soldier! a noble ! a Greek! and of all Greeks, one of Cy-
prus! not the breaker of a thousand hearts, the worshiper
at a thousand altars, the offerer of your eloquence at every
shrine where your own lovely countrywomen stood on the
pedestal !—I too have seen the world."
"Heaven forbid, that you may ever see it, but what it
would be made by such as you ;-a place of gentleness
and harmony-a place of fondness and innocence-a
paradise!"
"Now, you are farther from the philosopher than ever:
but I must listen no more: the sun is taking its leave of us,
and blushing its last through the vines for all the fine ro-
SALATHIEL.
109
J
mance that it has heard from Constantius. Farewell, phi-
losophy."
"Then farewell, philosophy," said Constantius; and
caught her hand, as she was lightly moving from the pavilion.
He led her towards the casement. “ Then farewell philo-
sophy my sweet; and welcome truth, virtue, and nature.
I loved you in your captivity; I loved you in your freedom
on the sea, on the shore, in the desert, in your home, I loved
you. In life I will love you, in death we shall not be divided.
This is not the language of mere admiration, the rapture of
a fancy dazzled by the bright eyes of my Salome. It is the
language of reason, of sacred truth, of honor bound by
higher than human bonds; of fondness, that even the tomb
will render only more ardent and sublime. Here, in the
sight of Heaven, I pledge an immortal to an immortal."
Astonishment and grief alone prevented my exclaiming
aloud against this attempt to master the affections of my
child. The marriage of the Israelite with the stranger was
prohibited by our law; and still more severely prohibited by
the later customs and ordinances of our teachers. But mar-
riage with a fugitive, a deceiver, a son of the idolater,
whose proselytism had never been avowed, and whose skill
in the ways of the world might be at this hour undermining
the peace or the faith of my whole family; the idea was ten-
fold profanation! I checked myself only to have complete
evidence.
"But," said my daughter, in a voice mingled with many a
sigh, "if this should become known to my father, and known
it must be how can we hope for his consent? Now, Con-
stantius, you will have to learn what it is to deal with our
nation. We have prejudices, lofty, though blind-indisso-
luble, though fantastic; my father's consent is beyond
all hope."
66
""
"He is honorable-he has human feeling-he loves you.
Fondly, I believe; and I must not thus return his love:
no, though my happiness were to be the forfeit, I must not
pain his heart by the disobedience of his child."
"But Salome, my sweet Salome; are obstinacy and pre-
judice to be obeyed, against the understanding and the heart?
I should be the last man on earth to counsel disobedience; I
venerate the tie of parent and child. But can a father coun-
sel his child to a crime; and would it not be one to give your
faith to this Jubal, if you could not love him?”
VOL. I.
10
E
110
SALATHIEL.
"I have decided that already. Never will I wed Jubal.”
Yet, what is it that you would disobey? a cruel and fan-
tastic scruple of your teachers, the perverters of your law.
Must we sacrifice reason to prejudice—truth to caprice-the
law of nature and of Heaven to the forgeries and follies of
the Scribes? Mine you are, and mine you shall be, my wife
by a law more sacred, more powerful, and more pure. The
time of bondage is past. A new law, a new hope, have come
to break the chains of the Jew, and enlighten the darkness of
the Gentile. You have heard that law; your generous heart
and unclouded understanding have received it; and now, by
that common hope, my beloved, we are one: though seas
and mountains should separate us-though the malice of for-
tune, though the tyranny of man, should forbid our union ;
still, in flight, in the dungeon, in the last hour of a troubled
existence, we are one. Now, Salome, I will go; but go to
seek your father."
*
My indignation rose to its height. I had heard my child
taught to rebel; and yet could check my wrath. I had heard
myself pronounced the slave of prejudice; and yet kept
down my burning passion. But the open declaration that our
holy law was to be abolished-nay, to my child was a law no
more-let loose the whole storm of my soul. I rushed from
my concealment; Salome uttered a scream, and sank sense-
less upon the ground. Constantius raised her up, and bore
her to a vase, from which he sprinkled water upon her fore-
head. "Leave her," I exclaimed; "better for her to remain
in that insensibility, better be dead, than an apostate. Vil-
lain, be gone; it is only in scorn, that a father's vengeance
suffers you to live.
to live. Fly from this house, from this country,
before justice compels me to deliver you up to punishment.
Go, traitor, and let me never see you more.' I tore the faint-
ing girl from his arms. He made no resistance-no reply.
Salome recovered with a gush of tears, and feebly pronounced
his name. "I am with you still, my love," he pronounced in
an unaltered tone. She looked up, and, as if she had then
first seen me, sprang forward with a cry of terror :
"Go,"
said I, "go to your chamber, weak girl, and on your knees
atone for your disobedience-for (do I live to say it?) your
abandonment of the faith of your fathers. But no, it is im-
possible; you cannot have been so guilty: this Greek-this
foreign bringer.in of fables-this smooth intruder on the
"}
SALATHIEL.
111
་་
peace of families, cannot have so triumphed over your un-
derstanding."
"I have been rash, sir," said Constantius loftily; "I
may have been unwise too in my language; but I have been
no deceiver. Not for the wealth of kings-not even for the
more precious treasure of the heart I love-would Constan-
tius sully his lips with a falsehood.”
"Begone," cried I; "I am insulted by your presence :
the sight of the ungrateful sickens me. Go, and pervert
others-hypocrite; or rather, take my contemptuous for-
giveness, and repent, in sackcloth and ashes, the basest crime
of the basest mind. Come, daughter, and leave the baffled
idolater to think of his crime." I was leading her away—
she struggled, and I cast her from me. Constantius, with
his cheek burning and his eye flashing, approached her.
My taunts had at length roused him.
"Now Salome," said he, haughtily glancing on me, "in-
jured as I am, I disclaim all idle deference for an authority
used only to give pain. You are my betrothed; you shaii
be my bride. Let us go forth and try our chance together
through the world."
She was silent, and wept only more violently. But, with
one hand covering her face, she repelled him with the other.
"Then you will be the wife of Jubal?" said he.
"Never!" she firmly pronounced. "So help me Hea.
ven, never!"
"Retire, girl,” I exclaimed, "and weep tears of blood for
your rebellion. Go, stranger-ingrate-seducer—and never
darken my threshold more. Aye, now I see the cause of
my brave kinsman's departure. He was circumvented. A
wilier tongue was here before him. He disdained to reveal
the daughter's folly to the insulted father. But this shall not
avail either of you. He shall return.
Salome cast up an imploring glance, and sank upon her
knees before me. Constantius advanced to her; but I
bounded between them-my' dagger was drawn. "Touch
her, and you die.”
He smiled scornfully, and turning back the blade, raised
her.
“Give that wretched child up to me this moment,” I ex-
claimed in fury ; or may the bitterness of a father's curse
be on her head!" He staggered back; then stooping his
112
SALATHIEL.
lips upon her forehead, gave her to me, and strode from the
pavilion.
I flew to the house of Eleazar. I found him anxious and
agitated. Calm as his usual manner was, the latė transac-
tion had left its traces on his manner and his countenance.
Jubal was in the apartment, which he traversed backwards
and forwards in high indignation. He made no return to my
salute, but by stopping short, and gazing full on me with a
look of mingled anger and surprise.
"I
"Jubal," said I, "kinsman, we must be friends :" I held
out my hand, which he took with no fervent pressure.
am here only to explain this idle offense."
"It requires no explanation," interrupted Jubal, sternly.
"I, and I alone, am to blame, if there be any one to blame
in the matter. The offer may have been precipitate, or un-
welcome, or unpardonable, from one still dependent, still
without rank in the tribes: it may have been fit that I should
be haughtily rejected by the family of the descendant of Aa-
ron; but," said he, pressing his strong hand upon his throat,
as if to keep down a burst of passion, "the subject is
at an end; now and forever at an end." He recommenced
his striding through the chamber.
"Let us hear all, my friend," said I: "I know that Sa-
lome thinks highly of your spirit, and your heart. Was
there any palliation offered? Did she disclose any secret
reason for a conduct so opposite to her natural gentleness, to
her natural regard for you, and which she must feel so offen-
sive to me? But, insult from my family, impossible!"
<<
Hear, then. I had not alighted from my horse, when I
saw displeasure written in the face of every female in your
household. From the very handmaids up to their mistress,
they had, with the instinct of woman, discovered my object;
and, with the usual deliberation of the sex, had made up
their minds without hearing a syllable. Your wife received
me, it is true, with the grace and courteousness that belong
to her above women; but she was visibly cold. Esther ab.
solutely shrank from me, and scorned to return a word. Sa.
lome fled. As for the attendants, they frowned and muttered
upon me in all directions, with the most candid wrath possi-
ble. In short, I could not have fared worse had I been a
Roman, come to take possession; or an Arab, riding up to
rifle every soul in the house."
"Ominous enough!" said Eleazar, with his grave smile.
SALATHIEL.
113
With half my.
"The opinions of the sex are irresistible.
knowledge of them, Jubal, you would have turned your
horse's head homewards at once; and given up your hopes
of a bride, at least till the next day, or the next hour, or
whatever may be the usual time for the sex's change of mind.
Cheer up, kinsman; we will caparison ourselves in another
dress, let time do its work, ride over to Salathiel's mansion
to-morrow, and find a smile for every frown of to-day."
"But you saw Salome!" said I. "I am impatient to hear
how she could have ventured to offend. Could she dare to
refuse my brother's request without a reason?"
"No; her conduct was altogether without disguise. She
first tried to laugh me out of my purpose, then argued, then
wept; and, finally told me that our alliance was impossible."
"Rash girl; but she has been led into this folly by others:
yet the chief folly was my own. Aye; my eyes were dim,
where a mole would have seen. In my feeble negligence,
in my contemptuous disregard for the common prudence of
mankind, I suffered an alien, a subtle, showy, plausible vil.
lain to remain under my roof, till he has, by what arts I know
not, wiled away the duty and the understanding-nay, I
tremble to pronounce the word, the religion of my child." I
smote my breast in sorrow and humiliation.
Jubal burst from the apartment, and returned with a lance
in a hand quivering with wrath. "Now, all is cleared,"
cried he; "the true cause was the magic, the cunning su
perstition of that idolater. I know the arts of paganism to
bewitch the senses of woman; the incantations, the per-
fumes, the midnight fires, and images, and songs. But let
him come within the throw of this javelin, and then try whe.
ther all his magic can shield him."
Eleazar grasped his robe, as he was again rushing out.
"Stop, madman. Is it with hands dipped in blood that you
are to solicit the heart of Salome? Give me that horrid
weapon; and you, Salathiel, curb your wild spirit, and listen
to a brother who can have no interest but in the happiness
of both and all. If Salome, whom I loved an infant on the
knee, and love to this moment, the most ingenious and happy-
hearted being on earth, has been betrayed into a fondness
for this stranger, how have we the right to force her inclina-
tions? But I know the depth of understanding that lies un-
der her playfulness; can she have been deceived, and least
of all by those idle arts? Impossible!—If she have sacri.
+
i
10*
114
SALATHIEL.
ficed her obedience to the noble form and high accomplish-
ments of the Greek, we can only lament her exposure to a
captivation made to subdue the heart of woman since the
world began."
"Jubal," interrupted I, "give me that manly and honest
hand: Eleazar's wisdom is too calm to understand a father
or a lover. You shall return with me: you shall be my son;
Salathiel has no other. This foolish girl will be sorry for
her follies, and rejoice to receive you. The Greek is driven
from my house. And let me see who there will henceforth
disobey." The lover's face brightened with joy.
"Well, make your experiment," said Eleazar, rising.
"So end all councils of war, in more confusion than they
began. But, if I had a wife and daughters”
"Of course, you would manage them to perfection. So
say all who have never had either."
Eleazar's cheek colored slightly; but with his recovering
smile of benevolence he followed us to the porch, and wished
us success in our expedition.
In
We found the household tranquilized again. Miriam re-
ceived me with one of those radiant smiles, that are a hus-
band's best welcome home. She had succeeded in calming
the minds of her daughters, and, a much more difficult task,
in suppressing the wrath of the numerous female domestics,
who had, as usual, constructed out of the graces of the Greek
and the beauty of Salome a little romance of their own.
the whole course of my life I never met a female, from the
flat-nosed and ebony-colored monster of the tropics, to the
snow-white and sublime divinity of a Greek isle, without a
touch of romance; repulsiveness could not conceal it, age
could not extinguish it, vicissitude could not change it. I
have found it in all times and places; like a spring of fresh
waters starting up even from the flint; cheering the cheer-
less, softening the insensible, renovating the withered; a
secret whisper in every woman alive, that, to the last, pas-
sion might flutter its rosy pinions round her brow.
d;
The strong prejudices of our nation gave way before fe..
male fondness for love adventure; rebellion was but hushed
and I was warned by many a look, of the unwelcome suitor
whom I brought among them. But from Salome there was
no remonstrance. I should have listened to none. The.
consciousness of my own want of judgment in suffering a
man so calculated to attract the eye of innocent youth, to
J
SALATHIEL.
115
青
​•
become an inmate in my house; the vexation which I felt at
the dismissal of my brother's heir; and, last and keenest
pang, the inroad made in the faith of a daughter of Israel,
combined to exasperate me beyond the bounds of patience.
I loved my child with the strongest affection of a heart rocked
by all the tides of passion: but I could bear to look upon the
pale beauty of her face, and hear her deep sighs-nay, in
the wrath of the hour, could have seen her borne to the
grave-rather than permit the command to be disputed, by
which she was to wed in our tribe.
To shorten a period of which I felt the full bitterness, the
marriage was hurried on. Never was the ceremony antici-
pated with less joy: we were all unhappy. Eleazar remon-
strated, but in vain. Jubal retracted, but I compelled him
to adhere to his proposal. Miriam was closeted perpetually
with the betrothed; and of the whole household Esther
alone walked or talked with me, and it was then only to
burst out into descriptions of her sister's misery, or to pur-
sue me through the endless mazes of argument on the hard-
ships of being forced to be happy.
The piece of
The marriage preparations proceeded.
silver was given, the contracts were signed. The presents
of both families were made. The portion was agreed
upon. It was not customary to require the appearance of
the bride until the celebration itself; and Salome was in-
visible during those days of activity, in which, however, I
took the chief interest, for nothing could be farther from zeal
than the conduct of the other agents, Jubal alone ex-
cepted. He had recovered the easily-recovered confidence
of youth, and perhaps prided himself on the triumph over a
rival so formidable. Two or three petitions for an interview
came to me from my daughter. But I knew their purport,
and steadily determined not to hazard the temptation of her
tears.
The day came, and with it the guests; our dwelling was
full of banqueting. The evening came, when the ceremony
was to be performed, and the bride led home to her hus
band's house in the usual triumph. One of our customs
was, that a procession of the bridegroom's younger friends,
male and female, should be formed outside the house to wait
for the coming forth of the married pair. The ceremony
was borrowed by other nations; but, in our bright climate
and cloudless nights, the profusion of lamps and torches, the
116
SALATHIEL.

i
burning perfumes, glittering dresses, and fantastic joy of the
dancing and singing crowd, had unequalled liveliness and
beauty. I remained at my casement, gazing on the brilliant
escort, that, as it gathered and arranged itself along the
gardens, looked like a flight of glow-worms. But no mar.
riage summons came. I grew impatient. My only answer
was the sight of Jubal rushing from the house, and an outcry
among the women. Salome was not to be found. She had
been left by herself for a few hours, as was the custom, to
arrange her thoughts for a ceremony which we considered
religious in the highest degree. On the bridegroom's arri
val, she disappeared!
The blow struck me deep. Had I driven her into the
arms of the Greek by my severity? Had I driven her out
of her senses? or out of life? Conjecture on conjecture
stung me. I reprobated my own cruelty, refused consola-
tion, and spent the night in alternate self-upbraidings and
prayers for my unhappy child.
Search was indefatigably made. The jealousy of Jubal,
the manly anxiety of Eleazar, the hurt feelings of our tribe,
insulted by the possibility that their chieftain's heir should
have been scorned, and that the triumph should be to an
alien, were embarked in the pursuit. But search was hope-
less and after days and nights of weariness, I returned to
my home, there to be met by sorrowing faces, and to feel
that every tear was forced by my own obstinacy. I shrank
into solitude. I exclaimed that the vengeance, the more
than vengeance of the dreadful day of Jerusalem, had struck
its heaviest blow on me, in the loss of my child!
:
CHAPTER XVIII.
I was in one of those fits of abstraction, revolving the
misery in which my beloved daughter might be, even in that
moment, if indeed she were in existence, when the door of
my chamber opened softly, and one of my domestics ap-
peared, making a signal of silence. This was he whom I
had detected in correspondence with the Roman agent, and
forgiven through the entreaties of Miriam. The man had
SALATHIEL.
117
since shown remarkable interest in the recovery of my
daughter, and thus completely reinstated himself. He knelt
before me; and, with more humility than I desired, im-
plored my pardon for having again held intercourse with
the Roman.
"It was my zeal," said he, "to gain intelligence; for I
knew that nothing passed in the provinces a secret from him.
This letter is his answer, and perhaps I shall be forgiven
for the sake of what it contains." I read it with trembling
avidity. It was mysterious; described two fugitives who
had made their escape to Cæsarea; and intimated that, as
they were about to fly into Asia Minor, the pursuit must be
immediate, and conducted with the utmost secrecy.
I was instantly on horseback. Dreading to disturb my
family by false hopes, I ordered out my hounds, ranged the
hills in sight of my dwelling, and then turning off, struck in
the spur, and, attended only by the domestic, went full speed
to Cæsarea. From the summit of Mount Carmel, I looked
down upon the city and the broad Mediterranean. But my
eyes then felt no delight in the grandeur of art or nature.
The pompous structures on which Herod the Great had ex-
pended a treasure beyond count, and which the residence of
the governor made the Roman capital of Judea, were to me
but so many dens and dungeons, in which my child might
be hid. The sea showed me only the path by which she
might have been borne away, or the grave in which her
wanderings were to close.
By extraordinary speed, I reached the gates just as the
trumpet was sounding for their close. My attendant went
forth to obtain information; and I was left pacing my cham-
ber in feverish suspense. I did not suffer it long. The
door opened, and a group of soldiers ordered me to follow
them. Resistance was useless. They led me to the palace.
There I was delivered from guard to guard, through a long
succession of apartments, until we reached the door of a
banqueting-room. The festivity within was high; and if I
could have then sympathized with singing and laughter, I
might have had full indulgence during the immeasurable
hour that I lingered out, a broken wretch, exhausted by des-
perate effort, sick at heart, and of course not unanxious for
the result of an interview with the Roman procurator; a
man whose name was equivalent to vice, extortion, and love
of blood, throughout Judea.
+4
118
SALATHIEL.
At length the feast was at an end. I was summoned,
and for the first time saw Gessius Florus, a little, bloated
figure, with a countenance that to the casual observer was
the model of gross good nature, a twinkling eye, and a lip
on the perpetual laugh. His bald forehead wore a wreath
of flowers, and his tunic and the couch on which he lay
breathed perfume. The table before him was a long vista
"I
of sculptured cups, and golden vases and candelabra.
am sorry to have detained you so long," said he, "but this
was the emperor's birth-day, and, as good subjects, we have
kept it accordingly."
<<
During this speech, he was engaged in contemplating the
wine-bubbles as they sparkled above the brim of a large
amethystine goblet. A pale and delicate Italian boy, sump-
tuously dressed, the only one of the guests who remained,
perceiving that I was fatigued, filled a cup, and presented it.
Right, Septimius," said the debauchee, "make the Jew
drink the emperor's health." The youth bowed gracefully
before me, and again offered the cup; but the time was not
"Here's long
for indulgence, and I laid it on the table.
life and glory to Nero Claudius Cæsar, our pious, merciful,
and invincible emperor," cried Florus; and only when he
had drunk to the bottom of the goblet, found leisure to look
upon his prisoner. He either felt or affected surprise, and
turning to his young companion, said, "By Hercules, boy,
what grand fellows those Jews make! The helmet is no-
thing to the turban, after all. What magnificence of beard!
no Italian chin has the vigor to grow any thing so superb;
then, the neck, like the bull of Milo; and those blazing
eyes! If I had but a legion of such spearsmen-
""
I grew impatient, and said, "I stand here, procurator, in
your bonds-I demand why?—I have business that requires
my instant attention; and I desire to be gone.
"Now, have I treated you so inhospitably," said he,
laughing, "that you expect I shall finish by shutting my
doors upon you at this time of night." He glanced upon
his tablets, and read my name. Aye," said he, "and
after I have been so long wishing for the honor of your
company. Jew, take your wine, and sit down upon that
couch, and tell me what brought you to Cæsarea.”
I told him briefly the circumstances. He roared with
laughter, desired me to repeat them, and swore that “
"by all
the gods it was the very best piece of pleasantry he had
SALATHIEL.
119
heard since he set foot in Judea." I stood up
I stood up in irrepressi-
ble indignation. "What!" said he, "will you go without
hearing my story in return?" He filled his goblet again to
the brim, buried his purple visage in a vase of roses, and
having inhaled the fragrance, and chosen an easy posture,
said, coldly, "Jew, you have told me a most excellent
story; and it is only fair that I should tell you one in re-
turn; not half so amusing, I admit, but to the full as true.
Jew, you are a traitor!"
I started back.-"Jew," said he, "you must in common
civility hear me out. The truth is, that your visit has been
so often anticipated, and so long delayed, that I cannot bear
to part with you yet;-you are an apostate; you encourage
those Christian dogs. Why does the man stare?—you are
in communication with rebels; and I might have had the
honor of meeting you in the field, if you had not been in my
hands in Cæsarea."
He pronounced those words of death in the most tranquil
tone; not a muscle moved; the cup which he held brimful
in his hand never overflowed.
'Jew," said he, "now be honest, and so far set an ex-
ample to your nation. Where is the money that has been
gathered for this rebellion? You are too sagacious a sol-
dier to think of going to war without the main spring of the
machine."
I scorned to deny the intended insurrection; but “ money
I had collected none."
"Then," said he, "you are now compelling me to what
I do not like. Ho! guard!" A soldier presented himself.
"Desire that the rack shall be got ready." The man retired.
"You see, Jew, this is all your own doing. Give up the
money, and I give up the rack. And the surrender of the
coin is asked merely in compassion to yourselves, for with-
out it you cannot rebel, and the more you rebel the more
you will be beaten.”
"Beware, Gessius Florus," I exclaimed, "beware. I am
your prisoner, entrapped, as I now see, by a villain, or by
the greater villain who corrupted him. You may rack me
if you will; you may insult my feelings; tear my flesh;
take my life: but for this there will be retribution. Through
Upper Galilee, from Tiberias to the top of Libanus, this act
of blood will ring, and be answered by blood. I have kins-
men many; countrymen, myriads. A single wrench of my
-

•
•
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SALATHIEL.
sinews may lift a hundred thousand arms against your city,
and leave of yourself nothing but the remembrance of your
crimes."
He bounded from his couch: the native fiend flashed out
in his countenance: I waited his attack, with my hand on
the poniard within my sash. My look probably deterred
him; for he flung himself back again, and bursting into a
loud laugh, exclaimed; "Bravely spoken. Septimius, we
must send the Jew to Rome to teach our orators. Aye, I
know Upper Galilee too well, not to know that rebellion is
more easily raised there than the taxes. And it was for that
reason, that I invited you to come to Cæsarea. In the midst
of your tribe, capture would have cost half a legion; here a
single jailor will do the business. Ho! guard!" he called
aloud. I heard the screwing of the rack in the next room,
and unsheathed the poniard. The blade glittered in his
eyes. Septimius came between us, and tried to turn the
procurator's purpose.
"Let your guard come," cried I, "and, by the sacredness
of the Temple, one of us dies. I will not live to be tortured,
or you shall not live to see it.”
""
him.
If the door had opened, I was prepared to dart upon
"Well," said he, after a whispered expostulation from
Septimius, you must go and settle the matter with the
Emperor. The fact is, that I am too tender-hearted to
govern such a nation of dagger-bearers. So, to Nero! If
we cannot send the Emperor money, we will at least send
him men. He laughed vehemently at the conception;
ordered the singing and dancing slaves to return; called for
wine, and plunged again into his favorite cup. Septimius
rose, and led me into another chamber. I remonstrated
against the injustice of my seizure. He lamented it, but
said that the orders from Rome were strict, and that I was
denounced by some of the chiefs in Jerusalem as the head
of the late insurrection, and the projector of a new one.
The procurator, he added, had been for some time anxious
to get me into his power without raising a disturbance among
my tribe; the treachery of my domestic had been employed
to effect this; and "now," concluded he, "my best wish
for you-a wish prompted by motives of which you can form
no conjecture, is, that you may be sent to Rome. Every
day that sees you in Cæsarea sees you in the utmost peril.
SALATHIEL.
121
&
At the first rumor of insurrection, your life will be the sa-
crifice."
"But my family! What will be their feelings! Can I
not at least acquaint them with my destination?"
"It is impossible. And now, to let you into a state secret,
the Emperor had ordered that you should be sent to Rome.
Florus menaced, only to extort money. He now knows you
better, and would gladly enlist you in the Roman cause.
This I know to be hopeless. But I dread his caprice, and
shall rejoice to see the sails hoisted that are to carry you to
Rome. Farewell: your family shall have due intelligence.'
He was at the door of the chamber, but suddenly returned,
and pressing my hand, said again, "Farewell, and remem-
ber that neither all Romans, nor even all Greeks, may be
alike!" He then with a graceful obeisance left the room.
""
Fatigue hung with a leaden weight upon my eyelids. I
tried vain expedients to keep myself from slumber in this
perilous vicinage. The huge silver chandelier, that threw
a blaze over the fretted roof, began to twinkle before me;
the busts and statues gradually mingled, and I was once
more in the land of visions. Home was before my eyes. I
was suddenly tost upon the ocean. I stood before Nero,
and was addressing him with a formal harangue, when the
whole tissue was broken up, by a sullen voice commanding
me to rise. A soldier, sword in hand, was by the couch:
he pointed to the door, where an armed party were in at-
tendance, and informed me that I was ordered for immediate
embarkation.
It was scarcely past midnight; the stars were still in their
glory; the pharos threw a long line of flame on the waters;
the city sounds were hushed; and silent as a procession to
the grave, we moved down to where the tall vessel lay rock-
ing with the breeze. At her side a Nubian slave put a note
into my hand; it was from the young Roman, requesting my
acceptance of wine and fruits from the palace, and wishing
me a prosperous result to my voyage. The sails were
hoisted; the stately mole, that even in the night looked a
mount of marble, was cleared; the libation was poured to
the Tritons for our speedy passage, and the blazing pharos
was rapidly seen but as a twinkling star.
VOL. I.
11
P
122
SALATHIEL.
.
CHAPTER XIX.
OUR trireme flew before the wind. By day-break, the
coast was but a pale line along the waters; but Carmel still
towered proudly eminent, and with its top alternately clouded
and glittering in the sun, might have been taken for a gigantic
beacon, throwing up alternate smoke and flame. With what
eyes did I continue to look, until the mighty hill too sank in
the waters! - But thought still lingered on the shore. I saw,
with a keenness more than of the eye, the family circle;
through many an hour of gazing on the waters, I was all but
standing in the midst of those walls which I might never
more see; listening to the uncomplaining sighs of Miriam,
the impassioned remonstrances of my sole remaining child,
and busied in the still harder task of finding out some defence
against the self-accusation that laid the charge of rashness
and cruelty heavy upon my soul. But the scene round me
was the very reverse of moody meditation. The captain
was a thorough Italian trierarch, ostentatious, gay, given to
superstition, and occasionally a little of a freethinker. His
ship was to him child, wife, and world; and at every ma-
nœuvre he claimed from us such tribute as a father might
for the virtues of his favorite offspring: perpetual luck was
in every thing that she did: she knew every headland from
Cyprus to Ostia: a pilot was a mere supernumerary: she
could run the whole course without the helm, if she pleased.
She beat the Liburnian for speed; the Cypriot for comfort;
the Sicilian for safety; and every other vessel on the seas
for every other quality. "All he asked was, to live in her,
while he lived at all; and to go down in her, when the Fates
were at last to cut his thread, as they did those of all captains
whether on sea or land."
++
The panegyric of the good ship Ganymede was in some
degree merited; she carried us on boldly. For a sea in
which the winds are constant when they come, but in which
the calms are as constant as the winds, nothing could have
been more adapted than the ancient galley. The sail or oar
never failed. If the gale arose, the ship shot along, like the
eagle that bore the Trojan boy; light, strong, with its white
..
SALATHIEL.
123
sails full of the breeze, and cleaving the surge with the ra
pidity of an arrow. If the wind fell, we floated in a pavi-
lion, screened from the sun, refreshed with perfumes burning
on poop, prow, and masts, surrounded with gilding, and the
carvings and paintings of the Greek artists, drinking deli.
cious wines, listening to song and story, and in all this enjoy.
ment, gliding insensibly along on a lake of absolute sapphire,
encircled and varied by the most picturesque and lovely
islands in the world.
The Ganymede had been under especial orders from Rome
for my transmission; but the captain felt too much respect
for the procurator not to trespass on the letter of the law, so
far as to fill up the vacancies of his hold with merchandize, in
which Florus drove a steady contraband trade. Having done
so much to gratify the governor's distinguishing propensity,
he next provided for his own; and loaded his gallant vessel
mercilessly with passengers, as much prohibited as his mer-
chandize. While we were still in sight of land, I walked a
lonely deck; but when the salutary fear of the galleys on
the station was past, every corner of the Ganymede let loose
a living cargo.
For the Jewish chieftain going from Florus on a mission
to the Emperor, as the captain conceived me and my pur-
pose to be, a separate portion of the deck was kept sacred.
But I mingled from time to time with the crowd, and thus
contrived to preserve at once my respect and my popularity.
Never was there a more miscellaneous collection. We trans-
ported into Europe a Chaldee sorcerer, an Indian gymno.
sophist, an Arab teacher of astrology, a magian from Per-
sepolis, and a Platonist from Alexandria. Such were our
contributions to Oriental science. We had, besides, a dealer
in sleight of hand from Damascus; an Egyptian with tame
monkeys and a model of a pyramid; a Syrian serpent-teacher;
an Idumean maker of amulets against storm and calm,thirst and
hunger, and every other disturbance and distress of life; an
Armenian discoverer of the stone by which gold mines were
to be discovered; a Byzantine inventor of the true Oriental
pearls; a dealer from the Caspian in gums superseding all
that Arabia ever wept; an Epicurean.philosopher, who pro-
fessed indolence, and, to do him justice, was a striking exam-
ple of his doctrine; and a Stoic, who having gone his rounds
of the Roman garrisons as a teacher of dancing, a curer of
wines, and a flute-player, had now risen into the easier vo-

I
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SALATHIEL.
cation of a philosopher. Of course, among those professors,
the discoverer of gold was the most moneyless; the maker
of amulets against misfortune the most miserable; and the
Stoic the most impatient. The Epicurean alone adhered to
the spirit of his profession..
But the unstable elements round us were a severe trial for
any human philosophy but that of a thorough Optimist.
Wind and water, the two most imperious of things, were our
masters; and a calm, a breeze, or even a billow, often tried
our reasoners too roughly for the honor of tempers so satu-
rated with wisdom. On those occasions the Platonist de-
fended the antiquity of Egypt with double pertinacity; the
Chaldee derided its novelty by the addition of a hundred
thousand years to his chronology of Babylon; the Indian
with increased scorn, wrinkling his brown visage, told them
that both Babylon and Egypt were baubles of yesterday,
compared with the million years of India. The dagger
would have silenced many a discussion on the chief good,
the origin of benevolence, and the beauty of virtue, but for
the voice of the captain, which, like thunder, cleared the
air. He, I will allow, was the truest philosopher of us all.
The Trierarch was an unconscious Optimist; nothing could
touch him with shape of misfortune; for, to him it had no
existence. If the storm rose, we should get the more ra-
pidly into port;" if the calm came to fix us scorching on the
face of ocean, "nothing could be safer." If our provisions
fell short, "abstemiousness now and then was worth a genera-
tion of doctors." If the sun burned above us with the fire
of a ball of red-hot iron," it was the test of fair weather;"
if the sky was a mass of vapour, we escaped being roasted
alive."
(6
His maxims on higher subjects were equally consoling.
"If man had to struggle through life, struggle was the nurs-
ing-mother of greatness. If he were opulent, he had gained
the end without the trouble. If man had disease, he learn-
ed patience and fortitude, essentials for sailor, soldier, and
philosopher alike. If he enjoyed health, who could doubt
the blessing?-if he lived long, he had time for enjoy.
ment; if he died early., he escaped the chances of the tables'
turning," The Optimist applied his principle to me, by
gravely informing me that "though it depended on the Em
peror's state of digestion, whether I should or should not car-
ry back my head from his presence, yet, if I lived, I should
SALATHIEL.
125
see the games of the Circus, and if I did not, I should in all
probability care but little about the matter."
Nothing in the variety of later. Europe gives me a parallel
to the distinctions of rank and profession, style of subsistence,
and physiognomy, of the ancient world. Human nature was
classed in every kingdom, province, and city, almost as ri-
gidly as the different races of mankind. The divisions of
the slave, the freedman, the citizen, the artist, the priest, the
man of literature, the man of public life, were marked with
a ploughshare, whose furrows were never filled up but by
the rarest chance. Life had the curious mixture of costume,
the palpable diversity of purpose, and the vivid intricacy of
a drama.
Our voyage was rapid; but even a lingering transit would
have been cheered by the animation of the innumerable ob.
jects of beauty and renown, which rise on every side in the
passage through a Grecian sea. The islands were then un-
touched by the spoiler; the opulence of Rome had been add-
ed to Attic taste; and temples, theatres, and palaces, start-
ing from groves, or studding the sides of stately hills, and re-
flected in the mirror of bays, smooth and bright as polished
steel, held the eye a continual captive. On the sea, flights
of vessels, steering in all directions, glittering with the em
blems of their nations, the colored pennants, the painted
prows, the gilded images of the protecting idols, covered the
horizon with life.
We had reached the southern Cape of Greece, and were,
with a boldness unusual to ancient navigation, stretching
across in a starless night, for the coast of Italy, when we
caught a sound of distant music, that recalled the poetic
dreams of nymphs and tritons. The sound swelled and sank
on the wind, as if it came from the depths of the ocean, or the
bosom of the clouds. As we parted from the land, it swelled
richer, until it filled the midnight with pompous harmony.
To sleep was profanation, and we all gathered on the deck,
exhausting nature and art in conjectures of the cause.
The harmony approached and receded at intervals, grew
in volume and richness, then stole away in wild murmurs, or
died, to revive with still more luxuriant sweetness. Night
passed away in delight and conjecture. Morning alone
brought the solution. Full in the blaze of sunrise steered
the imperial fleet, returning in triumph from the Olympic
games, with the Emperor on board. We had unconsciously
11*
126
SALATHIEL.
L
approached it during the darkness. The whole scene wore
the aspect of a vision summoned by the hand of an enchan-
ter. The sea was covered with the fleet in order of battle.
Some of the galleys were of vast size, and all were gleam-
ing with gold and decorations; silken sails, garlands on the
masts, trophies hung over the sides, and embroidered stream-
ers of every shape and hue, met the morning light. We
passed the wing of the fleet, close enough to see the sacrifi-
cial fires on the poop of the imperial quinqureme. A crowd
in purple and military habits were standing round a throne,
above which proudly waved the scarlet flag of command. A
figure advanced, all foreheads were bowed, acclamations
rent the air; the trumpets of the fleet flourished, and the
lofty and luxuriant harmonies, that had charmed us in the
night, again swelled upon the wind, and followed us long
after the whole floating splendor, had dissolved into the dis-
tant blue.
*
At length the headlands of the noble bay of Tarentum
rose above the horizon. While we were running with the
speed of a lapwing, the captain, to our surprise, shortened
sail. I soon discovered that no philosophy was perfect;
that even the Optimist thought that daylight might be worse
than useless, and that a blot had been left in creation in the
shape of a custom-house officer.
Night fell at last; the moon, to which our captain had
taken a sudden aversion, was as cloudy as he could desire;
and we rushed in between the glimmering watch-towers on
the Japygian and Lacinian promontories. The glow of light
along the waters soon pointed out where the luxurious citi-
zens of Tarentum were enjoying the banquet in their barges
and villas. Next came the hum of the great city, whose
popular boast was, like that of later times, that it had more
holydays than days in the year.
But the Trierarch's often-painted delight at finding himself
free to rove among the indulgences of his favorite shore had
lost its poignancy; and with a firmness which set the Stoic
in a rage, the Epicurean in a state of rebellion, and the
whole tribe of our sages in a temper of mere mortal remon-
strance; he resisted alike the remonstrance and the allure-
ment; and sullenly cast anchor in the centre of the bay.
It was not until song and feast had died, and all was hushed,
that he stole with the slightest possible noise to the back of
SALATHIEL.
127
the mole, and sending us below, disburdened his conscience
and the good ship Ganymede.
I had no time to give to the glories of Tarentum. Nero's
approach hurried my departure. The centurion who had
me in charge trembled at the idea of delay; and we rode
through the midst of three hundred thousand sleepers in
streets of marble and ranks of trophies, as silently and
swiftly as if we had been the ghosts of their ancestors.
When the day broke we found ourselves among the Lucanian
hills, then no desert, but living with population, and bright
with the memorials of Italian opulence and taste. From the
inn where we halted to change horses, the Tarentine gulf
spread broad and bold before the eye.
The city of luxury and of power, once the ruler of south-
ern Italy, and mistress of the seas; that sent out armies and
fleets worthy to contest the supremacy with Pyrrhus and the
Carthaginian; was, from this spot, sunk, like all the works
of man, into littleness. But the gulf, like all the works of
nature, grew in grandeur. Its circular shore edged with
thirteen cities, the deep azure of its smooth waters inlaid
with the flashes of sunrise, and traversed by fleets, dimi-
nished to toys; reminded me of one of the magnificent Ro-
man shields, with its centre of sanguine steel, the silver in-
crustation of the rim, and the storied sculpture.
We passed at full speed through the Lucanian and Sam-
nian provinces, fine sweeps of cultivated country, inter-
spersed with the hunting grounds of the great patricians;
forests that had not felt the axe for centuries, and hills
sheeted with the wild vine and rose. But on reaching the
border of Latium, I was already in Rome; I traveled a day's
journey among streets, and in the midst of a crowded and
hurrying population. The whole was one huge suburb, with
occasional glimpses of a central mount, crowned with glitter-
ing and gilded structures. "There!" said the centurion,
with somewhat of religious reverence, “Behold the eternal
Capitol!"-I entered Rome at night, passing through an
endless number of narrow and intricate streets, where hovels,
the very abode of want, were mingled with palaces blazing
with lights and echoing with festivity. The centurion's house
was at length reached. He showed me to an apartment, and
left me, saying, "that I must prepare to be brought before
the Emperor immediately on his arrival."
I am now, thought I, in the heart of the heart of the world;
128
SALATHIEL.
in the midst of that place of power, from which the destiny
of nations issues; in the great treasure-house to which
men come from the ends of the earth for knowledge, for jus-
tice, for wealth, honor, thrones! and what am I?a solitary
slave !
CHAPTER XX.
THE genius of the Italian has, from the beginning, been
the same bustling, sight-loving, fond of every thing in the
shape of indulgence, yet fondest of indulgence where the
eye could be gratified. He was a sensualist, but of all sen-
sualists the most susceptible of elegance. His Greek blood,
his fine climate, and the perpetual displays of the noblest
works of art, brought by conquest, contributed to this tempe-
rament; but the foundation was in that genius, which has
made his country the second cradle of the arts of Europe.
I never saw a little peasant-celebration, a dance, a sacrifice
of a few flowers, that did not contain the spirit of poetic
beauty. Rome was all shows. Its innumerable public events
were thrown into the shape of pageantry. Its worship, elec-
tions, the departure and return of governors and consuls,
every operation of public life was modeled into a pomp; and
in the boundless extent of the empire, those operations were
crowding on each other every day. The multitude, that can
still be set in motion by a wooden saint, was then summoned
by the stirring and powerful ceremonial of empire, the actual
sovereignty of the globe. What must have been the strong
excitement, the perpetual concourse, the living and various
activity of a city from which emanated the stream of power
through the world, to return to it loaded with all that the opu-
lence, skill, and glory of the world could give!
Triumphs, to whose grandeur and singularity the pomps of
later days are but the attempts of paupers and children; sa-
crifices and rites, on which the very existence of the state
was to depend; the levy and march of armies, which were
to carry fate to the remotest corners of the earth; the pa-
geants of the kings of the east and west, coming to solicit dia-
dems, or to deprecate the irresistible arms of Rome; vast
SALATHIEL.
129
theatres; public games, that tasked the whole fertility of
Italian talent, and the most prodigal lavishness of imperial
luxury; were the movers that among the three millions of
Rome made life a hurricane.
I saw it in its full and joyous commotion; I saw it in its
desperate agony; I saw it in its frivolous revival; and
I shall see it in an hour, wilder, weaker, and more terrible
than all.
By an influence of which I was then ignorant, I was per-
mitted to be present at some of those displays, under charge
of the centurion. No man could be better fitted for a state
jailor. Civility sat on his lips, but caution the most profound
sat beside her. He professed to have the deepest depend-
ence on my honor, yet he never let me beyond his eye.
I had no desire to escape. The crisis must come; and I
was as well inclined to meet it then, as to have it hanging
over me.
But
Intelligence in a few days arrived from Brundusium of the
emperor's landing, and of his intention to remain at Antium,
on the road to Rome, until his triumphal entry should be pre-
pared. My fate now hung in the scale. I was ordered to
attend the imperial presence. At the vestibule of the Antian
palace, my careful centurion deposited me in the hands of
a senator. As I followed him through the halls, a young
female richly attired, and of the most beautiful face and
form, crossed us, light and graceful as a dancing nymph.
The senator bowed profoundly. She beckoned to him, and
they exchanged a few words. I was probably the subject;
for her countenance, sparkling with the animation of youth
and loveliness, grew pale at once: she clasped both her
hands upon her eyes, and rushed into an inner chamber.
She knew Nero well; and dearly she was yet to pay for her
knowledge. The senator, to my inquiring glance, answered
in a whisper, "The Empress Poppaa."
A few steps onward, and I stood in the presence of the
most formidable being on earth. Yet, whatever might have
been the natural agitation of the time, I could scarcely re-
strain a smile at the first sight of Nero. I saw a pale, under-
sized, light-haired young man sitting before a table with a lyre
on it, a few copies of verses and drawings, and a parrot's cage,
to whose inmate he was teaching Greek with great assiduity.
But for the regal furniture of the cabinet, I should have sup-
posed myself led by mistake into an interview with some
130
SALATHIEL.
struggling poet. He shot round one quick glance, on the
opening of the door, and then proceeded to give lessons to
his bird. I had leisure to gaze on the tyrant and parricide.
Physiognomy is a true science. The man of profound
thought, the man of active ability, and above all, the man of
genius, has his character stamped on his countenance by na-
ture; the man of violent passions and the voluptuary have
it stamped by habit. But the science has its limits: it has
no stamp for mere cruelty. The features of the human
monster before me were mild, and almost handsome: a heavy
eye and a figure tending to fulness gave the impression of a
quiet mind; and but for an occasional restlessness of brow,
and a brief glance from under it, in which the leaden eye
darted suspicion, I should have pronounced Nero one of the
most indolently tranquil of mankind.
He remanded the parrot to its perch, took up his lyre, and
throwing a not-unskilful hand over the strings, in the inter-
vals of the performance languidly addressed a broken sen-
tence to me. "You have come, I understand, from Judea;
-they tell me that you have been, or are to be, a general of
the insurrection ;-you must be put to death ;—your country-
men give us a great deal of trouble, and I always regret to
be troubled with them.-But to send you back would only be
encouragement to them, and to keep you here among
strangers would only be cruelty to you.-I am charged with
cruelty :-you see the charge is not true.-I am lampooned
every day; I know the scribblers, but they must lampoon or
starve. I leave them to do both. Have you brought any
news from Judea ?—They have not had a true prince there
since the first Herod; and he was quite a Greek, a cut-
throat, and a man of taste. He understood the arts.—I sent
for you, to see what sort of animal a Jewish rebel was.
-Your dress is handsome, but too light for our winters.
You cannot die before sunset, as till then I am engaged with
my music-master.-We all must die when our time comes.
-Farewell-till sunset may Jupiter protect you!"
I retired to execution! and, before the door closed, heard
this accomplished disposer of life and death preluding upon
his lyre with increased energy. I was conducted to a turret
until the period in which the Emperor's engagements with
his music-master should leave him at leisure to see me die.
Yet there was kindness even under the roof of Nero, and a
liberal hand had covered the table in my cell. The hours
•
SALATHIEL.
131
passed heavily along, but they passed; and I was watching
the last rays of my last sun, when I perceived a cloud rise
in the direction of Rome. It grew broader, deeper, darker,
as I gazed; its centre was suddenly tinged with red; the
tinge spread; the whole mass of cloud became crimson;
the sun went down, and another sun seemed to have risen in
his stead. I heard the clattering of horses' feet in the court-
yards below; trumpets sounded; there was confusion in the
palace; the troops hurried under arms; and I saw a squadron
of cavalry set off at full speed.
""
As I was gazing on the spectacle before me, which per-
petually became more menacing, the door of my cell slowly
opened, and a masked figure stood upon the threshold. I
had made up my mind; and demanding if he was the execu-
tioner, I told him "that I was ready." The figure paused,
listened to the sounds below, and after looking for a while on
the troops in the court-yard, signified by signs that I had a
chance of saving my life. The love of existence rushed
back upon me. I eagerly inquired what was to be done.
He drew from under his cloak the dress of a Roman slave,
which I put on, and noiselessly followed his steps through a
long succession of small and strangely intricate passages.
We found no difficulty from guards or domestics. The
whole palace was in a state of extraordinary confusion.
Every human being was packing up something or other:
rich vases, myrrhine-cups, table-services, were lying in heaps
on the floors; books, costly dresses, instruments of music,
all the appendages of luxury, were flung loose in every di-
rection, from the sudden breaking up of the court. I might
have plundered the value of a province with impunity. Still
we wound our hurried way. In passing along one of the cor-
ridors, the voice of complaining struck the ear; my myste-
rious guide hesitated; I glanced through the slab of crys-
tal that showed the chamber within. It was the one in
which I had seen the Emperor, but his place was now filled
by the form of youth and beauty that had crossed me on my
arrival. She was weeping bitterly, and reading with strong
but sorrowful indignation a long list of names, probably one
of those rolls in which Nero registered his intended victims,
and which, in the confusion of departure, he had left open.
A second glance saw her tear the paper into a thousand
fragments, and scatter them in the fountain that gushed upon
the floor.
•
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SALATHIEL.
I left this lovely and unhappy creature, this dove in the
vulture's talons, with almost a pang. A few steps more
brought us into the open air, but among bowers that covered
our path with darkness. At the extremity of the gardens
my guide struck with his dagger upon a door; it was opened;
we found horses outside; he sprang on one; I sprang on its
fellow; and palace, guards, and death, were left far behind.
He galloped so furiously, that I found it impossible to
speak; and it was not till we had reached an eminence a few
miles from Rome, where we breathed our horses, that I could
ask to whom I had been indebted for my escape. But I
could not extract a word from him. He made signs of
silence, and pointed with wild anxiety to the scene that spread
below. It was of a grandeur and terror indescribable. Rome
was an ocean of flame.
Height and depth were covered with red surges, that rolled
before the blast like an endless tide. The billows burst up
the sides of the hills, which they turned into instant volcanoes,
exploding volumes of smoke and fire; then plunged into the
depths in a hundred glowing cataracts, then climbed and
consumed again. The distant sound of the city in her con-
vulsion went to the soul. The air was filled with the steady
roar of the advancing flame, the crash of falling houses, and
the hideous outcry of the myriads flying through the streets,
or surrounded and perishing in the conflagration.
Hostile to Rome as I was, I could not restrain the exclama-
tion; "There goes the fruit of conquest, the glory of ages,
the purchase of the blood of millions! Was vanity made for
man?" My guide continued looking forward with intense
earnestness, as if he were perplexed by what avenue to enter
the burning city. I demanded who he was, and whither he
would lead me. He returned no answer. A long spire of
flame that shot up from a hitherto untouched quarter engross-
ed all his senses. He struck in the spur, and making a wild
gesture to me to follow, darted down the hill. I pursued;
we found the Appian choked with waggons, baggage of every
kind, and terrified crowds hurrying into the open country.
To force a way through them was impossible. All was cla-
mor, violent struggle, and helpless death. Men and women
of the highest rank were on foot, trampled by the rabble, that
had then lost all respect of conditions. One dense mass of
miserable life, irresistible from its weight, crushed by the
narrow streets, and scorched by the flames over their heads,
SALATHIEL.
133
rolled through the gates, like an endless stream of black
lava.
We turned back, and attempted an entrance through the
gardens of the same villas that skirted the city wall near the
Palatine. All were deserted, and after some dangerous
leaps over the burning ruins, we found ourselves in the streets.
The fire had originally broken out upon the Palatine, and
hot smoke that wrapped and half blinded us, hung thick as
night upon the wrecks of pavilions and palaces; but the
dexterity and knowledge of my inexplicable guide carried us
on. It was in vain that I insisted upon knowing the purpose
of this terrible traverse. He pressed his hand on his heart
in re-assurance of his fidelity, and still spurred on.
We now passed under the shade of an immense range of
lofty buildings, whose gloomy and solid strength seemed to
bid defiance to chance and time. A sudden yell appalled
me.-A ring of fire swept round its summit; burning cordage,
sheets of canvass, and a shower of all things combustible, flew
into the air above our heads. An uproar followed, unlike
all that I had ever heard, a hideous mixture of howls, shrieks,
and groans.
The flames rolled down the narrow street be-
fore us, and made the passage next to impossible. While
we hesitated, a huge fragment of the building heaved, as if
in an earthquake, and fortunately for us it fell inwards. The
whole scene of terror was then open. The great amphithe-
atre of Statilius Taurus had caught fire; the stage with its
inflammable furniture was intensely blazing below. The
flames were wheeling up, circle above circle, through the
seventy thousand seats that rose from the ground to the roof.
I stood in unspeakable awe and wonder on the side of this
colossal cavern, this mighty temple of the city of fire. At
length a descending blast cleared away the smoke that cover.
ed the arena.
The cause of those horrid cries was now visi-
ble. The wild beasts kept for the games had broke from
their dens. Maddened by affright and pain, lions, tigers,
panthers, wolves, whole herds of the monsters of India and
Africa were enclosed in an impassable barrier of fire. They
bounded, they fought, they screamed, they tore; they ran
howling round and round the circle; they made desperate
leaps upwards through the blaze; they were flung back, and
fell only to fasten their fangs in each other, and with their
parching jaws bathed in blood, die raging.
I looked anxiously to see whether any human being was
VOL. I.
12
134
SALATHIEL.
.
P
involved in this fearful catastrophe. To my great relief, I
could see none. The keepers and attendants had obviously
escaped. As I expressed my gladness, I was startled by a
loud cry
from my guide, the first sound that I had heard him
utter. He pointed to the opposite side of the amphitheatre.
There indeed sat an object of melancholy interest; a man
who had either been unable to escape, or had determined to
die. Escape was now impossible. He sat in desperate
calmness on his funeral pile. He was a gigantic Ethiopian
slave, entirely naked. He had chosen his place as if in
mockery on the imperial throne; the fire was above him and
around him; and under this tremendous canopy he gazed,
without the movement of a muscle, on the combat of the wild
beasts below; a solitary sovereign with the whole tremend-
ous game played for himself, and inaccessible to the power
of man.
-
I was forced away from this absorbing spectacle; and we
once more threaded the long and intricate streets of Rome.
As we approached the end of one of those bewildering pas-
sages, scarcely wide enough for us to ride abreast, I was
startled by the sudden illumination of the sky immediately
above; and rendered cautious by the experience of our ha
zards, called to my companion to return. He pointed be
hind me, and showed the fire bursting out in the houses by
which we had just galloped. I followed on. A crowd that
poured from the adjoining streets cut off our retreat. Hun-
dreds rapidly mounted on the houses in front, in the hope by
throwing them down to check the conflagration. The obsta-
cle once removed, we saw the source of the light-spectacle
of horror! The great prison of Rome was on fire. Never
can I forget the sights and sounds-the dismay-the hopeless
agony-the fury and frenzy that then overwhelmed the heart.
The jailors had been forced to fly before they could loose
the fetters, or open the cells of the prisoners. We saw those
gaunt and wo-begone wretches crowding to their casements,
and imploring impossible help; clinging to the heated bars;
toiling with their impotent grasp to tear out the massive
stones; some wringing their hands; some calling on the ter-
rified spectators by every name of humanity to save them;
some venting their despair in execrations and blasphemies
that made the blood run cold; others, after many a wild effort
to break loose, dashing their heads against the walls, or stab-
bing themselves. The people gave them outcry for outcry;
SALATHIEL.
135
but the flame forbade approach. Before I could extricate my-
self from the multitude, a whirl of fiery ashes shot upwards
from the falling roof; the walls rent into a thousand frag-
ments; and the huge prison, with all its miserable inmates,
was a heap of red embers.
Exhausted as I was by this restless fatigue, and yet more
by the melancholy sights that surrounded every step, no
fatigue seemed to be felt by the singular being that governed
my movements. He sprang through the burning ruins-he
plunged into the sulphureous smoke-he never lost the di-
rection that he had first taken; and though baffled and forced
to turn back a hundred times, he again rushed on his track
with the directness of an arrow. For me to make my way
back to the gates, would be even more difficult than to push
forward. My ultimate safety might be in following, and I
followed. To stand still, and to move, were equally perilous.
The streets, even with the improvements of Augustus, were
still scarcely wider than the breadth of the little Italian carts
that crowded them. They were crooked, long, and ob-
structed by every impediment of a city built in haste, after
the burning by the Gauls, and with no other plan than the
caprice of its hurried tenantry. The houses were of im-
mense height, chiefly wood, many roofed with thatch, and
all covered or cemented with pitch. The true surprise is,
that it had not been burned once a year from the time of its
building.
The memory of Nero, that hereditary concentration of
vice, of whose ancestor's yellow beard the Roman orator
said, "No wonder that his beard was brass, when his mouth
was iron and his heart lead," the parricide and the poisoner,
may yet be fairly exonerated of an act which might have
been the deed of a drunken mendicant in any of the fifty
thousand hovels of this gigantic aggregate of every thing
that could turn to flame.
We passed along through all the horrid varieties of misery,
guilt, and riot, that could find their place in a great public
calamity: groups gazing in woe on the wreck of their for
tunes, rushing off to the winds in vapor and fire; groups
plundering in the midst of the flame; groups of rioters,
escaped felons, and murderers, exulting in the public ruin,
and dancing and drinking with Bacchanalian uproar: gangs
of robbers trampling down and stabbing the fugitives to strip
them of their last means; revenge, avarice, despair, profli.
.
136
SALATHIEL.
gacy, let loose naked; undisguised demons, to swell the
wretchedness of this tremendous infliction upon a guilty and
blood-covered empire.
Still we spurred on, but our jaded horses at length sank
under us; and leaving them to find their way into the fields,
we struggled forward on foot. The air had hitherto been
calm, but now gusts began to rise, thunder growled, and the
signs of tempest thickened on. We gained an untouched
quarter of the city, and had explored our weary passage up
to the gates of a large patrician palace, when we were start-
led by a broad sheet of flame rushing through the sky. The
storm was come in its rage. The range of public magazines
of wood, cordage, tar, and oil, in the valley between the
Cœlian and Palatine hills, had at length been involved in
the conflagration. All that we had seen before was darkness
to the fierce splendor of this burning. The tempest tore off
the roofs, and swept them like floating islands of fire through
the sky. The most distant quarters on which they fell were
instantly wrapped in flame. One broad mass, whirling from
an immense height, broke upon the palace before us. A
cry
of terror was heard within; the gates were flung open,
and a crowd of domestics and persons of both sexes, attired
for a banquet, poured out into the streets. The palace was
wrapt in flame. My guide then for the first time lost his
self-possession. He staggered towards me with the appear-
ance of a man who had received a spear-head in his bosom.
I caught him before he fell; but his head sank, his knees
bent under him, and his white lips quivered with unintelligi.
ble sounds, I could distinguish only the words-" gone, gone
for ever!"
The flame had already seized upon the principal floors of
the palace; and the volumes of smoke that poured through
every window and entrance, rendered the attempt to save
those still within a work of extreme hazard. But ladders
were rapidly placed, ropes were flung, and the activity of the
attendants and retainers was boldly exerted, till all were
presumed to have been saved, and the building was left to
burn.
My overwhelmed guide was lying on the ground, when a
sudden scream was heard, and a figure, in the robes and
with the rosy crown of the banquet, strange contrast to her
fearful situation, was seen flying from window to window in
the upper part of the mansion. It was supposed that she
SALATHIEL.
137
had fainted in the first terror, and been forgotten. The
height, the fierceness of the flame which now completely
mastered resistance, the volumes of smoke that suffocated
every man who approached, made the chance of saving this
unfortunate being utterly desperate in the opinion of the
multitude.
My spirit shuddered at the horrors of this desertion. I
looked round at my companion; he was kneeling, in helpless
agony, with his hands lifted up to heaven.
Another scream,
wilder than ever, pierced my senses. I seized an axe from
one of the domestics, caught a ladder from another, and in
a paroxysm of hope, fear, and pity, scaled the burning wall.
A shout from below followed me. I entered at the first
window that I could reach. All before me was cloud. I
rushed on, struggled, stumbled over furniture and fragments
of all kinds, fell, rose again, found myself trampling upon
precious things, plate and crystal, and still, axe in hand,
forced my way. I at length reached the banqueting-room.
The figure had vanished. A strange superstition of child.
hood, a thought that I might have been lured by some Spirit
of evil into the place of ruin, suddenly came over me. I
stopped to gather my faculties. I leaned against one of the
pillars; it was hot; the floor shook and crackled under my
tread, the walls heaved, the flame hissed below, and over
head roared the whirlwind, and burst the thunder-peal.
My brain was fevered. The immense golden lamps still
burning; the long tables disordered, yet glittering with the
costly ornaments of patrician luxury; the scattered Tyrian
couches; the scarlet canopy that covered the whole range
of the tables, and gave the hall the aspect of an imperial
pavilion, partially torn down in the confusion of the flight,
all assumed to me a horrid and bewildered splendor. The
smokes were already rising through the crevices of the floor;
the smell of flame was on my robes; a huge volume of yel-
low vapor slowly wreathed and arched round the chair at
the head of the banquet. I could have imagined a fearful
lord of the feast under that cloudy veil! Every thing round
me was marked with preternatural fear, magnificence, and
ruin.
A low groan broke my reverie. I heard the voice of one
in despair. I heard the broken words, "Oh, bitter fruit of
disobedience !-Oh, my mother, shall I never see your face
again ?—For one crime I am doomed.-Eternal mercy, let
12*
138
SALATHIEL.
my crime be washed away-let my spirit ascend pure.-
Farewell, mother, sister, father, husband!" With the last
word I heard a fall, as if the spirit had left the body.
I sprang towards the sound: I met but the solid wall.
"Horrible illusion," I cried-" am I mad, or the victim of
the powers of darkness?" I tore away the hangings—a
door was before me. I burst it through with a blow of the
axe, and saw stretched on the floor, and insensible-Salome!
I caught my child in my arms; I bathed her forehead
with my tears; I besought her to look up, to give some sign
of life, to hear the full forgiveness of my breaking heart.
She looked not, answered not, breathed not. To make a
last effort for her life, I carried her into the banquet-room.
But the fire had forced its way there; the wind bursting in,
had carried the flame through the long galleries; and flashes
and spires of lurid light already darting through the doors,
gave fearful evidence that the last stone of the palace must
soon go down.
I bore my unhappy daughter towards the window; but
the height was deadly, no gesture could be seen through the
piles of smoke, the help of man was in vain. To my in-
creased misery, the current of air revived Salome, at the
instant when I hoped that by insensibility she would escape
the final pang. She breathed, stood, and, opening her eyes,
fixed on me the vacant stare of one scarcely aroused from
sleep. Still clasped in my arms, she gazed again; but my
wild face covered with dust, my half-burnt hair, the axe
gleaming in my hand, terrified her; she uttered a scream,
and darted away from me headlong into the centre of the
burning.
I rushed after her, calling on her name.
fire-shot up between us; I felt the floor sink;
suffocation-I struggled, and fell.
A column of
all was then
?
"
SALATHIEL.
139
CHAPTER XXI.
A female
I AWOKE with a sensation of pain in every limb.
voice was singing a faint song near me. But the past was
like a dream. I involuntarily looked down for the gulf on
which I had trod-I looked upward for the burning rafters.
I saw nothing but an earthern floor, and a low roof hung
with dried grapes and herbs.. I uttered a cry. The singer
approached me. But there was nothing in her aspect to
nurture a diseased imagination; she was an old and emaci-
ated creature, who yet benevolently rejoiced in my restora-
tion. She in turn, called her husband, a venerable Jew,
whose first act was to offer thanksgiving to the God of Israel,
for the safety of a chief of his nation.
But to my inquiries for the fate of my child, he could give
no answer; he had discovered me among the ruins of the
palace of the Æmilii, to which he with many of his country.
men had been attracted with the object of collecting what-
I
ever remnants of furniture might be left by the flames.
had fallen by the edge of a fountain which extinguished the
fire in its vicinage, and was found breathing. During three
days I had lain insensible. The Jew now went out, and
brought back with him some of the elders of our people,
who, after the decree of the Emperor Claudius, remained in
Rome, though in increased privacy. I was carried to their
house of assemblage, concealed among groves and vineyards
beyond the gates; and attended to with a care which might
cure all things but the wounds of the mind. On the great
object of my solicitude, the fate of my Salome, I could obtain
no relief. I wandered over the site of the palace, it was
now a mass of ashes and charcoal; its ruins had been probed
by hundreds: but search for even a trace of what would
have been to me dearer than a mountain of gold was in vain.
The conflagration continued six days; and every day of
the number gave birth to some monstrous report of its origin.
Of the fourteen districts of Rome, but four remained. Thou-
sands had lost their lives, tens of thousands were utterly
undone. The whole empire shook under the blow. Then
came the still deeper horror.
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140
SALATHIEL.
Fear makes the individual feeble, but it makes the multi-
tude ferocious. An universal cry arose for revenge. Great
public misfortunes give the opportunity that the passions of
men and sects love; and the fiercest sacrifices of selfishness
are justified under the name of retribution.
But the full storm burst on the Christians, then too new
to have fortified themselves in the national prejudices, if
they would have suffered the alliance; too poor to reckon
any powerful protectors; and too uncompromising to palliate
their scorn of the whole public system of morals, philosophy,
and religion. The emperor, the priesthood, and the popu
lace, conspired against them, and they were ordered to the
slaughter. I too had my stimulants to hatred. Where was
I?. in exile, in desperate hazard;-I had been torn from
home, robbed of my child, made miserable by the fear of
apostacy in my house; and by whom was this comprehen-
sive evil done? The name of Christian was gall to me. I
heard of the popular vengeance, and called it justice; I saw
the distant fires in which the Christians were consuming,
and calculated how many each night of those horrors would
abstract from the guilty number. Man becomes cruel, by
the sight of cruelty; and when thousands and hundreds of
thousands were shouting for vengeance, when every face
looked fury, and every tongue was wild with some new ac-
cusation, when the great, the little, the philosopher, the
ignorant, raised up one roar of reprobation against the
Christians, was the solitary man of mercy to be looked for
in one bleeding from head to foot with wrongs irreparable?
During one of those dreadful nights, I was gazing from
the house-top on the fire forcing its way through the re-
maining quarters; the melancholy gleams through the coun-
try, showing the extent of the flight; and in the midst of the
blackened and dreary wastes of Rome, the spots of livid
flame, where Christians were perishing at the pile; when I
was summoned to a consultation below. One of our people
had returned with an imperial edict proclaiming pardon of
all offenses to the discoverer of Christians. I would not
have purchased my life by the life of a dog. But my safety
was important to the Jewish cause, and I was pressed on
every side by arguments on the wisdom, nay, the public duty of
accepting freedom on any terms. And what was to be the
price? the life of criminals long obnoxious to the laws, and
now stained beyond mercy. I loathed delay; I loathed
-
-

SALATHIEL.
141
Rome; I was wild to return to the great cause of my coun-
try, which never could have a fairer hope than now. An
emissary was sent out; money soon effected the discovery
of a Christian assemblage: I appeared before the prætor
with my documents, and brought back in my hand the impe-
rial pardon, given with the greater good-will, as the assem-
blage chanced to comprehend the chiefs of the heresy.
They were seized, ordered forthwith to the pile, and I was
ordered to be present at this completion of my national ser-
vice. The executions were in the gardens of the imperial
palace, which had been thrown open by Nero, for the double
purpose of popularity, and of indulging himself with the dis-
play of death at the slightest personal inconvenience. The
crowd was prodigious, and to gratify the greatest possible
number at once, those murders were carried on in different
parts of the garden. In the vineyard, a certain portion were
to be crucified; in the orangery, another portion were to be
burnt; in the pleasure-ground, another were to be torn by
lions and tigers; gladiators were to be let loose; and when
the dusk came on, the whole of the space was to be lighted by
human torches, Christians wrapped in folds of linen covered
with pitch and bitumen, and thus burning down from the
head to the ground. I was horror-struck; but escape was
impossible, and I must go through the whole hideous round.
With my flesh quivering, my ears ringing, my eyes dim, I
was forced to see miserable beings, men, nay, women, nay,
infants, sewed up in skins of beasts, hunted and torn to
pieces by dogs; old men, whose hoary hairs might have
demanded reverence of savages, scourged, racked, and
nailed to the trees to die; lovely young females, creatures
of guileless hearts and innocent beauty, flung on flaming
scaffolds. And this was the work of man, civilized man, in
the highest civilization of the arts, the manners, and the
learning of the ancient world.
But the grand display was prepared for the time when
those Christians, who had been denounced on my discovery,
were to be executed; an exhibition at which the emperor
himself testified his intention to be present. The great
Circus was no more; but a temporary amphitheatre of the
turf had been erected, in which the usual games were exhi-
bited during the early part of the day. At the hour of my
arrival, the low bank circling this immense inclosure, was
filled with the first names of Rome, knights, patricians,
រ

142
SALATHIEL.
senators, military tribunes, consuls; the emperor alone was
wanting
to complete the representative majesty of the em-
pire. I was to form a part of the ceremony, and the guard
who had me in charge cleared the way to a conspicuous
place, where my national dress fixed every eye on me.
Several Christians had perished before my arrival. Their
remains lay on the ground, and in their midst stood the man
who was to be the next victim. By what influence I know
not, but never did I see a human being that made on me so
deep an impression. I have him before me at this instant.
I see the figure, low, yet with an air of nobleness; stooped
a little with venerable age; but the countenance, full of life,
and marked with all the traits of intellectual power, the nose
strongly aquiline, the bold lip, the large and rapid eye; the
whole man conveying the idea of an extraordinary perma-
nence of early vigor, under the weight of years. Even the
hair was thick and black, with scarcely a touch of silver.
If the place and time were Athens, and the era of Demos-
thenes, I should have said that Demosthenes stood before
me. The vivid countenance and manner; the flashing
rapidity with which he seized a new idea, and compressed it
to his purpose; the impetuous argument that, throwing off
the formality of logic, smote with the strength of a new fact,
were Demosthenaic. Even a certain infirmity of utterance,
and an occasional slight difficulty of words, added to the
likeness; but there was a hallowed glance, and a solemn,
yet tender reach of thought, interposed among those intense
appeals, that asserted the sacred superiority of the subject
and the man.
He was already speaking when I reached the Circus;
and I can give but an outline of his language.
He pointed to the headless bodies around him.
"For what have these, my brethren, died? Answer me,
priests of Rome; what temple did they force-what altar
overthrow-what insults offer to the slightest of your public
celebrations? Judges of Rome, what offense did they com.
mit against the public peace? Consuls, where were they
found in rebellion against the Roman majesty? People!
patricians! who among your thousands can charge one of
these holy dead with extortion, impurity, or violence; can
charge them with any thing, but the patience that bore
wrong without a murmur, and the charity that answered tor-
tures only by prayers?"
་
SALATHIEL.
143
A
He then touched upon the nature of his faith.
1
"Do I stand here demanding to be believed for opinions?
No; but for facts. I have seen the sick made whole, the
lame walk, the blind receive their sight, by the mere name
of Him whom you crucified. I have seen men once igno-
rant of all languages but their own, speaking with the lan-
guage of every nation under heaven-the still greater won-
der, of the timid defying all fear-the unlearned instantly
made wise in the mysteries of things divine and human—
putting to shame the learned-aweing the proud-enlight
ening the darkened; alike in the courts of kings, before the
furious people, and in the dungeon, armed with an irrepres-
sible spirit of knowledge, reason, and truth, that confounded
their adversaries. I have seen the still greater wonder, of
the renewed heart; the impure suddenly abjuring vice; the
covetous, the cruel, the faithless, the godless, gloriously
changed into the holy, the gentle, the faithful, the worshiper
of the true God in spirit and in truth; the conquest of the
passions which defied your philosophers, your tribunals,
your rewards, your terrors, achieved in the one mighty
name. Those are facts, things which I have seen; and who
that had seen them could doubt that the finger of the eternal
God was there? I dared not refuse my belief to the divine
mission of the being by whom, and even in memory of
whom, things baffling the proudest human means were
wrought before my eyes. Thus irresistibly compelled by
facts to believe that Christ was sent by God; I was with
equal force compelled to believe in the doctrines declared
by this glorious Messenger of the Father alike of quick and
dead. And thus I stand before you this day, at the close of
a long life of labor and hazard, a Christian."
This appeal to the understanding, divested as it was of all
ornament and oratorical display, was listened to by the im-
mense multitude with the most unbroken interest. It was*
delivered with the strong simplicity of conviction. He then
spoke of the Founder of his faith.
"Men may be mad for opinions. But who can be mad
for facts? The coming of Christ was prophesied a thousand
years before !"
→
"From the beginning of his ministry he lived wholly
before the eyes of mankind. His life corresponds with the
prophecies in a multitude of circumstances which must have
been totally beyond human power. The virgin mother, the

144
SALATHIEL.
village in which he was born, the lowliness of his cradle, the
worship paid to him there, the hazard of his life-all were
predicted. Could the infant have shaped the accomplish-
ment of these predictions?-The death that he should die,
the hands by which it was to be inflicted, even the draught
that he should drink, and the raiment that he should be
clothed in, and the sepulchre in which he should be laid,
were predicted. Could the man have shaped their accom-
plishment?—The time of his resting in the tomb; his resur-
rection; his ascent to heaven; the sending of the Holy
Spirit after he was gone; all were predicted; all were be-
yond human collusion, human power, or human thought, and
all were accomplished!"
"Those things were universally known to the nation most
competent to detect collusion. Did Christ come to Rome,
where every new religion finds adherents, and where all
pretensions might be advanced without fear; where a de-
ceiver might have quoted prophecies that never existed, and
vaunted of wonders done where there was no eye to detect
them? No! his life was spent in Judea, perhaps for the
express purpose of adding to his mercy and long-suffering,
the most unanswerable proofs of his divine mission. He
made his appeal to the Scriptures, in a country where they
were in the hands of the people. His miracles were wrought
before the eyes of a priesthood that watched him step by
step; his doctrines were spoken, not to a careless and min-
gled multitude, holding a thousand varieties of opinion, but
to an exclusive race, subtle in their inquiries, eager in their
zeal, and proud of their peculiar possession of divine
knowledge."-
"Yet against his life, his miracles, or his doctrine, what
charge could they bring? None. There is not a single
stigma on the purity of his conduct; the power of his won-
der-working control over man and nature; the holiness,
wisdom, and grandeur, of his views of Providence; the
truth, charity, and meekness, of his counsels to man.
Their
single source of hatred was the pride of worldly hearts that
expected a king, where they were to have found a teacher.
Their single charge against him was his prophecy, that there
should be an end to their Temple and their state within the
life of man. They crucified him; he died in prayer, that
his murderers might be forgiven; and his prayer was
mightily answered. He had scarcely risen to his eternal
+
.

SALATHIEL.
145
¿
throne, when thousands believed, and were forgiven. To
him be the glory, forever and ever!"
"Compare him with your legislators. He gives the spirit
of all law in a single sentence-Do unto others as you
would they should do unto you.' Compare him with your
priesthood. He gives a single significant rite, capable of
being extended to every land and every age, and in them
all speaking to the heart: he gives a single prayer, con-
taining the substance of all that man can rationally implore
of Heaven. Compare him with your moralists. He lays
the foundation of virtue in love to God. Compare him with
your sages. He leads a life of privation without a murmur;
he dies a death of shame, desertion, and agony; and his
last breath is sublime mercy! Compare him with your con-
querors. Without the shedding of a drop of blood, he has
already conquered hosts that would have resisted all the
swords of earth, hosts of stubborn passions, cherished vices,
guilty perversions of the powers and faculties of man. Look
on these glorious dead, whom I shall join before the set of
yonder sun. Yes, martyrs of God! ye were his conquests;
and ye too are more than conquerors, through him that
loved us, and gave himself for us. But a triumph shall
come, magnificent and terrible, when all eyes shall behold
him; and the tribes of the earth, even they who pierced
him, shall mourn.
""
“Then rejoice, ye dead! For ye shall rise. Ye shall be
clothed with glory; ye shall be as the angels, bright and
powerful, immortal, intellectual kings! For though worms
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.'
The sky was cloudless; the sun was in the west, but
shining in his broadest beams; the whole space before me
was flooded with his light; when, as I gazed upon the mar-
tyr, I saw a gleam issue from his upturned face; it increased
to brightness, to strong radiance, to an intense lustre that
made the sunlight utterly pale. All was astonishment in the
amphitheatre, but all was awe. The old man seemed un-
conscious of the wonders that invested him. He continued
with his open hands lifted up, and his eyes fixed on heaven.
The glory spread over his form; and he stood before us,
robed in an effulgence which shot from him like a living
fount of splendor round the colossal circle. Yet the blaze,
though it looked the very essence of light, was strangely
translucent; we could see with undazzled eyes every fea-
VOL. I.
13
146
SALATHIEL.
ture; and whether it was the working of my overwhelmed
mind, or a true change, the countenance appeared to have
passed at once from age to youth. A lofty joy, a look of
supernal grandeur, a magnificent, yet etherial beauty, had
transformed the features of the old man into the likeness of
the winged sons of Immortality!
He spoke; and the first sound of his voice thrilled through
every bosom, and made every man start from his seat.
"Men and brethren.-It is the desire of God that all
should be saved-Jew and Gentile alike; for with him there
is no respect of persons. He is the Father of all! Chris-
tianity is not a philosophic dream; nor the opinion of a sect
struggling to gain power among contending sects; but a
divine command-the summons of the God of gods that you
should accept the mercy offered to you through the sacrifice
of the Eternal Son !-the opening of the gates of an eternal
world! It is not a summons to the practice of barren virtue,
but a declaration of real reward, mightier than the imagina-
tion of man can conceive. It raises the spirit of man, for-
given for the sake of Christ, into the imperishable possession
of an actual power, to which the ambition of earth is a va-
por; it invests the redeemed with all that can delight the
eye, or rejoice the heart, or elevate the understanding.
Would you be kings?-would you be glorious as the stars of
heaven?—would you possess mighty faculties of happiness,
supremacy, and knowledge? Ask for forgiveness of your
evil in the name of Christ; and whether you live or die,
those things shall be yours. What is easier than the price?
-what more transcendent than the reward? Who shall tell
the limit of the risen Spirit? Over what worlds, or worlds
of worlds, he may be sovereign! What resistless strength
-what more than regal majesty-what celestial beauty-
may be in his frame!-What expansion of intellect—what
everflowing tides of new sensation-what shapes of glory
and loveliness-what radiant stores of thought, and myste-
ries of exhaustless knowledge, may be treasured for him!
What endless ascent through new ranks of being, each as
much more glorious than the last as the risen spirit is above
man!-For what can be the bound to the exaltation of the
fellow-heirs with Christ, for whom the Eternal stooped to
suffer upon the cross, and for whom he rose again to his
throne, their leader in trial, their leader in triumph! Omni-
potence for their protector, their friend, their father! He
SALATHIEL.
147
1
who gave to us his own Son, will be not with him give us all
things?"
"C
King of kings! if through a long life I have labored in
thy cause, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils
by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils
in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in
perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness;
thine alone be the praise, thine the glory, who hast brought
me through them all with a strong hand and an outstretched
arm. Now, Lord! thou who shalt change my vile body into
the likeness of thy glorious body, be with thy servant in this
last hour! Lord, receive my spirit; that where thou art,
even I may be with thee!"
He was silent; the splendor gradually passed away from
his form. He knelt upon the sand, bowing down his neck
to receive the blow.
But to lift a hand against such a being seemed an act of
profanation. The axe-bearer dared not approach. The
spectators sat hushed in involuntary homage. Not a word,
not a gesture, broke the silence of veneration. At length a
flourish of distant horns and trumpets was heard. Cavalry
galloped forward, announcing the emperor; and Nero, ha-
bited as a triumphant charioteer, drove his gilded car into
the arena.
The Christian had risen; and with his hands.
clasped on his breast, was awaiting death. Nero cast the
headsman an execration at his tardiness; the axe swept
round; and when I glanced again, the old man lay beside
his brethren!
This man I had sacrificed. My heart smote me; I would
have fled the place of blood, but more of my victims were
to be slain; and I must be the shrinking witness of all.
The emperor's arrival commenced the grand display. He
took his place under the curtains of the royal pavilion. The
dead were removed; perfumes were scattered through the
air; rose-water was sprinkled from silver tubes upon the ex-
hausted multitude; music resounded; incense burned; and,
in the midst of those preparations of luxury, the terrors of
the lion combat began.
A portal of the arena opened, and the combatant, with a
mantle thrown over his face and figure, was led in, sur,
rounded by soldiery. The lion roared, and ramped against
the bars of his den at the sight, The guard put a sword
148
SALATHIEL.
:
and buckler into the hands of the Christian, and he was left
alone. He drew the mantle from his face, and bent a slow
and firm look round the amphitheatre. His fine countenance
and lofty bearing raised a universal shout of admiration.
He might have stood for an Apollo encountering the Python.
His eye at last turned on mine. Could I believe my senses!
Constantius was before me!
All my rancor vanished. An hour past I could have struck
the betrayer to the heart; I could have called on the severest
vengeance of man and heaven to smite the destroyer of my
child. But, to see him hopelessly doomed; the man whom
I had honored for his noble qualities, whom I had even loved,
whose crime was at worst but the crime of giving way to the
strongest temptation that can bewilder the heart of man; to
see this noble creature flung to the savage beast, dying in
tortures, torn piecemeal before my eyes, and this misery
wrought by me,-I would have obtested earth and heaven to.
save him. But my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth.
My limbs refused to stir. I would have thrown myself at
the feet of Nero; but I sat like a man of stone, pale, para-
lysed the beating of my pulses stopt-my eyes alone alive.
The gate of the den was thrown back, and the lion rushed
in with a roar, and a bound that bore him half across the
arena. I saw the sword glitter in the air: when it waved
again, it was covered with blood. A howl told that the blow
had been driven home. The lion, one of the largest from
Numidia, and made furious by thirst and hunger, an animal
of prodigious power, couched for an instant as if to make
sure of his prey, crept a few paces onward, and sprang at
the victim's throat. He was met by a second wound, but his
impulse was irresistible; and Constantius was flung upon
the ground. A cry of natural horror rang round the amphi-
theatre. The struggle was now for instant life or death.
They rolled over each other; the lion reared on its hind
feet, and, with gnashing teeth and distended talons, plunged
on the man; again they rose together. Anxiety was now at
its wildest height. The sword swung round the champion's
head in bloody circles. They fell again, covered with gore
and dust. The hand of Constantius had grasped the lion's
mane, and the furious bounds of the monster could not loose
the hold; but his strength was evidently giving way he still
struck terrible blows, but each was weaker than the one be-
fore; till collecting his whole force for a last effort, he darted
SALATHIEL.
149
.
one mighty blow into the lion's throat, and sank. The sa-
vage yelled, and spouting out blood, fled howling round the
arena. But the hand still grasped the mane, and his con-
queror was dragged whirling through the dust at his heels.
A universal outcry now arose to save him, if he were not
already dead. But the lion, though bleeding from every vein,
was still too terrible; and all shrank from the hazard. At
length the grasp gave way, and the body lay motionless upon
the ground.
What happened for some moments after, I know not.
There was a struggle at the portal; a female forced her way
through the guards, rushed in alone, and flung herself upon
the victim. The sight of a new prey roused the lion: he
tore the ground with his talons; he lashed his streaming
sides with his tail; he lifted up his mane, and bared his
fangs. But his approach was no longer with a bound; he
dreaded the sword, and came snuffing the blood on the sand,
and stealing round the body in circuits still diminishing.
The confusion in the vast assemblage was now extreme.
Voices innumerable called for aid. Women screamed and
fainted; men burst out into indignant clamors at this pro-
longed cruelty. Even the hard hearts of the populace, ac-
customed as they were to the sacrifice of life, were roused
to honest curses. The guards grasped their arms and
waited but for a sign from the emperor. But Nero gave no
sign.
I looked upon the woman's face. It was Salome! I
sprang upon my feet. I called on her name; I implored
her by every feeling of nature to fly from that place of
death, to come to my arms, to think of the agonies of all
that loved her.
She had raised the head of Constantius, on her knee, and
was wiping the pale visage with her hair. At the sound of
my voice she looked up, and calmly casting back the locks
from her forehead, fixed her gaze upon me. She still knelt;
one hand supported the head, with the other she pointed to
it, as her only answer. I again adjured her. There was
the silence of death among the thousands round me. A
fire flashed into her eye-her cheek burned. She waved
her hand with an air of superb sorrow.
"This
"I am come to die," she uttered, in a lofty tone.
bleeding body was my husband. I have no father. The
world contains to me but this clay in my arms.-Yet,” and
!
-
E
י
13*

150
SALATHIEL.
she kissed the ashy lips before her, " yet my Constantius, it
was to save that father, that your generous heart defied the
peril of this hour. It was to redeem him from the hand of
evil, that you abandoned our quiet home!—yes, cruel father,
here lies the noble being that threw open your dungeon, that
led you safe through conflagration, that to the last moment.
of his liberty only thought how he might preserve and pro-
tect you." Tears at length fell in floods from her eyes.
But," said she, in a tone of wild power, "he was be-
trayed; and may the power whose thunders avenge the
cause of his people pour down just retribution upon the head
that dared-
"6
I heard my own condemnation about to be pronounced by
the lips of my child. Wound up to the last degree of suf-
fering, I tore my hair, leaped on the bars before me, and
plunged into the arena by her side. The height stunned me;
I tottered forward a few paces, and fell.
The lion gave a
roar, and sprang upon me. I lay helpless under him.-I
felt his fiery breath-I saw his lurid eye glaring-I heard
the gnashing of his white fangs above me-An exulting
shout arose.-I saw him reel as if struck :-gore filled his
jaws ;-Another mighty blow was driven to his heart.—He
sprang high in the air with a howl.-He dropped; he was
dead. The amphitheatre thundered with acclamation.
With Salome clinging to my bosom, Constantius raised
me from the ground. The roar of the lion had roused him
from his swoon, and two blows saved me. The falchion was
broken in the heart of the monster. The whole multitude
stood up, supplicating for our lives in the name of filial piety
and heroism. Nero, devil as he was, dared not resist the
strength of the popular feeling. He waved a signal to the
guards; the portal was opened; and my children sustaining
my feeble steps, and showered with garlands and ornaments
from innumerable hands, slowly led me from the arena.
鲁
​SALATHIEL.
151
CHAPTER XXII.
THE first rage of the persecution was at an end. The
popular thirst of blood was satiated. The natural admira-
tion that follows fortitude and innocence, and the natural
hatred that consigns a tyrant to the execration of his time
and of posterity, found their way; and Nero dared murder
no more. I had voluntarily shared the prison of Constan-
tius and my child. Its doors were set open. The liberality
of my people supplied the means of returning to Judea, and
we hastened down the Tiber in the first vessel that spread
her sails from this throne of desolation. The chances that
had brought us together were easily explained. Salome
urged to desperation by the near approach of her marriage,
and solicited to save herself from the perjury of vowing her
love to a man unpossessed of her heart, flew with Constan-
tius to Cæsarea. The only person in their confidence was
the domestic who betrayed me into the hands of the procu-
rator, and who assisted them only that he might lure me
from home.
At Cæsarea they were married, and remained in conceal-
ment under the protection of the young Septimius. My
transmission to Rome struck them with terror, and Constan-
tius instantly embarked to save me by his Italian influence.
The attempt was surrounded with peril; but Salome would
not be left behind. Disguised, to avoid my possible refusal
of life at his hands, he followed me step by step. There
were many of our people among the attendants, and even in
the higher offices of the court. The empress had, in her
reproaches to Nero, disclosed the new barbarity of my sen-
tence. No time was to be lost. Constantius, at the immi-
nent hazard of life, entered the palace. He saw the block
already erected in the garden before the window where
Nero sat inventing a melody which was to grace my depart-
ure. The confusion of the fire allowed the only escape.
I was the witness of his consternation when he made so
many fruitless efforts to penetrate to the place where Sa-
lome remained in the care of his relatives. When I scaled
4
152
SALATHIEL.
the burning mansion, he desperately followed, lost his way
among the ruins, and was giving up all hope, when wrapt in
fire and smoke, Salome fell at his feet. He bore her to
another mansion of his family. It had given shelter to the
chief Christians. They were seized; his young wife
scorned to survive Constantius; and chance and my own
fortunate desperation alone saved me from seeing their mar-
tyrdom.
We returned to Judea. In the first embrace of my
family all was forgotten and forgiven. My brother rejoiced
in Salome's happiness; and even her rejected kinsman,
through all his reluctance, acknowledged the claims of the
man to the daughter's hand, who had saved the life of the
father.
Sa-
What perception of health is ever so exquisite, as when we
first rise from the bed of sickness? What enjoyment of the
heart is so full of delight, as that which follows extreme suf-
fering? I had but just escaped the most formidable personal
hazards; I had escaped the still deeper suffering of seeing
ruin fall on beings whom I would have died to rescue.
lome's heart, overflowing with happiness, gave new bright-
ness to her eyes, and new animation to her lovely form.
She danced with involuntary joy; she sang, she laughed`; her
fancy kindled into a thousand sparklings. Beautiful being!
in my visions thou art still before me: I clasp thee to my
widowed heart, and hear thy sweet voice, sweeter than the
fountain in the desert to the pilgrim, cheering me in the
midst of my more than pilgrimage!
An accession of opulence gave the only increase, if in-
crease could be given, to the happiness that seemed within
my reach. The year of JUBILEE arrived. Abolished as the
chief customs of Judea had been by the weakness and guilt
of idolatrous kings and generations, they were still observed
by all who honored the faith of their fathers. The law of
Jubilee was sacred in our mountains. It was the law of a
wisdom and benevolence above man.
Its peculiar adaptation to Israel, its provision for the virtue
and happiness of the individual, and its safeguard of the pub-
lic strength and constitutional integrity, were unrivalled
among the finest ordinances of the ancient world.
On the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, the land
was divided, by the inspired ordinance, among the tribes, ac-
cording to their numbers. To each family a portion was
SALATHIEL.
153
:
given, as a gift from Heaven. The gift was to be inalien-
able. The estate might be sold for a period: but at the fif.
tieth year, in the evening of the day of atonement, in the
month Tisri, the sound of the trumpets from the sanctuary,
echoed by thousands from every mountain top, proclaimed
the Jubilee. Then returned every family to its original pos-
sessions. All the more abject degradations of poverty, the
wearing out of families, the hopeless ruin, were obviated by
this great law. The most undone being in the limits of Ju-
dea had still a hold in the land. His ruin could not be final,
perhaps could not extend beyond a few years; in the last
extremity he could not be scorned as one whose birth-right
was extinguished; the Jubilee was to raise him up, and place
the outcast on the early rank of the sons of Israel. All the
higher feelings were cherished by this incomparable hope.
The man conscious of his future possession, retained the
honorable pride of property under the sternest privations.
The time was hurrying on, when he should stand on an
equality with mankind, when his worn spirit should begin
the world again with fresh vigor, if he were young; or when
he should sit under the vine and the fig-tree of his fathers,
if his age refused again to struggle for the distinctions of the
world.
The agrarian laws of Rome and Sparta, feeble efforts to
establish this true foundation of personal and political vigor,
showed at once the natural desire, and the weakness, of
human wisdom. The Roman plunged the people in furious
dissensions, and perished almost in its birth. The Spartan
was secured for a time only by barbarian prohibitions of
money and commerce-a code which raised an iron wall
against civilization, turned the people into a perpetual sol-
diery, and finally, by the mere result of perpetual war, over-
threw liberty, dominion, and name.
The Jubilee was for a peculiar people, restricted by a
divine interposition from increase beyond the original num-
ber. But who shall say how far the same benevolent inter-
position might not have been extended to all nations, if they
had revered the original compact of Heaven with man? how
far through the earth the provisions for each man's wants
might have been secured; the overwhelming superabundance
of beggared and portionless life that fills the world with
crime, have been restrained; and tyranny, that growth of
desperate abjectness of the understanding, and gross cor-
$
•
(
154
SALATHIEL.
ruption of senses, have been repelled by manly knowledge
and native virtue? But the time may come !
·
In the first allotments of the territory, ample domains had
been appointed for the princes and leaders of the tribes.
One of those princedoms now returned to me, and I entered
upon the inheritance of the leaders of Naphtali, a large ex-
tent of hill and valley, rich with corn, olive, and vine. The
antiquity of possession gave a kind of hallowed and monu-
mental interest to the soil. I was master of its wealth; but
I indulged a loftier feeling in the recollection of those who
had trod the palace and the bower before me. Every apart-
ment bore the trace of those whom from boyhood I had re-
verenced; every fountain, every tree was familiar to me from
the strong impressions of infancy; and often when in some
of the fragrant evenings of Spring I have flung myself among
the thick beds of bloom, that spread spontaneously over my
hills, the spirits of the loved and honored seemed to gather
round me. I saw once more the matron gravity, the virgin
grace; even the more remote generations, those great pro-
genitors who with David fought the Philistine; the solemn
chieftains, who with Joshua followed the ark of the covenant
through toil and battle into the promised land; the sainted
sages who witnessed the giving of the law, and in the midst
of the idolatry of the people worshiped Him who spake in
thunder from Sinai; all moved before me, for all had trod
the very ground on which I gazed. Could I transfer myself
back to their time, on that spot I should stand among a living
circle of heroic and glorious beings, before whose true glory
the pomps of earth were vain; the hearers of the prophets,
prophets themselves; the servants of the hand of miracle,
the companions of the friend of God; nay, distinction that
surpasses human thought, themselves the chosen of heaven.
3
The cheering occupations of rural life were to be hence-
forth pursued on a scale more fitting my rank. I was the
first chieftain of my tribe, the man by whose wisdom multi-
tudes were to be guided, and by whose benevolence multi.
tudes were to be sustained. I felt that mingled sense of rank
and responsibility which, with the vain, the ignorant, or the
vicious, is the strongest temptation to excess; but with the
honorable and the educated, constitutes the most pleasurable
and elevated state of the human mind.
Yet what are the fortunes of man, but a ship launched on
an element whose essence is restlessness? The very wind,
without which we cannot move, gathers to a storm, and we
1
+
SALATHIEL.
155
are undone! The tyranny of our conquerors had for a few
months been paralysed by the destruction of Rome. But the
governor of Judea was not to be long withheld, where plun-
der allured the most furious rapacity that perhaps ever hun-
gered in the heart of man. I was in the midst of our har-
vest, surrounded with the fruitage of the year, and enjoying
the sights and sounds of patriarchal life, when I received
the formidable summons to present myself again before Flo-
rus. Imprisonment and torture were in the command. He
had heard of my opulence, and I knew how little his insolent
cupidity would regard the pardon under which I had return-
ed. I determined to retire into the mountains. But the Ro-
man plunderer had the activity of his countrymen.
On the
very night of my receiving the summons, I was roused from
sleep by the outcries of the retainers, who in that season of
heat lay in the open air round the palace. I started from
my bed only to see with astonishment the courtyards filled
with cavalry, galloping in pursuit of the few peasants who
still fought for their lord. There was no time to be lost; the
torches were already in the hands of the soldiery, and I must
be taken, or burnt alive. Constantius was instantly at my
side. I ordered the trumpet to be sounded on the hills, and
we rushed out together, spear in hand. The Romans, alarm-
ed by resistance, where they had counted upon capture with-
out a blow, fell back. The interval was fatal. Their re-
treat was intercepted by the whole body of peasantry, effec-
tually roused. The scythe and reaping-hook were deadly
weapons to horsemen cooped up between walls, and in mid-
night. No efforts of mine could stop the havoc, when once
the fury of my people was roused. A few escaped, who had
broken wildly away in the first onset. The rest were left to
cover the avenues with the first sanguinary offerings of the
final war of Judea.
I felt that this escape could be but temporary; for the
Roman pride and policy never forgave until the slightest
stain of defeat was wiped away. All was consternation in
my family; and the order for departure, whatever tears it
cost, found no opposition. In a few hours our camels and
mules were loaded, our horses caparisoned, and we were
prepared to quit the short-lived pomp of the house of my
fathers. Constantius alone did not appear. This noble
minded being had won even upon me, until I considered
him as the substitute for my lost son, and I would have run
1
Jor M
156
SALATHIEL.
'
1
the last hazard rather than leave him to the Roman mercy.
With the women the interest was expressed by a declared
resolution not to leave the spot until he was found. The
caravan was broken up, and all desire of escape at an end.
At the close of a day of search through every defile of the
country, he was seen returning at the head of some peasants
bearing a body on a litter. I flew to meet him. He was in
deep affliction, and drawing off a mantle which covered the
face, he shewed me Septimius. "In the flight of the Ro-
mans," said he, "I saw a horseman making head against a
I rushed forward to
crowd. His voice caught my ear.
save him, and he burst through the circle at full speed. But
by the light of the torches I could perceive that he was
desperately wounded. When day broke, I tracked him by
his blood. His horse, gashed with scythes, at last fell under
him. I found my unfortunate friend lying senseless beside
a rill, to which he had crept for water.
""
Tears fell from his eyes as he told the brief story. I too
remembered the generous interposition of the youth, and
when I looked upon the paleness of those fine Italian features,
that I had so lately seen lighted up with living spirit, and in
the midst of a scene of regal luxury, I felt a pang for the
uncertainty of human things. But the painful part of the
moral was spared us. The young Roman's wounds were
stanched, and in an enemy and a Roman I found the means
of paying a debt of gratitude. His appearance among the
troops sent to seize me, had been only a result of his anxiety
to save the father of his friends. He had accidentally dis-
covered the nature of the order, and hoped to anticipate its
execution. But he arrived only in time to be involved in the
confusion of the flight. Pursued and wounded by the pea-
santry, he lost his way, and but for the generous perseverance
of Constantius he must have died.
The public information which he brought was of the most
important kind. In the Roman councils, the utter subjuga-
tion of Judea was resolved on. The last spark of national
independence was to be extinguished, though in the blood of
the last native; a Roman colony established in our lands ;
the Roman worship introduced; and Jerusalem profaned by
a statue of Nero, and sacrifices to him as a god, on the altar
of the sanctuary. To crush the resistance of the people,
the legions, to the amount of sixty thousand men, were under
orders from proconsular Asia, Egypt, and Europe. The
Mao!
SALATHIEL.
157

most distinguished captain of the empire, Vespasian, was
called from Britain to the command, and the whole military
strength of Rome was prepared to follow up the blow.
I summoned the chief men of the tribe, and in a general
meeting was invested with the military command. My
temperament was warlike. The seclusion and studies of
my early life had but partially suppressed my natural delight
in the vividness of martial achievement. But the cause that
now summoned me was enough to have kindled the dullest
peasant into the soldier. I had seen the discipline of the
enemy. I had made myself master of their system of war.
Fortifications wherever a stone could be piled upon a hill ;
provisions laid up in large quantities wherever they could be
secure; small bodies of troops, practised in manœuvre, and
perpetually in motion between the fortresses; a general
basis of operations, to which all the movements referred;
were the simple principles that had made them conquerors
of the world. I resolved to give them speedy proof of their
pupilage.
CHAPTER XXIII.
I FELT that insurrection was to be no longer avoided.
Whatever was the consequence, the sword must be un-
sheathed without delay. With Eleazar and Constantius,-I
cast my eyes over the map, and examined on what point the
first blow should fall. The proverbial safety of a multitude
of councillors, was obviously neglected in the smallness of
my council; yet, few as we were, we differed upon every
point but one, that of the certainty of our danger; the
promptitude of Roman vengeance suffered no contest of
opinion.
Eleazar, with a spirit as manly as ever faced hazard, yet
gave his voice for delay.
"The sole hope of success," said he, "must depend on
rousing the popular mind. The Roman troops are not to be
beaten by any regular army in the world. If we attack them
on the ordinary principles of war, the result can only be de-
feat, slaughter in dungeons, and deeper slavery. If the na-
VOL. I.
14

158
SALATHIEL.
tion can be roused, numbers may prevail over discipline;
variety of attacks may distract science; the desperate bold-
ness of the insurgents may at length exhaust the Roman
fortitude; and a glorious peace will then restore the country
to that independence for which my life would be a glad and
ready sacrifice. But you must first have the people with
you, and for that purpose you must have the leaders of the
people-
""
"What!" interrupted I, "must we first mingle in the
cabals of Jerusalem, and rouse the frigid debaters and dis-
puters of the Sanhedrim into action? Are we first to con-
ciliate the irreconcilable, to soften the furious, to purify the
corrupt? If the Romans are to be our tyrants till we can
teach patriotism to faction; we may as well build the dun.
geon at once, for to the dungeon we are consigned for the
longest life among us. Death or glory for me. There is
no alternative between, not merely the half slavery that we
now live in and independence, but between the most con-
dign suffering and the most illustrious security. If the peo-
ple would rise, through the pressure of public injury, they
must have risen long since; if from private violence, what
town, what district, what family, has not its claims of deadly
retribution! Yet here the people stand, after a hundred
years of those continued stimulants to resistance, as unre-
sisting as in the day when Pompey marched over the
threshold of the Temple. I know your generous friendship,
Eleazar, and fear that your anxiety to save me from the
chances of the struggle, may bias your better judgment.
But here I pledge myself, by all that constitutes the honor
of man, to strike at all risks a blow upon the Roman crest
that shall echo through the land. What! commit our holy
cause into the nursing of those pampered hypocrites whose
utter baseness of heart you know still more deeply than I
do? Linger, till those pestilent profligates raise their price
with Florus by betraying a design that will be the glory of
every man who draws a sword in it? vainly, madly, ask a
brood that, like the serpent, engender and fatten among the
ruins of their country, to discard their venom, to cast their
fangs, to feel for human feelings? As well ask the serpent
itself to rise from the original curse. It is the irrevocable
nature of faction to be base, till it can be mischievous; to
lick the dust until it can sting; to creep on its belly until it
can twist its folds round the victim. No! let the old pen.
SALATHIEL.
159
sionaries, the bloated hangers-on in the train of every gov.
ernor, the open sellers of their country for filthy lucre, betray
me when I leave it in their power.
To the field I say;
once and for all, to the field."
My mind was fevered by the perplexity of the time, and
was at no period patient of contradiction. I was about to
leave the chamber, when Constantius gravely stopped me.
My father," said he, with a voice calmer than his coun-
tenance, you have hurt our noble kinsman's feelings. It
is not in an hour when our unanimity may fail, that we
should suffer dissensions between those whose hearts are
alike embarked in this great cause. Let me mediate be-
tween you."
He led Eleazar back from the casement to which he had
withdrawn to cool his blood, burning with the offense of my
language. "Eleazar is right. The Romans are irresistible
by any force short of the whole people. They have the full
military possession of the country. All your fortresses, all
your posts, all your passes; they are as familiar as you are
with every defile, mountain, and marsh; they surround you
with conquered provinces on the north, east, and south
your western barrier is open to them, while it is shut to you;
the sea is the high road of their armies, while at their first
forbidding ou dare not launch a galley between Libanus
and Idumea. Nothing can counterbalance this local supe-
riority but the rising of your whole people."
;
"But are we to intrigue with the talkers in Jerusalem for
this?" interrupted I; "What less than a descended thunder-
bolt could rouse them to a sense, that there is even a Heaven
above them ?"
"Yet we must have them with us," said Constantius,
"for we must have all. Universality is the spirit of an in-
surrectionary war. If I were commander of a revolt, I
should feel greater confidence of success at the head of a
single province, in which every human being from boyhood
upwards was against the enemy, than at the head of an
empire partially in arms.
The mind even of the rudest
spearsman is a great portion of him. The boldest shrinks
from the consciousness that hostility is on all sides, that
whether marching or at rest, watching or sleeping, by night
or by day, enmity concealed or visible is round him; that it
is in the very air he breathes, in the very food he eats, that
he can never feel for a moment secure; that every face he
160
SALATHIEL.
:
sees, is the face of one who wishes him dead ; that every
knife, even every trivial instrument of human use, may be
turned into a shedder of his blood. Those things perpetu-
ally confronting his mind, break it down; he grows reckless,
miserable, undisciplined, and a dastard.'
•
"But," observed Eleazar, "the sufferings of the troops are
seldom allowed to affect the generals. And to men who
have no object but conquest and plunder, the constant rob-
bery of an insurrectionary war, must render it a favorite
command."
"Let me speak from experience," said Constantius: "Two
years ago I was attached with a squadron of galleys to the
expedition against the tribes of Mount Taurus. While the
galleys wintered in Cyprus, I followed the troops up the hills.
No language can describe the discontent even of that most
unmurmuring of all armies, a Roman army. Nothing had
been omitted that could counteract the severity of the season.
Tents, provisions, clothing adapted to the hills, even luxuries
despatched from the islands, gave the camps almost the in-
dulgencies of cities. The physical hardships of the cam-
paign were trivial, compared with those of hundreds, in
which the Romans had beaten regular armies. Yet the dis-
content was indescribable, from the perpetual and unrelaxing
alarms of the service. The mountaineers were not numer-
ous, they were but half armed, disciplined they were not at
all. A Roman centurion would have out-manoeuvred all
their captains. But they were brave, they knew. nothing
but to kill or be killed, and it made no difference to them
whether death did his work by night or by day. Sleep was
scarcely possible. To sit down on a march, was to be level-
led at by a score of arrows; to pursue the archers, was to be
lured into some hollow, where a fragment of the rock above,
or a felled tree was ready to crush the heavy legionaries.
We chased them from hill to hill; we might as well have
chased the vultures and eagles, that duly followed us, with
the perfect certainty of not being disappointed of their meal.
Wherever the enemy showed themselves, they were beaten,
but our victory was totally fruitless. The next turn of the
mountain road was a strong hold from which we had to ex-
pect a new storm of arrows, lances, and fragments of rocks.
The mountaineers always had a retreat. If we drove them
from the pinnacles of the hills, they were in a moment in the
valleys, where we must follow them at the risk of falling
SALATHIEL.
161
down precipices and being swallowed up by torrents, in
which the strongest swimmer in the legions could not live for
a moment. If we drove them from the valleys, we saw them
scaling the mountains as if they wore wings, and scoffing at
our tardy and helpless movements, encumbered as we were
with baggage and armor. We at length forced our way
through the mountain range, and when with the loss of half
the army we had reached their citadel, we found that the
work was to be begun again. To remain where we were,
was to be starved; we had defeated the barbarians, but they
were as unconquered as ever, and our only resource was to
retrace our steps, which we did at the expense of a battle
every morning, noon, evening, and night, with a ruinous loss
of lives, and the total abandonment of every thing in the
shape of baggage. The defeat was of course hushed up;
and according to the old Roman policy, the escape was co-
lored to a victory; I had the honor of carrying back the
general into Italy, where he was decreed an Ovation, a lau-
rel crown, and a crowd of the usual distinctions; but the
triumph belonged to the men of the mountains; and till our
campaign is forgotten, no Roman officer will look for his
laurels in Mount Taurus again."
"Such for ever be the fate of wars against the natural
freedom of the brave," said I: "but the Cilicians had the
advantage of an almost impenetrable country. Three fourths
of Judea are already in the enemy's possession.
""
"No country in which man can exist, can be impenetra
ble to an invading army," was the reply: "Natural defences
are trifling before the vigor and dexterity of man. The true
barrier is in the hearts of the defenders. We were masters
of the whole range.
We could not find a thousand men as-
sembled on any one point. Yet we were not the actual pos-
sessors of a mile of ground beyond the square of our camp.
We never saw a day without an attack, nor ever lay down
at night without the certainty of being started from our sleep
by some fierce attempt at a surprise. It was this perpetual
anxiety that broke the spirits of the troops. All was in hos-
tility to them. They felt that there was not a secure spot
within the horizon. Every man whom they saw, they knew
to be one who either had drawn Roman blood, or who long-
ed in his inmost soul to draw it. They dared not pass by a
single rock without a search for a lurking enemy. Even a
felled tree might conceal some daring savage, who was con-
14*
162
SALATHIEL.
*
tent to die on the Roman spears, after having flung his un.
erring lance among the ranks, or shot an arrow that went
through the thickest corslet. I have seen the boldest of the
legionaries sink on the ground in absolute exhaustion of heart,
with this hopeless and wearying warfare. I have seen men
with muscles as strong as iron, weep like children, through
mere depression. With the harsher spirits, all was execra-
tion and bitterness, even to the verge of mutiny. With the
more generous, all was regret at the waste of honor, mingled
with involuntary admiration of the barbarians who thus defied
the haughty courage and boasted discipline of the conquerors
of mankind. The secret spring of their resistance, was its
universality. Every man was embarked in the common
cause. There was no room for evasion, under cover of a
party disposed to peace: there was no Roman interest among
the people, in which timidity or selfishness could take refuge.
The national cause had not a lukewarm friend: the invaders
had not a dubious enemy. The line was drawn with the
sword, and the cause of national independence triumphed, as
it ought to triumph."
"But we are a people split into as many varieties of opi-
nion, as there are provinces or even villages in Judea,” obser-
ved Eleazar. “The Jew loves to follow the opinions of the
head of his family, the chief man of his tribe, or even of the
priest, who has long exercised an influence over his district.
We have not the slavishness of the Asiatic, but we still
want the personal choice of the European. We must se-
cure the leaders, if we would secure the people."
"Men," said Constantius, "are intrinsically the same in
every climate under heaven. They will all hate hazard,
where nothing but hazard is to be gained. They will all
linger for ages in slavery, where the taskmaster has the
policy to avoid sudden violence; but they will all encounter
the severest trials, where in the hour of injury, they find a
leader, prepared to guide them to honor."
"And to that extent they shall have trial of me,” I ex-
claimed: "Before another Sabbath, I shall make the ex-
periment of my fitness to be the leader of my countrymen.
If I fail, none but myself will suffer: if I succeed, Judea
shall be what she was before the foot of the Italian stained
her sacred territory. But no parleying for me with the do-
tards and slaves of Jerusalem. At the head of my own tribe,
I will march to the city, before the enemy can be aware of
SALATHIEL.
163
my purpose, seize upon the garrison, and from Herod's
palace, from the very chair of the Procurator, will I at once
silence the voice of faction, clamor as it may; and lift the
banner to the tribes of Israel.'
""
Nobly conceived," said Constantius, his countenance
glowing with animation, "blow upon blow is the true tactic
of an insurrectionary war. We must strike at once, sud.
denly and fatally. The sword of him who would triumph in
a revolt, must not merely sound on the enemy's helmet, but
cut through it."
"But to Jerusalem," said Eleazar, "the objections are
palpable. The Roman cohorts fully garrison the castles.
The city would be out of hope of a surprise, would be diffi
cult to capture, and beyond all chance to keep. The whole
force of the legions would be directed upon it; and if the
revolt failed there, it must be without resource in the land.”
room.
"Ever tardy, thwarting, and contradictory," I exclaimed.
"If the Roman sceptre lay under my heel, I should find
Eleazar forbidding me to crush it. My mind is fixed; I will
hear no more. I started from my seat, and paced the
Eleazar approached me: "My brother," said he,
holding out his hand with a forgiving smile, "we must not
differ. I honor your heart, Salathiel; I know your talents;
there is not a man in Judea, whom I should be prouder to
see at the head of its councils. I agree with you, that a
blow should be struck, an instant and a deadly blow; and
now I offer you myself and every man whom I can influ-
ence, to follow you to the last extremity. The only question
is, where the blow is to fall."
$
Constantius had been gazing on the chart of Judea, which
lay between us on the table. "If it be our object,” said
he," to combine injury to the Romans with actual advan-
tage to ourselves, to make a trial where failure cannot be
ruinous, and where success may be of measureless value,
here is the spot." He pointed to Masada.
The fortress of Masada was built by Herod the Great, as
his principal magazine of arms. A gallant and successful
soldier, one of his luxuries was the variety and costliness of
his weapons, and the royal armory of Masada was renowned
throughout Asia. Pride in the possession of such a trophy,
probably aided by some reverence for the memory of the
friend of Cæsar and Anthony, whom the legions still almost
worshiped as tutelar genii, originally saved it from the
164
SALATHIEL.
usual Roman spoliation. But no native foot was permitted
to enter the armory, and mysterious stories of the sights and
sounds of those splendid halls, filled the ears of the people.
Masada was held to be the talisman of the Roman power
over Judea, by more than the people; the belief had made
its way among the legions; and no capture could be a bolder
omen of the war.
*
I still preferred the more direct blow on Jerusalem; and
declaimed on the vital importance in all wars, of seizing on
the capital. But I was controlled. Eleazar's grave wisdom,
and the science of Constantius, deprived me of argument;
and the attack on Masada was finally planned before we left
the chamber. Nothing could be more primitive than our
plan for the siege of the most scientific fortification
in Judea, crowded with men, and furnished with every
implement and machine of war that Roman experience
could supply. Our simple preparations were a few ropes.
for ladders, a few hatchets for cutting down gates and
palisadoes, and a few faggots for setting on fire what we
could. Five hundred of our tribe, who had never thrown a
lance but in hunting, formed our expedition; and, at the
head of those, Constantius, who claimed the exploit by the
right of discovery, was to march at dusk, conceal himself
in the forests during the day, and on the evening of his arri-
val within reach of the fortress, attempt it by surprise. Elea-
zar was, in the mean time, to rouse his retainers, and I
was to await at their head the result of the enterprise, and
if successful, unfurl the standard of Naphtali, and advance
on Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE rest of the memorable day lingered on with a tardi-
ness beyond description. The future pressed on my mind
with an intolerable weight. The criminal who counts the
watches of the night before his execution, has but a faint
image of that fierce and yet pining anxiety, that loathing of
all things unconnected with the one mighty event, yet that
dread of suffering it to dwell upon his mind; the mixture of
SALATHIEL.
165
;
hopelessness and hope, the sickly panting of the heart, the
tenfold and morbid nervousness of every nerve in his frame
which make up the suspense of the conspirator in even the
noblest cause.
When the hour of banquet came, I sat down in the midst
of magnificence, as was the custom of my rank; the table
was filled with guests; all around me was gaiety and pomp;
high-born men, handsome women, richly attired attendants;
plate, the work of Tyrian and Greek artists, in its massive.
beauty; walls covered with tissues; music filling the air
cooled by fountains of perfumed waters. I felt as little of
them, as if I were in the wilderness. The richest wines,
the most delicate fruits, palled on my taste. A heaviness,
an almost Lethean oblivion of all before my eyes, closed up
every feeling; If I had one wish, it was that for the next
forty-eight hours oblivion might amount to insensibility!
At my wife and daughters I ventured but one glance. I
thought that I had never before seen them look so fitted to
adorn their rank, to be the models of grace, loveliness, and
honor to society; and the thought smote my heart in the
midst of my contemplation!-How soon all this may be
changed! Will another sunset find those lovely and beloved
beings here? May they not be fugitives and beggars
through the land, or, worse a thousand times, be in the power
of the Roman? And this is my doing. Here sit I, in the
midst of this innocent and happy circle, drawing ruin upon
their heads, and writing with a cloudy hand the sentence of
subversion upon these joyous walls. Here sit I, like the
tempter in paradise-to involve in my own destruction all
that is pure and peaceful, and confiding and happy! With
what terror would they look upon me, if they could at this
instant see the evils that I am summoning round them!—
"if they could read but my bosom-
""
My eyes sought Constantius; he had just returned from
his preparations, and came in glowing with the enthusiasm
of the soldier. He sat down beside Salome, and his cheek
gradually turned of the hue of death. He sat, like myself,
absorbed in frequent reverie; and to the playful solicitations
of Salome, that he would indulge in the table after his
fatigue, he gave forced smiles and broken answers. The
future was plainly busy with us both with all that the heart
of man could love beside him, he felt the pang of contrast;
and, when on accidentally lifting his eyes they met mine, the
166
SALATHIEL.
single conscious look interchanged, told the bitter perturba.
tion that preyed on both in the heart's core.
*
I soon rose; and, under pretense of having letters to
despatch to our friends in Rome, retired to my chamber.
There lay the chart still on the table, marked by the pencil
lines of the route to Masada. Heavens! with what breath-
lessness I traced every point and bearing of it! How ea-
gerly I pursued the mountain paths in which the movement
might be concealed! how anxiously I marked the spaces of
open country in which it must be exposed to the Roman eye!
But the chart itself! There, within a space over which I
could stretch my arm, was my world! In that little bound-
ary was I to struggle against the supremacy that covered the
earth! Those fairy hills, those scarcely visible rivers, those
remote cities, dots of human habitation, were to be hence-
forth the places of siege and battle, memorable for the de-
struction of human life; engrossing every energy of the
mind and frame of myself and my countrymen; and big
with the fates of generations on generations!
•
It was dusk; and I was still devouring with my eyes this
chart of prophecy, when Constantius entered. "I have
come," said he, gravely, "to bid you farewell for the night.
In two days I hope we shall all meet again."
"No, my brave son," I interrupted.
each other to-night.'
""
"We do not leave
He looked surprised. "I must be gone this instant. Ele-
azar has done his part with the activity of his honest and
manly mind. Two miles off, in the valley under the date-
grove, I have left five hundred of the finest fellows that ever
sat a charger. In half an hour Sirius rises; then we go,
and then let the governor of Masada look to it. Farewell,
and wish me good fortune."
"May every angel that protects the righteous cause hover
above your head!" I exclaimed; "but, no farewell; for we
go together.
""
"Do you doubt my conduct of the enterprise ?" pro-
nounced he, strongly. ""Tis true I have been in the Ro.
man service. But that service I hated from the bottom of
my
soul. I was a Greek; and bound to Rome no longer
than she could hold me in her chain. If I could have had
men to follow me, I should have done in Cyprus what I now
do in Judea. The countryman of Leonidas, Cimon, and
Timoleon, was not born to hug his slavery. I am now a
1
SALATHIEL.
167
son of Judea; to her my affections have been transplanted,
and to her, if she does not reject me, shall my means and
my life be given !”
He relaxed the belt from his waist, and flung it with his
scimetar on the ground. I lifted it, and gave it again to his
hand,
"No, Constantius," I replied. "I honor your zeal, and
would confide in you, if the world hung upon the balance.
But I cannot bear the thought of lingering here, while you
are in the field. The misery of, suspense is intolerable.
My mind, within those few hours, has been on the rack. I
must take the chances with you.'
"Your
"It is utterly impossible," was his firm answer.
absence would excite instant suspicion. The Roman spies
are everywhere. The natural result follows, that our march
would be intercepted; and I am not sure, but that even now
we may be too late. That inconceivable sagacity by which
the Romans seem to be master of every man's secret, has
been already at work; troops were seen on the route to Ma-
sada this very day. Our horses may get before them; but
if the garrison be reinforced, the expedition is undone. But
a still more immediate result would be the destruction of all
here. Let it be known that the prince of Naphtali has left
his palace, and the dozen squadrons of Thracian horse which
I saw within those four days at Tiberias, will be riding through
your domains before the next sunset.
""
This reflection checked me. “Well then,” said I, “go,
and the protection of Him whose pillar of cloud led his peo-
ple through the sea and through the desert, be your shelter
and your light in the day of peril!"
I pressed his hand; he turned to depart, but came back;
and, after a slight hesitation, said "If Salome had once
offended her noble father by her flight, the offense was mine.
Forgive her; for her heart is still the heart of your child.
She loves you. If I fall, let the memory of our disobedience
lie in my grave!"-His voice stopped, and mine could not
break the silence.
"Tell
"Let what will come," resumed he, with an effort.
Salome, that the last word on my lips was her beloved name!"
He left the chamber, and I felt as if a portion of my being
had gone forth from me.
This day was one of the many festivals of our country,
and my halls echoed with sounds of enjoyment. The im,
168
SALATHIEL.
mense gardens glittered with illumination in all the graceful
devices, of which our people were such masters; and when
I looked out for the path of Constantius, I was absolutely
pained by the sight of so much fantastic pleasure, while my
hero was pursuing his way through darkness and solitude.
At length the festival was over. The lights twinkled
thinner among the arbors, the sounds of glad voices sank,
and I saw from my casement the evidence of departure in
the trains of torches that moved up the surrounding hills.
The sight of a starlight sky has always been to me among
the softest and surest healers of the heart; and I gazed upon
that mighty scene which throws all human cares into such
littleness, until my composure returned.
The last of the guests had left the palace before I ven-
tured to descend. The vases of perfumes still breathed in
the hall of the evening banquet; the alabaster lamps were
still burning; but, excepting the attendants who waited on
my steps at a distance, and whose figures might have been
taken for statues, there was not a living being near me of
the laughing and joyous crowd that had so lately glittered,
danced, sported, and smiled, within those sumptuous walls.
Yet what was this but a picture of the common rotation of
life? Or, by a yet more immediate moral, what was it but
a picture of the desertion that might be coming upon me and
mine?
I sat down to extinguish my sullen philosophy in wine.
But no draught that ever passed the lips could extinguish
the low fever that brooded on my spirit. I dreaded that the
presence of my family might force out my heavy secret, and
lingered, with my eyes gazing without sight, on the costly
covering of the board.
A sound of music from an inner hall, to which Miriam and
her daughters had retired, aroused me. I stood at the door,
gazing on the group within. The music was a hymn, with
which they closed the customary devotions of the day. But
there was something in its sound to me that I had never felt
before. At the moment when those sweet voices were pour-
ing out the gratitude of hearts as innocent and glowing as
the hearts of angels, a scene of horror might be acting.
The husband of Salome might be struggling under the Ro-
man swords; he might be lying a corpse under the feet of
the cavalry, that before morn might bring the news of his
SALATHIEL.
169
destruction in the flames that startled us from our sleep, and
the swords that pierced our bosoms.
And what beings were those thus appointed for the sacri-
fice? The lapse of even a few years had perfected the na-
tural beauty of my daughters. Salome's sparkling eye was
more brilliant; her graceful form was moulded into more
easy elegance; and her laughing lip was wreathed with a
more playful smile. Never did I see a creature of deeper
witchery. My Esther, my noble and dear Esther, who was,
perhaps, the dearer to me from her inheriting a tinge of my
melancholy, yet a melancholy exalted by genius and ardor
of soul into a charm, was this night the leader of the song of
holiness. Her large uplifted eye glowed with the brightness
of one of the stars on which it was fixed. Her hands fell
on the harp in almost the attitude of prayer; and the expres
sion of her lofty and intellectual countenance, crimsoned
with the theme, told of a communion with thoughts and
beings above mortality. The hymn was done; the voices
had ceased; yet the inspiration still burned in her soul: her
hands still shook from the chords harmonies, sweet, but of
the wildest and boldest brilliancy; bursts and flights of sound,
like the rushing of the distant waterfall at night, or the so-
lemn echoes and mighty complainings of the forest in the
first swell of the storm. Miriam and Salome sat beholding
her in silent admiration and love.
The magnificent dress of the Jewish female could not
heighten the power of such beauty. But it filled up the pic-
ture. The jeweled tiaras, the embroidered shawls, the high-
wrought and massive armlets, the silken robes and sashes
fringed with pearl and diamond, the profusion of dazzling
ornament that makes the Oriental costume to this day, were
the true habits of the forms that then sat unconscious of the
delighted yet anxious eye that drank in the joy of their pre-
sence. I saw before me the pomp of princedoms, investing
forms worthy of thrones.
My entrance broke off the harper's spell, and I found it
a hard task to answer the fond inquiries and touching con-
gratulations that flowed upon me. But the hour waned, and
was again left alone for the few minutes which it was my
custom to give to meditation before I retired to rest. I threw
open the low door that opened into a garden thick with the
Persian rose, and filling the air with cool fragrance. At my
first glance upwards I saw Sirius; he was on the verge of
VOL. I.
15
i
170
SALATHIEL.
the horizon! The thoughts of the day again gathered over
my soul. I idly combined the fate of Constantius with the
decline of the star that he had taken for his signal. My
senses lost their truth, or contributed to deceive me. I fan-
cied that I heard sounds of conflict; the echo of horses' feet
rang in my ears. A meteor that slowly sailed across the
sky struck me as a supernatural summons. My brain, fear-
fully excitable since my great misfortune, at length kindled
up such strong realities, that I found myself on the point of
betraying the burden of my spirit by some palpable dis-
closure.
Twice had I reached the door of Miriam's chamber, to tell
her my whole perplexity. But I heard the voice of her
attendants within, and again shrank from the tale. I ranged
the long galleries, perplexed with capricious and strange tor-
ments of the imagination.
"If he should fall," said I, "how shall I atone for the
cruelty of sending him upon a service of such hopeless ha-
zard-a few peasants with naked breasts against Roman
battlements! What soldier would not ridicule my folly in
hoping success? What man would not charge me with scorn
of the life of my kindred? The blood of my tribe will be
upon my head forever. The base will take advantage of
The brave
their fate to degrade my name with the nation.
will disdain him who sent others to the peril which he dared
not share. There sinks the prince of Naphtali! In the
grave of my gallant son and his companions is buried my
dream of martial honor; the sword that strikes him cuts to
the ground my lost ambition of delivering my country.
The advice of Constantius returned to my mind, but, like
the meeting of two tides, it was only to increase the tumult
within. I felt the floor shake under my hurried tread. I
smote my forehead, it was covered with drops of agony.
The voices within my wife's chamber had ceased. But was
I to rouse her from her sleep, perhaps the last quiet sleep that
she was ever to take, only to hear intelligence that must
make her. miserable?
This reflection let in upon me a new flood of anxieties.
"If misfortune should come, with what face shall I ever be
able to look upon my family, upon the daughter that I have
widowed, upon the wife, upon the child, whose sorrow, even
whose silence will torture me? And how long must I keep
my secret? For four days! while I am scarcely able to
bear its suspense for an hour."
SALATHIEL.
171
I leaned my throbbing forehead upon one of the marble
tables, as if to imbibe coolness from the stone. I felt a light
hand upon mine. Miriam stood beside me. "Salathiel!"
pronounced she in an unshaken voice. "There is some-
thing painful on your mind. Whether it be only a duty on
your part to disclose it to me, I shall not say. But if you
think me fit to share your happier hours, must I have the
humiliation of feeling that I am to be excluded from your
confidence, in the day when those hours may be darkened ?"
I was silent, for to speak was beyond my strength, but I
pressed her delicate fingers to my bosom.
"Misfortune, my dear husband," resumed she, "is trivial,
but when it reaches the mind. Oh, rather let me encounter
it in the bitterest privations of poverty and exile; rather let
mé be a nameless outcast to the latest year I have to live,
than feel the bitterness of being forgotten by the heart to
which, come life or death, mine is bound for ever and ever."
I glanced up at her. Tears dropped on her cheeks; but
her voice was firm. "I have observed you," said she, “in
deep agitation during the day : but I forbore to press you for
the cause. I have listened now, till long past midnight, to
the sound of your feet, to the sound of groans and pangs
wrung from your bosom; nay, to exclamations, and broken
sentences, which have let me most involuntarily into the
knowledge that this disturbance arises from the state of our
country. I know your noble nature, Salathiel; and I say to
you, in this solemn and sacred hour of danger, follow the
guidance of that noble nature."
(c
I cast my arms about her neck, and imprinted a kiss as
true as ever came from human love upon her lips. She had
taken a weight from my soul. I detailed the whole design
to her. She listened with many a change from red to pale,
and many a tremor of the white hand that lay in mine.
When I ceased, the woman in her broke forth in tears and
sighs. Yet," said she, "you must go. Perish the thought,
that for the selfish desire of looking even upon you in safety
here, I should hazard the dearer honor of my lord. It is
right that Judea should make the attempt to shake off her
tyranny. It is wise to lose not a moment, when the attempt is
fully resolved on. You must be the leader, and you must
purchase that incomparable distinction, by showing that you
possess the qualities of a leader. The people can never be
deceived in their own cause. Kings and courts may be
172
SALATHIEL.
deluded into the choice of incapacity; but the man whom
a people will follow from their firesides to the field, must
bear the palpable stamp of wisdom, energy, and valor."
"Admirable being ?" I exclaimed, "worthy to be honored
while Israel has a name. Then, I have your consent to fol-
low Constantius. By speed I may reach him, before he can
have arrived at the object of the enterprise. Farewell, my
best beloved-farewell." She fell into my arms in a passion
of tears.
She at length recovered, and said, "This is weakness, the
mere weakness of surprise. Yes; go, Prince of Naphtali.
No man must take the glory from you. Constantius is a
hero; but you must be a king, and more than a king; not
the struggler for the baubles of royalty, but for the glories of
the rescuer of the people of God. The first blow of the
war must not be given by another, dear as he is. The first
triumph, the whole triumph, must be my lord's." She knelt
down, and poured out her soul to Heaven in eloquent suppli-
cation for my safety. I listened in homage. "Now go,"
sighed she, "and remember, in the day of battle, who will
then be in prayer for you. Court no unnecessary peril; for
if you perish, which of us would desire to live!" She again
sank upon her knees; and I in reverent silence descended
from the gallery.
CHAPTER XXV.
My preparations were quickly made. I divested myself
of my robes, led out my favorite barb, flung an alhaik over
my shoulders, and by the help of my Arab turban might
have passed for a courier or a plunderer in any corner of
Syria. This was done unseen of any eye; for the crowd
of attendants that thronged the palace in the day, were now
stretched through the courts, or on the terraces, fast asleep,
under the doubled influence of a day of feasting, and a night
of tepid summer air.
I rode without stopping, till the sun began to throw up his
yellow rays through the vapours of the lake of Tiberias.
To ascertain alike the progress of Constantius, and the
SALATHIEL.
173
chances of meeting with some of those Roman squadrons
which were perpetually moving between the fortresses, I
struck off the road into a forest, tied my barb to a tree, and
set forth to reconnoitre.
Travelling on foot was the common mode of a country
which, like Judea, was but little fitted for the breed of horses;
and I found no want of companions. Pedlars, peasants, dis-
banded soldiers, and probably thieves, deversified my know-
ledge of mankind within a few miles. I escaped under the
sneer of the soldier, and the compassion of the peasant. The
first glance at my wardrobe satisfied the robber that I was
not worth the exercise of his profession, or perhaps that I
was a brother of the trade. But I found none of the repul-
siveness that makes the intercourse of higher life so unpro-
ductive. Confidence was on every tongue. All the secrets
of their families were at my disposal; and I discovered, even
in the sandy roads of Palestine, that to be a judicious listener,
is one of the first talents for popularity all over the world.
But, of my peculiar objects I could learn nothing, though
every man whom I met had some story of the Romans. I
ascertained to my surprise, that the intelligence which Sep-
tinius brought from the very penetralia of the imperial cabi-
net, was known to the multitude. Every voice of the popu-
lace was full of a tale, which probably was reckoned among
the profoundest secrets of the state. I have made the same
observation in later eras, and found even in the most formal
mysteries of the most frowning governments, the rumor of
the streets outrun the cabinets. So it must be, while diplo-
matists have tongues, and while women and domestics have
curiosity,
But if I were to rely on the accuracy of those willing poli-
ticians, the cause of independence was without hope. Hu-
man nature loves to make itself important; and the narrator
of the marvellous is always great, according to the distention
of his news. Those who had seen a cohort, invariably mag-
nified it into a legion ; a troop of cavalry covered half a pro-
vince; and the detachment marching from Asia Minor and
Egypt for our invasion, were reckoned by the very largest
numeration within the teller's capacity.
As I was sitting by a rivulet moistening some of the com-
mon bread of the country which I had brought to aid my
disguise; I entered into conversation with one of those un
housed exiles of society, whom at the first glance we discern
15*
174
SALATHIEL.
į
to be nature's commoners, indebted to no man for food, rai-
ment, or habitation, the native dweller on the road. He had
some of the habitual jest of those who have no care;
and
congratulated me on the size of my table, the meadow; and
the unadulterated purity of my potation, the brook. He in-
formed me that he came direct from the Nile, where he had
seen the son of Vespasian at the head of a hundred thousand
men. A Syrian soldier, returning to Damascus, who joined
our meal, felt indignant at the discredit thus thrown on a gene-
ral, under whom he had received three pike wounds, and leave
to beg his way home. He swore by Ashtaroth, that the force
under Titus was at least twice the number. A third wan-
derer, a Roman veteran, of whom the remainder was covered
´over with glorious patches, arrived just in time to relieve his
general from the disgrace of so limited a command, and
another hundred thousand was instantly put under his orders;
sanctioned by asseverations in the name of Jupiter Capito-
linus, and as many others of the calender as the patriot
could pronounce. This rapid recruiting threw the former
authorities into the back-ground; and the old legionary was,
for the rest of the meal, the undisputed leader of the conver-
sation.
"To suppose," said the veteran, "that those circumcised
dogs can stand against the regular-bred Roman general, is
sacrilege. Half his army, or a tenth of his army, would
walk through the land, north and south, east and west, as
easy as I could walk through this brook."
"No doubt of it," said the Syrian, "if they had some of
our cavalry for flanking and foraging."
"Aye, for any thing but fighting, comrade," said the Ro-
man with a laugh.
(6
"No; you leave out another capital quality," observed the
beggar; none can deny, that whoever may be first in the
advance, the Syrians will be first in the retreat. There are
two manœuvres to make a complete soldier-hów to get into
battle, and how to get out of it. Now the Syrians manage
the latter in the most undoubted perfection.
"Silence, villain," exclaimed the Syrian, "or you have
robbed your last hen-roost.
""
"He says nothing but the truth for all that," interrupted
the veteran. "But neither of us taxed your cavalry with
cowardice. No; it was pure virtue. They had too much
modesty to take the way into the field before other troops;
1
SALATHIEL.
175
and too much humanity not to teach them how to sleep with-
out broken bones."
The beggar delighted at the prospect of a quarrel, gave
the assent that more embroils the fray..
"Mark Anthony did not say so," murmured the indignant
Syrian.
"Mark Anthony !" cried the Roman, starting upon his
single leg, glory to his name; but what could a fellow like
you know about Mark Anthony ??"
"I only served with him," drily replied the Syrian.
66
"Then here's my hand for you," exclaimed the brave old
man; we are comrades. I would love even a dog that had
seen the face of Mark Anthony. He was the first man that
I ever carried buckler under. There was a soldier for you;
such men are not made in this puling age. He could fight
from morn till night, and carouse from night till morn, and
never loose his seat on his charger in the field for the day
after. I have seen him run half naked through the snows
in Armenia, and walk in armor in the hottest day of Egypt.
He loved the soldier, and the soldier loved him. So, com-
rade, here's to the health of Mark Authony. Ah, we shall
never see such men again.”
He drew out a flask of ration wine, closely akin to vinegar,
of which he hospitably gave us each a cup; and after pour-
ing a libation to his hero's memory, whom he evidently pla-
ced among the gods, swallowed the draught in which we
devoutly followed his example.
Yet," said the beggar, "if Anthony were a great man,
he had left little men enough behind him. There's for in-
stance, the present gay procurator; six months in the gout,
the other six months drunk, or if sober, only thinking where
he can rob next. This will bring the government into
trouble before long, or I'm much mistaken. For my part,
I pledge myself, if he should take any part of my property
""
"Why if he did," said the Syrian, "I give him credit
for magic. He would find a crop of wheat in the sand, or
coin money of the air. Where is your property?"
"Comrade," said the veteran laughing, "recollect; if the
saying be true, that people are least to be judged of by the
ouside, the rags of our jovial friend must hide many a shekel;
and, as to where his property lies, he has a wide estate who
176
SALATHIEL.
42.
has the world for his portion; and property enough, who
thinks all his own that he can lay his fingers on.'
The laugh was now loud against the beggar. He how-
ever bore all like one accustomed to the buffets of fortune; and,
joining in it, aid, "Whatever may be my talents in that way,
there is no great chance of showing them in this company;
but if you should be present at the sack of Masada, and I
should meet you on your way back—"
(C
"Masada!" exclaimed I instinctively.
Yes, I left the town three days ago. On the very morn-
ing an order arrived to prepare for the coming of the great
and good Florus, who in his wisdom, feeling the want of gold,
has determined to fill up the hollows of the military chest.
and his own purse, by stripping the armory of every thing
that can sell for money. My intelligence is from the best
authority. The governor's principal bath-slave told it to one
of the damsels of the steward's department, with whom the
Ethiopian is mortally in love; and the damsel, in a moment
of tenderness, told it to me. In fact, to let you into my se-
cret, I am now looking out for Florus, in whose train I in-
tend to make my way back into this gold mine."
“The villain!” cried the veteran, "disturb the arms of
the dead! Why, they say it has the very corslet and buck-
ler that Mark Anthony wore when he marched against the
Idumeans."
“I fear more the disturbance of the arms of the living,"
said the Syrian. "The Jews will take it for granted that
the Romans are giving up the business in despair; and if I'm
a true man, there will be blood before I get home.'
(6
"No fear of that, fellow soldier," said the veteran, gaily ;
you have kept your two legs, and when they have so long
carried you out of harm's way, it would be the worst treat-
ment possible to leave you in it at last. But there is some-
thing in what you say. I had a dream last night. I thought
I saw the country in a blaze, and when I started from my
sleep my ears filled with the sound like the trampling of ten
thousand cavalry,"
I drew my breath quick; and, to conceal my emotion,
gathered up the fragments of our meal. On completing
my work, I found the beggar's eye fixed on me :-he
smiled.
"I too had a dream last night," said he, "and of much
the same kind. I thought that I saw a cloud of cavalry rid-
•
SALATHIEL.
177
ing as fast as horse could lay hoof to the ground; I never
saw a more dashing set, since my first campaign upon the
highways of this wicked world. I'll be sworn that, whatever
their errand may be, such riders will not come back without
it. Their horses heads were turned toward Masada, and I
am now between two minds whether I may not mention my
dream to the procurator himself."
I found his keen eye turned on me again.
said I.
"Absurd "!
"He would recommend you only to his lictor."
"I rather think he would recommend me to his treasurer,
for I never had a dream that seemed so like a fact. I should
not be surprised to find that I had been sleeping with my
eyes open.
""
His look convinced me that I was known. I touched his
hand, while the soldiers were busy packing up their cups,
and showed him gold. He smiled carelessly. I laid my
hand on my poniard; but he smiled again.
"The sun is burning out," said he, "and I can stand talk.
ing here no longer. Farewell, brave soldiers, and safe
home to you! Farewell, Arab, and safe home to those that
you are looking after!" He stalked away, and as he passed
me, said in a low voice, "Glory to Naphtali !"
After exchanging good wishes with the old men, I fol-
lowed him; he led the way toward the wood at a pace which
kept me at a distance. When I reached the shade he
stopped, and prostrated himself before me.
"Will my lord," said he, "forgive the presumption of his
servant? This day, when I first met you, your disguise de-
ceived me. I bear intelligence from your friends." I
caught the fragment of papyrus from him, and read :—“ All's
well. We have hithertò met with nothing to oppose us.
To morrow night we shall be on the ground. If no addition
be made to the force within, the surprise will be complete.
Our cause itself is victory. Health to all we love!"
"Your mission is now done," said I, "Go on to Naph-
tali, and you shall be rewarded as your activity has deserved.'
✓
No," replied he, with the easy air of a licensed humor-
ist, "I have but two things to think of in this world-my
time and my money; of one of them I have infinitely more
than I well know how to spend; and of the other infinitely
less. I expected to have killed a few days in going up to
Naphtali. But that hope has been cut off by my finding
178
SALATHIEL.
you half way.
I will now try Florus, and get rid of a day
or two with that most worthy of men."
"That I forbid," interrupted I.
"Not, if you will trust one whom your noble son has
trusted. I am not altogether without some dislike to the
Romans myself, nor something between contempt and hatred
for Gessius Florus." His countenance darkened at the
name. ."I tell you," pronounced he bitterly, " that fellow's
pampered carcass this day contains as black a mass of vil-
lany as stains the earth. I have an old account to settle
with him." His voice swelled. "I was once no rambler,
no outcast of the land. I lived on the side of Hermon,
lovely Hermon! I was affianced to a maiden of my kin-
dred, as sweet a flower as ever blushed with love and joy.
Our bridal day was fixed. I went to Cæsarea-Philippi, to
purchase some marriage presents. When I returned, I
found nothing but women weeping, and men furious with
impotent rage. My bride was gone. A Roman troop had
surrounded her father's house in the night, and torn her
away. Wild, distracted, nay, I believe raving mad, I
searched the land. I kept life in me only that I might reco.
ver or revenge her. I abandoned property, friends, all! I
at length made the discovery." To hide his perturbation, he
turned away. "Powers of justice and vengeance, are there
no thunders for such things? She had been seen by that
hoary profligate. She was carried off by him. She spurned
his insults. He ordered her to be chained, to be starved, to
be lashed." Tears burst from his eyes." She still spurned
him. She implored to die. She called upon my name in
her misery.-Wretch that I was, what could I, a worm,
do
under the heel of the tyrant ?-But I saw her at last ;-I
made my way into the dungeon. There sat she, pale as the
stone to which she was chained; a silent, sightless, blood-
less, mindless skeleton. I called to her; she knew nothing.
I pressed my lips to hers: she never felt them. I bathed her
cold hands in my tears. I fell at her feet. I prayed to her but
to pronounce one word; to give some sign of remembrance;
to look on me. She sat like a statue; her reason was gone,
gone for ever!"
•
He flung himself upon the ground, and writhed and
groaned before me: To turn him from a subject of such
sorrow, I asked what he meant to do by his intercourse with
Florus,
SALATHIEL.
179
To do? not to stab him in his bed; not to poison him in
his banquet; not to smite him with that speedy death which
would be mercy;-no, but to force him into ruin step by
step; to gather shame, remorse, and anguish round him,
cloud on cloud; to mix evil in his cup with such exquisite
slowness, that he shall taste every drop; to strike him only
so far, that he may feel the pang without being stunned; to
mingle so much of hope in his undoing, that he may never
enjoy the vigor of despair; to sink him into his own Tarta-
rus inch by inch, till every fibre has its particular agony.
He yelled, suddenly rose from the ground, and rushed for-
ward and threaded the thickets with swiftness that made
pursuit in vain.
""
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE violence of the beggar's anguish, and the strong pro-
babilities of his story engrossed me so much, that I at first
regretted the extraordinary flight, which put it out of my
power to offer him any assistance. I returned with a feel-
ing of disappointment to the spot where I had left my horse,
and was riding toward the higher country to avoid the
enemy's straggling parties, when I heard a loud outcry. On
a crag so distant, that I thought human speed could scarcely
have reached it in the time, I saw this strange being making
all kinds of signals, sometimes pointing to me, then to some
object below him; and uttering a cry which might easily
be mistaken for the howl of a wild beast.
I reined up; it was impossible for me to ascertain whether
he was warning me of the neighborhood of danger, or ap-
prising others of my approach; or even, from the nature of
his cries, preparing me for an assault by a troop of panthers.
Great stakes make man suspicious, and the prince of Naph-
tali, speeding to the capture of the principal place of arms
of the legions, might be an object well worth a little treach-
ery. I rapidly forgot the beggar's sorrows in the conside-
ration of his habits; decided that his harangue was a piece
of professional dexterity, probably played off every week of
his life; and that if I would not be in Roman hands before
م
180
SALATHIEL.
night, I must ride in the precisely opposite direction to that
which his signals so laboriously recommended.
Nothing grows with more vigor than the doubt of human
honesty. I satisfied myself in a few moments that I was a
dupe; dashed through thicket, over rock, forded torrent,
and, from the top of an acclivity at which even my high-
mettled steed had looked with repugnance, saw, with the
triumph of him who deceives the deceiver, the increased
violence of the impostor's attitudes. He leaped from crag
to crag with the activity of a goat; and when he could do
nothing else, gave the last evidence of Oriental vexation by
tearing his robes. I waved my hand to him in contemp-
tuous farewell; and dismounting, for the side of the hill was
almost precipitous, led my panting Arab through beds of
myrtle, and every lovely and sweet-smelling bloom, to the
edge of a valley, that seemed made to shut out every dis-
turbance of man.
A circle of low hills, covered to the crown with foliage,
surrounded a deep space of velvet turf, kept green as the
emerald by the flow of rivulets, and the moisture of a pellu-
cid lake in the centre, tinged with every color of the heavens.
The beauty of this sylvan spot was enhanced by the luxu-
riant profusion of almond, orange, and other trees, that in
every stage of production, from the bud to the fruit, covered
the little knolls below, and formed a broad belt round the
lake.
Parched as I was by the intolerable thirst, this secluded
haunt of the very spirit of freshness looked doubly lovely.
My eyes, half blinded by the glare of the sands, and even
my mind, exhausted by the perplexities of the day, found
delicious relaxation in the verdure and dewy breath of the
silent valley. My barb, with the quick sense of animals
accustomed to the travel of the wilderness, showed her de-
light by playful boundings, the prouder arching of her neck,
and the brighter glancing of her bright eye.
"Here," thought I, as I led her slowly toward the steep
descent, "would be the very spot for the innocence that
had not tried the world, or the philosophy that had tried it,
and found all vanity. Who could dream that, within the
borders of this distracted land, in the very hearing, almost
within the very sight of the last miseries that man can inflict
on man, there was a retreat, which the foot of man perhaps
1

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181
never yet defiled; and in which the calamities that afflict
society might be as little felt as if it were among the stars!"
A violent plunge of the barb put an end to my specula-
tion. She exhibited the wildest signs of terror, snorted,
and strove to break from me; then fixing her glance keenly
on the thickets below, shook in every limb. But the scene
was tranquillity itself; the chameleon lay basking in the sun,
and the only sound was that of the wild doves murmuring
under the broad leaves of the palm-trees.
But my mare still resisted every effort to lead her down.
wards, her ears were fluttering convulsively, her eyes were
starting from their sockets; I grew peevish at the animal's
unusual obstinacy, and was about to let her suffer thirst for
the day, when my senses were paralyzed by a tremendous
roar. A lion stood on the summit which I had but just
quitted. He was not a dozen yards above my head, and his
first spring must have carried me to the bottom of the preci-
pice. The barb burst away at once. I drew the only
weapon I had, a dagger,—and, hopeless as escape was,
grasping the tangled weeds to sustain my footing, awaited
the plunge. But the lordly savage probably disdained so
ignoble a prey, and continued on the summit, lashing his
sides with his tail, and tearing up the ground. He at length
stopped suddenly, listened, as to some approaching foot, and
then with a hideous yell, sprang over me, and was in the
thicket below at a single bound.
The whole thicket was instantly alive; the shade which I
had fixed on for the seat of unearthly tranquillity, was an old
haunt of lions, and the mighty herd were now roused from
their noon-day slumbers. Nothing could be grander or
more terrible than this disturbed majesty of the forest kings.
In every variety of savage passion, from terror to fury, they
plunged, and tore, and yelled; darted through the lake,
burst through the thicket, rushed up the hills, or stood bay-
ing and roaring in defiance against the coming invader; the
numbers were immense, for the rareness of shade and water
had gathered them from every quarter of the desert.
While I stood clinging to my perilous hold, and fearful of
attracting their gaze by the slightest movement, the source
of the commotion appeared in the shape of a Roman soldier
issuing, spear in hand, through a ravine at the farther side
of the valley. He was palpably unconscious of the formi
dable place into which he was entering, and the gallant
VOL. I.
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clamor of voices through the hills, showed that he was fol-
lowed by others as bold and unconscious of their danger as
himself.
But his career soon closed; his horse's feet had scarcely
touched the turf, when a lion was fixed with fangs and claws
on the creature's loins. The rider uttered a cry of horror,
and for the instant sat, helplessly gazing at the open jaws
behind him. I saw the lion gathering up his flanks for a
second bound, but the soldier, a figure of gigantic strength,
grasping the nostrils of the monster with one hand, and, with
the other shortening his spear, drove the steel at one resist-
less thrust into the lion's forehead. Horse, lion, and rider
fell, and continued struggling together.
In the next moment, a mass of cavalry came thundering
down the ravine. They had broken off from their march,
through the accident of rousing a straggling lion, and fol-
lowed him in the giddy ardor of the chase. The sight now
before them was enough to appal the boldest intrepidity.
The valley was filled with the vast herd; retreat was impos-
sible, for the troopers came still pouring in by the only pass,
and, from the sudden descent of the glen, horse and man
were rolled head foremost among the lions; neither man nor
monster could retreat. The conflict was horrible the heavy
spears of the legionaries plunged through bone and brain;
the lions, made more furious by wounds, sprang upon the
powerful horses and tore them to the ground, or flew at the
trooper's throats, and crushed and dragged away cuirass and
buckler. The valley was a struggling heap of human and
savage battle; man, lion, and charger, writhing and rolling
in agonies, until their forms were undistinguishable. The
groans and cries of the legionaries, the screams of the man-
gled horses, and the roars and howlings of the lions bleeding
with sword and spear, tearing the dead, darting up the sides
of the hills in terror, and rushing down again with the fresh
thirst of gore, baffled all conception of fury and horror.
But man was the conqueror at last; the savages, scared
by the spear, and thinned in their numbers, made a rush in
one body toward the ravine, overthrew every thing in their
way, and burst from the valley, awaking the desert for many
a league with their roar.
The troopers bitterly repenting their rash exploit, gathered
up the remnants of their dead on litters of boughs, and, leav-
SALATHIEL.
183
ing many a gallant steed to feast the vultures, slowly retired
from the place of carnage..
The spot to which I clung, made ascent or descent equally
difficult; and during this extraordinary contest I continued
imbedded in the foliage, and glad to escape the eye of man
and brute alike. But the troop were gone; beneath me lay
nothing but a scene of blood, and I began to wind my way
to the summit. A menace from below stopped me. A soli.
tary horseman had galloped back to give a last look to this
valley of death; he saw me climbing the hill, saw that I was
not a Roman, and, in the irritation of the hour, made no
scruple of sacrificing a native to the manes of his comrades.
The spear followed his words, and ploughed the ground at
my side. His outcry brought back a dozen of his squadron ;
I found myself about to be assailed by a general discharge,
escape on foot was impossible, and I had no resource but to
descend and give myself up to the soldiery.
It was to warn me of this hazard that the signals of my
strange companion were made. He saw the advance of the
Roman column along the plain. My suspicions of his hon-
esty drove me directly into their road, and the chance of
turning down the valley scarcely retarded the capture. On
my first emerging from the hills I must have been taken.
However, my captors were in unusual ill temper. As an
Arab, too poor to be worth plundering or being made prisoner,
I should have met only a sneer or an execration, and been
turned loose; but the late disaster made the turban and
alhaic odious, and I was treated with the wrath due to a
fellow-conspirator of the lions.
To my request, that I should be suffered to depart in peace
on my business, the most prompt denial was given; the
story that I told to account for my travel in the track of the
column, was treated with the simplest scorn, I was pronoun-
ced a spy, and fairly told, that my head was my own only
till I gave the procurator whatever information it contained.
Yet I found one friend in this evil state of my expedition.
My barb, which I had given up for lost in the desert, or torn
by the wild beasts, appeared on the heights overhanging our
march, and by snuffing the wind, and bounding backwards
and forwards through the thickets, attracted general attention.
I claimed her, and the idea that the way-sore and rough-
clothed prisoner could be the master of so noble an animal,
raised scorn to its most peremptory pitch. In turn I de-
·
#
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SALATHIEL.
manded permission to prove my right; and called the barb.
The creature heard the voice with the most obvious delight,
bounded toward me, rubbed her head to my feet, and by
every movement of dumb joy showed that she had found her
master.
But my requests for dismissal were idle; I talked to the
winds; the rear squadrons of the column were in sight;
there was no time to be lost, I was suffered to mount the
barb, but her bridle was thrown across the neck of one of
the trooper's horses, and I was marched along to death, or
a tedious captivity.
My blood boiled, when I thought of what was to be done
before the dawn. "What would be expected from me by
my people, and how lame and impotent must my excuse fall
on the public ear; how miserable a proof had I given of the
vigilance and vigor that were to claim the command of ar-
mies!" I gnashed my teeth and writhed in every nerve.
My agitation at length caught the eye of a corpulent old
captain, whose good humored visage was colored by the
deepest infusion of the grape. His strong Thracian charger
was a moveable magazine of the choicest Falernian; out of
every crevice of his packsaddle and accoutrements peeped
the head of a flask; and to judge by his frequent recourse
to his stores, no man was less inclined to carry his baggage
for nothing. Popularity too attended upon the captain, and
a group of young patricians attached to the procurator's court
were content to abate of their rank, and ride along with the
old soldier, in consideration of his better knowledge of the
grand military science of providing for the road.
In the midst of some camp story, which the majority re-
ceived with peals of applause, the captain glanced upon me;
and, asking "whether I was not ill," held out his flask.
I took it; and never did I taste draught so delicious. Thirst
and hunger are the true secrets of luxury. I absolutely felt
new life rushing into me with the wine.
"There," said the old man, "see how the fellow's eye
sparkles. Falernian is the doctor, after all. I have had no
other these forty years. For hard knocks, hard watches,
and hard weather, there is nothing like the true juice of the
vine. Try it again, Arab." I declined the offer in civil
terms.
"There,” said he, "it has made the man eloquent. By
Hercules, it would put a tongue into the dumb animals. I
SALATHIEL.
185
warrant it would make that mare speak.
And now that I
look at her, she is as prettily made a creature as I have seen
in Syria: her nose would fit in a drinking cup.
her price, at a word ?"
What is
I answered him, that "she was not to be sold.”
"Well, well, say no more about it," replied the jovial old
man. "I know you Arabs make as much of a mare as of a
child, and I never meddle in family affairs."
A haughty looking tribune, covered with embroidery,
and the other coxcombry of the court soldier, spurred his
foaming charger between us, and uttered with a sneer,-
“What, captain, by Venus and all the Graces, giving this
beggar a lecture in philosophy, or a lesson in politeness?
If you will not have the mare, I will. Dismount, slave !"
The officers gathered to the front, to see the progress of
the affair. I sat silent.
"Slave! do you hear? Dismount! You will lose no-
thing, for you will steal another in the first field you come
to."
"I know but one race of robbers in Judea," replied I.
The old captain reined up beside me, and said, in a
whisper-" Friend, let him have the mare. He is rich, and
will pay you handsomely; and powerful besides; for he is
the nephew of the procurator. It will not be wise in you to
put him in a passion."
"That fellow shall never have her, though he were to
coin these sands into gold," replied 1.
"Do you mean to call us robbers ?" said the tribune,
with a lowering eye.
"Do you mean to stop me on the highway, and take my
property from me, and expect that I shall call you any thing
else?" was the answer.
"Sententious rogues, those Arabs! Every soul of them
has a point or proverb on his tongue;" murmured the cap-
tain to the group of young men, who were evidently amused.
by seeing their unpopular companion entangled with me.
"Slave!" said the tribune fiercely, "we must have no
more of this. You have been found lurking about the camp.
Will you be hanged for a spy?"
"A spy!” said I, and the insult probably colored my cheek.
"No; a spy has no business among the Romans."
So," observed the captain, "the Arab seems to think
that our proceedings are in general pretty palpable. Slay,
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186
SALATHIEL.
;
:
strip, and burn." He turned to the patrician tribune.-
"The fellow is not worth our trouble.
about his business ?"
Shall I let him go
is your business to
" The old man bit his
"Sir," said the tribune angrily, "it
command your troop, and be silent."
lip, and fell back to the line of his men. My taunter reined
up beside me again. “Do you know, robber, that I can
order you to be speared on the spot for your lies ?"
"No; for I have told you nothing but the truth of both of
us. Such an order too would only prove, that men will often
bid others do, what they dare not touch with a finger of their
own."
The officers, offended at the treatment of their old favorite,
burst into a laugh. The coxcomb grew doubly indignant.
Strip the hound," exclaimed he to the soldiers: “it is
money that makes him insolent.”
"Nature has done it at least for one of us, without the
expense of a mite;" replied I, calmly.
"Off with his turban. Those fellows carry coin in every
fold of it."
The officers looked at each other in surprise; the captain
hardly suppressed a contemptuous execration between his
lips. The very troopers hesitated.
"Soldiers!" said I, in the same unaltered tone, "I have
no gold in my turban. An Arab is seldom one of those-
the outside of whose head is better worth than the in."
The perfumed and curled locks of the tribune, surmounted
by a helmet, sculptured and plumed in the most extravagant
style, caught every eye; and the shaft, slight as it was, went
home.
"I'll pluck the robber off his horse by the beard;" ex-
claimed- the tribune, spurring his horse upon me, and ad-
vancing his hand.
I threw open my robe, grasped my dagger, and sternly
pronounced,—“There is an oath in our line, that the man
who touches the beard of an Arab, dies." He was not pre-
pared for the action; hesitated, and finally wheeled from me.
The old captain burst out into an involuntary huzza!
"Take the beggar to the camp ;" said the tribune, as he
rode away. "I hate all scoundrels ;" and he glanced round
the spectators.
"Then," exclaimed I, after him, as a parting blow, "you
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187
have at least one virtue, for you can never be charged with
self-love."
This woman-war made me popular on the spot. The
tribune had no sooner turned his horse's head, than the offi.
cers clustered together in laughter. Even the iron visages
of the troopers relaxed into grim smiles. The old jocular
captain was the only one still grave.
""
"There rides not this day under the canopy of Heaven,'
murmured he, "a greater puppy than Caius Sempronius
Catulus, tribune of the thirteenth legion, by his mother's
morals, and the Emperor's taste. Why did not the coxcomb
stay at home, and show off his trappings among the supper-
eaters of the palatine? He might have powdered his ringlets
with gold-dust, washed his lily hands in rose-water, and
perfumed his Indian handkerchief with myrrh, as well there
as here; for he does nothing else. Except," and he clenched
the heavy hilt of his falchion, "insult men, who have seen
more battles than he has seen years; who know better ser-
vice than figuring in ball-rooms, or bowing in courts; and
the least drop of whose blood is worth all that will ever run
in his effeminate veins. But I have not done with him yet.
As for you, friend," said he, "I am sorry to stop you on
your way. But as this affair will be magnified by that fool's
tongue, you must be brought to the procurator. However,
the camp is only a few miles off; you will be asked a few
questions, and then left to follow your will." He little
dreamed how I recoiled from that interview.
To shorten the time of my delay, the good-natured old
man ordered the squadron to mend their pace; and in half
an hour, we saw the noon-encampment of my sworn enemy,
lifting its white tops and scarlet flags among the umbrage of
a forest, deep in the valley at our feet.
=
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SALATHIEL.
?
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE squadron drew up at the entrance of the procurator's
tent; and, with a crowd of alarmed peasants captured in the
course of the day, I was delivered over to be questioned by
this man of terror. The few minutes which passed before
I was called to take my turn, were singularly painful. This
was not fear; for the instant sentence of the axe would have
been almost a relief from the hopeless and fretful thwartings
sown so thickly in my path. But to have embarked in a
noble enterprise, and to perish, without use; to have arrived
almost within sight of the point of my desires, and then,
without striking a blow, to be given up to shame, stung me
like a serpent.
My heart sprang to my lips, when I heard myself called
to the presence of Florus. He was lying upon a couch,
with his never-failing cup before him, and turning over some
papers, with a shaking hand. Care or conscience had made
ravages in him, since I saw him last. He was still the same
figure of excess; but his cheek was hollow: the few locks
on his head had grown a more snowy white; and the little,
pampered hand was thin and yellow as the claw of the vulture
that he so much resembled in his soul.
With his head scarcely lifted from the table, and with eyes
that seemed more shut than open, he asked, "whence I had
come, and whither I was going?" My voice, notwithstand-
ing the attempt to disguise it, struck his acute ear.
His na-
tive keenness was awake at once. He darted a fiery glance
at me, and, striking his hand on the table, exclaimed-" By
Hercules, it is the Jew!" My altered costume again per-
plexed him." "Yet," said he in soliloquy, "that fellow
66
went to Nero, and must have been executed. Ho! send in
the tribune who took him." Catulus entered; and his ac-
count of me was, luckily, contemptuous in the extreme. I
was а notorious robber, who had stolen a handsome horse,
perfectly worthy of the stud of the procurator." I panted
with the hope of escape, and was gradually moving to the
door. Stand, slave" cried Florus: "I have my doubts of
you still; and as the public safety admits of no mistake, I
<<
SALATHIEL
189
have no alternative.
Tribune! order in the lictors. He
The lictors were sum-
must be scourged to confession.”
moned; and I was to be torn by Roman torturers.
A tumult arose outside, and a man rushed in with the lic
tors, exclaiming, "Justice, most mighty Florus. By the
majesty of Rome, and the magnanimity of the most illustri-
bus of governors, I call for justice against my plunderer, my
undoer, the robber of the son of El Hakim of his most pre-
cious treasure."
Florus recognized the clamorer as an old acquaintance,
and desired him to state his complaint, and with as much
brevity as possible.
"Last night," said the man, "I was the happy possessor
of a mare, fleet as the ostrich, and shapely as the face of
beauty. I had intended her as a present for the most illus-
trious of procurators, the great Florus, whom the gods long
preserve. In the hour of my rest, the spoiler came, noise-
less as the fall of a turtle's feather, but cruel as the viper's
tooth. When I arose my mare was gone. I was in distrac-
tion. I tore my beard; I beat my head upon the ground;
I cursed the robber wherever he went, to the sun-rising or
the sun-setting, to the mountains or the valleys. But fortune
sits on the banner of my lord the procurator; and I came
for hope to his conquering feet. In passing through the
camp, what did I see but my treasure-the delight of my
eyes, the drier up of my tears! I have come to claim jus.
tice, and the restoration of my mare, that I may have the
happiness to present her to the most renowned of man-
kind."
I had been occupied with the thought whether I should
burst through the lictors, or rush on the procurator. But the
length and loudness of this outcry engrossed every one. The
orator was my friend, the beggar. He pointed fiercely to
If looks could kill, he would not have survived the look
that I gave the traitor in return.
me.
"There," said Florus, "is your plunderer. Sabat, have
you ever seen him before ?"
The beggar strode insolently towards me. "Seen him
before! aye, a hundred times. What! Ben Ammon, the
most notorious thief from the Nile to the Jordan. My lord,
every child knows him. Hah, by the gods of my fathers, by
my mother's bosom, by shaft and by shield, he has stolen
more horses within the last twenty years, than would remount
[
190
SALATHIEL.
1
all the cavalry from Beersheba to Damascus ! It was but
last night that as I was leading my mare, the gem of my
eyes, my pearl-"
I now began to perceive the value of my eloquent friend's
interposition.
"An Arab horse-thief?—that alters the case," said the
procurator. "Ho! did you not say that the mare was in-
tended for me? Lictor, go and bring this wonder to the
door."
The voluble son of El Hakim followed the lictor; and re-
turned, crying out more furiously than before against me.
His "pearl, the delight of his eyes, was spoiled-was utterly
unmanageable. I had put some of my villanous enchantment
upon her; for which I was notorious.'
The procurator's curiosity was excited: he rose, and went
to take a view of the enchanted animal. I followed; and
certainly nothing could be more singular than the restiveness
which the son of El Hakim contrived to make her exhibit.
She plunged-she bounded; bit, reared, and flung out in all
directions. Every attempt to lead or mount her was foiled
in the most complete, yet most ludicrous manner. The young
cavalry officers came from all sides; and could not be re-
strained from boisterous laughter, even by the presence of
the procurator. Florus himself, at last, became among the
loudest. Even I, accustomed as I was to daring horseman-
ship, was surprised at the eccentric agility of this unlucky
rider. He was alternately on the animal's back and under
her feet; he sprang upon her from behind; he sprang over
her head; he stood upon the saddle; but all in vain: he had
scarcely touched her, when she threw him up in the air again,
amid the perpetual roar of the soldiery.
At length, with a look of dire disappointment, he gave up
the task; and scarcely able to drag his limbs along, prostra-
ted himself before Florus, praying that he would order the
Arab thief to unsay the spells that had turned "the gentlest
mare in the world into a wild beast." The consent was
given with a haughty nod; and I advanced to play my part
in a performance, of whose objects I had not a conception.
The orator delivered the barb to me with a look so expressive
of cunning, sport, and triumph, that perplexed as I was, I
could not avoid a smile. My experiment was rapidly made.
This only
The mare knew me, and was tractable at once.
But the son of
confirmed the charge of my necromancy.
SALATHIEL.
191
El Hakim professed himself altogether dissatisfied with so
expeditious a process, and demanded that I should go through
the regular steps of the art. In the midst of the fiercest re-
probation of my unhallowed dealings, a whisper put me in
possession of his mind.
I now went through the process used by the traveling
jugglers; and if the deepest attention of an audience could
reward my talents, mine received unexampled reward. My
gazings on the sky, whisperings in the barb's ear, grotesque
figures traced on the sand, wild gestures and mysterious
jargon, thoroughly absorbed the intellects of the honest le-
gionaries. If I had been content with fame, I might have
spread my reputation through the Roman camps, as a con-
juror of the first magnitude.
}
I was, however, beginning to be weary of my exhibition,
and longed for the signal; when Sabat approached, and
loudly testifying that I had clearly performed my task,
threw the bridle over the animal's head, and whispered,
"Now!"
is
My heart panted; my hand was on the mane; I glanced
round to see that all was safe before I gave the spring-
when Florus screamed out, "The Jew! by Tartarus,
the Jew himself. Drag down the circumcised dog." With
cavalry on every side of me, forcible escape was out of the
question.
<<
Undone, undone !" were the words of my wild friend as
he passed me. And when I saw him once more in the most
earnest conversation with Florus, I concluded that the disco-
very was complete. I was in utter despair. I stood sullenly
waiting for the worst, and gave an internal curse to the more
than malevolence of fortune.
The conversation continued so long, that the impatience
of those round me began to break out.
"On what possible subject can the procurator suffer that
mad fellow to have so long an audience?" said a young
patrician.
"On every possible subject, I should conceive, from the
length of the discussion," was the reply.
"Florus knows his man,” said a third; "that mad fellow
is a regular spy, and receives more of the Emperor's coin in
a month than we do in a year.
""
The tribune now broke into the circle, and, with a look of
supreme scorn, affectedly exclaimed, "Come, knight of the
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SALATHIEL.
1
192
desert, sovereign of the sands, let us have a specimen of
your calling. Stand back, officers; this egg of Ishmael is
to quit plunder so soon, that he would probably like to die as
he lived—in the exercise of his trade. Here, slave, show
us the most approved method of getting possession of another
man's horse.'
""
I stood in indignant silence. The tribune threatened. A
thought struck me: I bowed to the command, let the barb
loose, and proceeded according to my theory of horse-
stealing.
I approached noiselessly, gesticulated, made mystic move-
ments, and gibbered witchcraft as before. The animal, with
natural docility, suffered my experiments. I continued
"Now,
urging her towards the thinner side of the circle.
noble Romans," said I, "look carefully to the next spell, for
it is the triumph of the art."
Curiosity was in every countenance. I made a genu-
flexion to the four points of the compass, devoted a gesture
of peculiar solemnity to the procurator's tent, and while all
eyes were drawn in that direction, sprang on the barb's back,
and was gone like an arrow.
I heard a clamor of surprise, mingled with outrageous
laughter, and, looking round, saw the whole crowd of the
loose riders of the encampment in full pursuit up the hill.
Florus was at his tent door, pointing towards me with furious
gestures. The trumpets were calling, the cavalry mounting :
I had roused the whole activity of the little army.
The slope of the valley was long and steep; and the heavy
horsemanship of the legionaries, who were perhaps not very
A little knot
anxious for my capture, soon threw them out.
of the more zealous alone kept up a pursuit, from which I
had no fears. An abrupt rock in the middle of the ascent
at length hid them from me. To gain a last view of the
camp, I doubled round the rock, and saw, a few yards be-
low me, the tribune, with his horse completely blown. I
owed him a debt, partly on my own account, and partly on
that of the old captain, which I had determined to discharge
at the earliest possible time. I darted upon him. He was
all astonishment: a single buffet from my naked hand
knocked the helpless taunter off his charger. "Tribune,"
cried I, as he lay upon the ground, "you have had one spe-
cimen of my art to-day, now you shall have another. Learn
in future to respect an Arab." I caught his horse's bridle,
SALATHIEL.
193
gave the animal a lash, and we bounded away together. The
scene was visible to the whole camp; the troopers, who had
reined up on the declivity, gave a roar of merriment, and I
heard the old corpulent captain's laugh above it all.
}
CHAPTER XXVIII.
I HAD escaped; but the delay was ruinous. The sun
sank when I reached the brow of the mountain, and Masada
lay many a weary mile forward. I cast off the tribune's
horse, thus giving his insolent master evidence that I did not
understand the main point of my trade, and stood pondering
to what point of the mighty ridge that rose blue along the
horizon I should turn, when, in the plunge of the horse, as
he felt himself at liberty, his saddle came to the ground.
The possibility of its containing reports of the state of the
enemy led me to examine its pockets; they were stuffed
with letters worthy of the highest circles of Italian high life;
the ill-spelled registers of vapidity at a loss how to lose its
time; of libertinism sick of indulgence; and of pecuniary
embarrassment driven to the most hopeless and whimsical
resources.
A glance at a few of these epistles was enough, and I
scattered into the air the reputations of half the high born
maids and matrons of Rome. But, as I was turning away
with an instinctive exclamation of scorn at this compendium
of patrician life, my eye was caught by a letter addressed to
the governor of Masada. In opening it, I committed no vio-
lation of diplomacy; for it held no secret, other than an an-
gry remission of his allegiance by some wearied fair one,
who announced her intended marriage with the tribune.
My revenge was thus to go farther than my intent; for 1
deprived him of the personal triumph of delivering this ca-
lamitous despatch to his rival. Yet, on second thoughts,
conceiving that some cipher might lurk under its absurdity,
I secured the paper, and giving the rein, left the whole se-
cret correspondence of debt, libel, and love, to the delight
of mankind.
I flew along; my indefatigable barb, as if she felt her mas-
VOL. I.

17
194
SALATHIEL.
The
ter's anxieties, put forth double speed. But I had yet a fear-
ful length to traverse. The night fell thick and rude; but I
had no time to think of rest or shelter. I pushed on.
wind rose, and wrapt me in whirls of sand. I heard the
roar of waters. The ground became fractured, and full of
the loose fragments that fall from rocky hills. I discovered
only that I was at the foot of the ridge, and had lost my way.
In this embarrassment I trusted to the sagacity of my steed.
But thirst led her directly to the bed of one of the mountain
torrents, and the phosphoric gleam of waters alone saved us
both from a plunge over a precipice deep enough to extin-
guish every appetite and ambition in the round of this bust-
ling world.
To find a passage or an escape I alighted. The torrent
bellowed before me. A wall of rock rose on the opposite
side. After long climbings and descents, I found that I had
descended too deep to return. Oh, how I longed for trace
of man, for the feeblest light that ever twinkled from cottage
window! I felt the plague of helplessness. To attempt the
waters was impossible. To linger where I stood till dawn,
was misery.
"What would be going on in the mean while? Perhaps,
at the very time while I was standing in wretched doubt,
imprisoned among those pestilent cliffs, shivering with the
spray and the storm, and yet more chilled with bitter incer.
titude, the deed was doing! Constantius was with ineffect-
ual gallantry assaulting the fortress; my brave kinsmen were
pouring out their lives under the Roman spears; and I was
not there!"
A fitful sound came mingling with the roar of the cataract;
it swelled, and vanished away, like the rustling of the gale.
A trumpet rang, but so feebly, that nothing but the keenness
of an ear straining to catch the slightest sound could have
distinguished it. I heard remote shouts; they deepened;
the echo of trumpets followed. "The assault had begun!
The work of glory and death was doing. Every instant cost
a life. The hailstones that bruised me were not thicker than
the arrows that were then smiting down my people. Yet
there was I, held like a wolf in the pitfall!"
Even where the combat was being fought, baffled my con-
ception. It might be in the clouds, or under ground, on the
opposite of the black ridge before me, or many a league be-
}
;
SALATHIEL.
195
1
yond the reach of my exhausted limbs and drooping steed;
all was darkness to the eye and the mind.
A light flashed down a ravine, leading into the heart of the
mountains : another and another rose. Masada stood upon
the mountain's brow!
I plunged into the torrent-was beaten down by the bil
lows-was swept along through narrow necks of rock, and,
half suffocated, was hurled up again, to find myself on the
opposite shore. Wet and weary, I less climbed than tore
my way upwards. But the torrent had bore me far below
the ravine. Before me was a gigantic rampart of rock. But
the time was flying. I sprang with fierce agility from fissure
to fissure. I dragged myself up the face of the precipice by
the tufted weeds and chance brushwood. I swung from
point to point by the few projecting branches, that yet broke
away almost in my grasp; until, with my hands excoriated,
my limbs stiff and bleeding, and my head reeling, I reached
the pinnacle.
Was I under the dominion of a spell? was the power of
some fiend raised to mock me? All was darkness as far as
the eye could pierce,: the heaviest veil of midnight hung upon
the earth. There was utter silence. Not the slightest
breath touched upon the ear.
For a while the thought of some strange illusion was par-
amount; then came the frightful idea that the illusion was in
myself; that in the effort to gain the ascent, I had strained
eye and ear, until I could neither hear nor see; that I was
still within sight and sound of battle, but insensible to the
impressions of the external world for ever. Immortality un-
der this exclusion! A deathlessness of the deaf and blind!
The thought struck me with a force inconceivable by all
minds but one sentenced like mine!
I cried aloud. A flood of joy rushed into my heart when
I heard my voice answered; though it was but by the neigh
of my barb below, which probably felt itself as ill-placed as
its master. I now used my ear as the guide, and cautiously
descending the farther side of the ridge, was soon on com-
paratively level ground, the remnant of a forest. My foot
struck against a human body; I spoke; the answer was a
groan, and an entreaty that I should bear a small packet,
which was put into my hands with a feeble pressure, to "the
prince of Naphtali!" In alarm and astonishment, I raised
the sufferer from the thorns in which he could scarcely
196
SALATHIEL.
breathe; gave him some water from my flask, and after
many an effort, in which I thought that life would depart
every moment, he told me that "he was the unfortunate
leader of the assault of Masada." Constantius lay in my
arms!
"Where I am," said he, "how I came here, or any thing,
but that we are undone, I cannot conceive. My last recol-
lection was that of fixing the ladder to the inner rampart.
We had made our way good so far without much loss. The
garrison was weakened by detachments sent out to plunder
for the arrival of the procurator. I attacked at midnight.
To surprise a Roman fortress was, I well know, next to im-
possible; and no man ever found a Roman garrison without
bravery. But our bold fellows did wonders. Every thing
was driven from the first rampart; we made more prisoners
than we knew what to do with ; and in the midst of all kinds
of resistance, we laid the ladders to the second wall. But
the garrison were still too strong for us. Our easy conquest
of the first line might have been a snare, for the battlements
before us exhibited an overwhelming force. We fought on;
but the ladders were broken with showers of stones from the
engines. The business looked desperate; but I had made
up my mind not to go back after having once got in; and,
rallying the men, carried a ladder through a storm of lances
and arrows to the foot of the main tower. I was bravely fol-
lowed, and we were within grasp of the battlement, when I
saw a cohort rush out from a sally-port below. This was
fatal; the foot of the rampart was cleared at once; the lad-
ders were flung down; and I suppose it is owing to the ill-
judged fidelity of some of my followers, that I am unfortunate
enough to find myself here and alive.”
During the endless hours of this miserable night, I labor-
ed, with scarcely a hope, to keep life in my heroic son. My
coming had saved him. The exposure of his wounds must
have destroyed him before morning. We consulted sadly
on our next course. I suggested the possibility of gaining
the fortress by a renewal of the attack, while the garrison
were unprepared, or perhaps indulging themselves in carou-
sal or sleep after success. The necessity of some attempts
was strongly in my mind, and I expressed my determination
to run the hazard, if I could find where the remnant of our
troop had taken refuge. But this was the first difficulty.
Signals of any kind must rouse the vigilance of the Romans.
SALATHIEL.
197
The fortress was above our heads; and to collect the men
during the night was impossible.
While I watched the restless tossings of Constantius, a
light stole along the ground at a distance. My first idea
was, that a Roman patrol was coming, to extinguish our last
remains of hope. But the light was soon perceived to be in
the hand of some one cautious of discovery. To keep its
bearer at a distance, I followed the track, and grasped him.
"I surrender," said the captive, perfectly at his ease;
"Long life to the Emperor!" He lifted the lamp to my
face, and burst into laughter. "May I have a Roman fal-
chion through me,” said he, “but I think we were born under
the same planet. By all the food that has entered my lips
this day, I took your highness for a thief; and pardon the
word, for a Roman one. I have been running after you the
whole day and night.' He continued to talk and writhe
with a kind of mad merriment. I could not obtain an an-
swer to my questions, of what led him there-how he could
guide us out of the forest-or what news he brought from
the procurator. He less walked than danced before me
through the thickets, as our scene with Florus recurred to
his fantastic mind.
""
"Never was trick so capital as your escape," exclaimed
he;
"I would have given an eye, or an arm, things rather
an impediment to a beggar, I allow; but it would have been
worth a kingdom to see, as I saw, the faces of the whole
camp, procurator, officers, troopers, and all, down to the
horse-boys, on your slipping through their fingers in such
first-rate style. I have done clever things in my time. But
never, no never, shall I equal that way of making five thou-
sand men at once look like five thousand fools. I own I
thought that you would do something brilliant; and it was
for that purpose that I tried to draw off the eye of that scoun-
drel Florus, for, sot as he is, there are not ten in Palestine
keener in all points where roguery is concerned. I caught
hold of his robe, told him a ready lie of the largest size about
a discovery of money in Jerusalem; and while he was nib-
bing at the bait, I heard the uproar. You were off; I could
not help laughing in his illustrious face. He kicked me
from him, and foaming with rage, ordered every man and
horse out after your highness. But I saw at a glance, that
you had the game in your own hands. You skimmed away
like a bird; an eagle could not have got up that long hill in
17*
198
SALATHIEL.
:
finer condition. Away you went, bounding from steep to steep
like a stone from a sling; you cut the air like a shaft. I
have seen many a mare in my time; but as for the equal of
yours,-why, a pair of wings would be of no use to her.
She is a paragon, a bird of paradise, an ostrich on four legs,
a
""
I checked his volubility, and led him to the rough bedside
of Constantius. I could not have found a better auxiliary.
He knew every application used by the medicine of the
time: and, to give him credit on his own showing, all diseases
found in him an enemy worth all the doctors of Asia.
"He had traveled for his knowledge; he had fought with
death from the Nile to the Ganges, and could swear that
the sharks and crocodiles owed him a grudge throughout the
world. He had cured rajahs and satraps, till he made him-
self unpopular in every court where men looked to vacan-
cies; had kept rich old men out of their graves, until there
was a general conspiracy of heirs to drive him out of the
country; and had poured life into so many dying husbands,
that the women made a universal combination against his
own."
"He
The flow of panegyric, however, did not impede his pre-
sent service. He applied his herbs and bandages with pro-
fessional dexterity, and kindling a fire, prepared some food
which went farther to cheer the patient than even his medi.
cine. He still talked away, like one to whom words are a
necessary escape for his surcharge of animal spirits.
knew every thing in physic. He had studied in Egypt, and
could compound the true essential extract of mummy with
any man that wore a beard, from the Cataracts to the bottom
of the Delta. He once walked to the mountains of the
moon, to learn the secret of powdered chrysolite. On the
Himmaleh he picked up his knowledge of the bezoar; and
a year's march through sands and snows, rewarded him at
once with a bag of the ginseng, most marvellous of roots,
and the sight of the wall of China, most endless of walls."
How he stooped to veil this accumulation of knowledge in
rags, he did not condescend to explain. But his skill, so
far, was certainly admirable, and my brave Constantius
recovered with a suddenness that surprised me. With his
strength, his hopes returned.
"Oh," exclaimed he, awaking from a refreshing sleep,
SALATHIEL.
199
"that I were once again at the foot of the rampart, with the
ladder in my hand!"
"By my father's beard,” replied the leech, "you are much
better where you are: for, observe, though I can go farther
than any doctor between the four rivers, yet I never pro-
fessed to cure the dead. Take Masada by scale! Ha, ha!
take the clouds by scale! You would have found three
walls within the one to which they decoyed you. Herod was
the prince of builders, and could have built out every thing,
but the champion that carries no arms but a scythe, and
cares as little for king Herod, as for Sabat the beggar."
"Then you know Masada ?" interrupted I eagerly.
“Know it, yes; every loophole, window, door, aye—and
stocks, from one end of it to the other."
But my escape from the camp was so congenial to his
ideas of pleasantry, that it mingled with all his topics. War
and politics went for nothing, compared with the adroitness
of eluding Roman activity. By Jove!" said he, “when I
played my tricks with that pearl of pearls, that supreme of
horseflesh, your barb, I was clumsy; I played the clown,
you beat me hollow; it was matchless; it was my purse in
prospect of your generosity to its emptiness this night;" he
made a profound obeisance," to see those panting fellows
climbing up the hill after you, nearly killed me.
"But the fortress."
"C
"" -
Why, as to the fortress, the notion of attacking it was
madness. I had my doubts of your intention: and broke
loose from the camp to give you the benefit of my advice.
-But the tribune; Ha, ha! never was coxcomb so rightly
served. You won the heart of the whole legion by the sin-
gle blow that saved him the trouble of sitting his horse.
The troopers could not keep their saddles for laughing; and
as for the old fat captain, I was only afraid that he would
roar himself out of the world. I confess, I owed my escape
partly to him, and his last words were, 'Rascal, if you ever
fall in with the Arab, whom I suspect to be as pleasant a
rogue as yourself, tell him that I wish I had a dozen such in
my squadron.""
"But is there any possibility of knowing the present state
of the garrison ?"
(C
'Aye, there is the misfortune. Yesterday I could have
got in, and got out again, like a wild cat. But after this
200
SALATHIEL.
night's visit, it is not too much to suppose, that they may be
a little more select in their hospitality. The governor had a
slight correspondence of his own to carry on; a trifle in the
way of trade; I had the honour to be smuggler extraordi-
nary to his Mightiness; and, as in state secrets every thing
ought to be kept from the vulgar, my path in and out was by
a portcullis, far enough from gates and sentinels; through
which portcullis I should have shown you the way, if the
attack had waited for me a few hours longer. That chance
is of course cut off now. But see, yonder comes the
morning.
""
•
"Then we must move, or have the garrison on us.”
"I forbid that manoeuvre," interrupted the fellow with
easy audacity.
Constantius and I, in equal surprise, bade him be silent.
Yet the quietness with which he took the rebuke propitiated
me, and I asked his reason.
Nothing more than, that, if you stir, you are ruined.
The hare is safest near the kennel. The outlaw sleeps
sounder in the magistrate's house, than he ever slept in his
den. I once escaped hanging, by coolly walking into a jail.
There stands Masada!" and he pointed to what looked to
me a heap of black clouds gathered on the mountain's brow
above.
"Not a soul that you have left alive there, will dream of
your being within a stone's throw. The copse is thick
enough to hide a man from every thing, but a creditor, an
evil conscience, or a wife; stir out of it, and they are on
your heels. And I dislike them so heartily, that I hope never
to have the honor of their attendance. But you are not mad
enough to think of trying them again ?"
""
(C
"Mad, fellow !" I exclaimed ; you forget in whose pre-
sence you are. He continued making some new arrange-
ment of the bandages on his patient's wounds; and without
taking the slightest notice of my displeasure, cheered his
work with a song.
"Mad or wise," said I in soliloquy, "I shall lie in the
ditch of that fortress, or in its citadel, before next sunrise."
"You may lie in both, said the beggar, pursuing his occu-
pation and his song. "Mad ?" why not; all the world are
in the same way. The Emperor is mad enough to stay
where men have hands and knives. His people are mad
enough to let their throats be cut by him. Florus is mad
SALATHIEL
201
enough to sleep another night in Palestine. You are mad
enough to attack his garrison; and I-am mad enough to go
along with you."
"You are a singular being. But will you hazard your
neck for nothing?"
"Custom makes every thing easy," observed he, spanning
his muscular neck with his hand. "I have been so many
years within sight of the cord, and all such expeditious
modes of paying the only debt I ever intended to pay, and
that only because it is the last, that I care as little about the
venture, as any broken gambler about his last coin. The
tables are ready, dice in hand, the stakes down; and before
the next sun peeps in upon our play, we three shall have our
fortunes made, or shall lie without caring a straw for the
spite of fortune. My plan is this; I must get into the town,
you must gather your troop without noise, and be ready for
my signal, a light from one of the towers. A false attack
must be made on the gates, a true attack must be made by
the portcullis, which, if it be not stopped up, I will unlock;
and never trust me, if your Highness does not eat your next
supper off the governor's plate. There's a plan for you. I
should have been a general. But merit,-aye, there's the
rub,-merit is like the camel's lading, it stops him at the gate,
while the empty slip in. It is putting wings upon one's
shoulders, when the race is to be run upon the ground. Too
much brain in a man is like too much bend in a bow; the
bow either breaks, or sends the arrow a mile beyond the
mark. Genius, my prince, is—”
I interrupted the general in his progress into the philoso-
pher, and demanded whether the renewed vigilance of the
fortress would not require some additional expedient for his
entry. He struck his forehead; the thought came, as the
flint gives its spark, and he produced a highly ornamented
tablet. "This," said he, "I ought to employ in your ser-
vice; for if you had not knocked down the tribune, I could
never have picked it up. In making my run over the moun-
tain, I struck upon his correspondence. Oh! the curse of
curiosity! if I had not stopped to delight myself with the
whole scandal of Rome, I should have been here in time.
But I lingered, lost an hour in laughing, and when I set out
in the dusk, lost my way, for the first time in my life. Be.
fore setting off, however, I wrote a letter ridiculing Florus in
all points, burlesquing the people about him, scoffing at every
}
202
SALATHIEL.
น.
:
!
body in the most heroic style; and having subscribed the
name of the unlucky tribune, addressed it to one of the most
notorious personages in all Italy; and placed it where it is
sure to be seen, and as sure to be carried to the most noble
of procurators. -Now, could I not begin a correspondence
with the governor, and act the courier myself? Yet, to hit
upon the subject-" He paused.
The letter that I had found, occurred to me. I showed it
to our adroit friend. He was in ecstacies. He kissed it over
and over, and played some of those antics which had already
made me half doubt his sanity. He flung down the tablet.
“Go,” said he, " fiction is a fine thing in its way. But give
me fact, when I want to entrap a great man.
He is so little
used to truth, that the least atom of it is a spell ;. the fresh
bait will carry the largest hook. Aye, this is the letter for
us; it has the sincerity of the sex, when they are determined
to jilt a man; its abuse will cover me from top to toe with
the cloak of a true embassador."
"But the unpopularity of your credentials," said I, laugh-
ingly.
"Let the potentate by whom they are sent, settle that
affair with the potentate by whom they are received,” replied
he.
"You will be hanged."
"I shall first get in."
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE day passed anxiously, for every sound of the huge
fortress was heard in the thicket. The creaking of the ma-
chines, brought up to the wall against future assault; the rat-
tling of hammers; the rolling of wagons loaded with mate-
rials for the repair of the night's damage; the calls of trum-
pet and clarion, and the march of patroles, rang perpetually
in our ears. The depth of the copse, and its nearness to the
ramparts, justified the beggar's generalship, and the son of
El Hakim proved himself a master of the art of castrameta-
tion. Nothing could exceed his alertness in threading the
mazes of this dwarf forest, where a wolf could scarcely have
1
SALATHIEL.
203
made progress; and where a lynx would have required all
his eyes.
On my asking, how he contrived to find his way through
this labyrinth, he told me, that "for making one's way in
woods and elsewhere, there was nothing like a familiarity
with smuggling, and the state."
"The man," continued he, "who has driven a trade in
every thing from pearls to pistachios without leave of the
customs, cannot be much puzzled by thickets; and the man
who has contrived to climb into confidence at court, must
have had a talent for keeping his feet in the most slippery
spots, or he never could have mounted the back-stairs !"
He collected the troop, of whom I was rejoiced to believe
that but few had fallen, though nearly one half were made
prisoners; they were eager to attempt the rampart again,
all boldly attributing their failure to accident, and all thirsting
alike for the rescue of their comrades, and for revenge.
The letter was given to our emissary, and I ascended the
loftiest of the mountain pinnacles, to examine for myself the
nature of the. ground.
From my height the view was complete; the whole inte-
rior of the fortress lay open; and in the same glance, I saw
the grace and regal grandeur of design, which Greek taste
could stamp even upon the strength of military architecture,
and the utter hopelessness of any direct assault upon Masada,
by less than an army.
Who but he that has actually been in the same situation,
can conceive the feelings with which I gazed! Below me,
was the spot in which a few hours must see me conqueror
or nothing! Ou that battlement, I might, before another
morn, be stretched in blood! on that tower I might be fixed
a horrid spectacle! Nature is irresistible, and her workings
overpowered the old belief, that a mysterious sentence was
to give me a miserable perpetuity of life. The thought has
always terribly returned; but the moment of energy has
always extinguished it; the hurrying and swelling current
of my heart rolled over it, as the summer torrent rushes over
the tomb on its brink. The melancholy memorial was there,
sure to re-appear with the first subsiding; but, lost while the
flood of feeling whirled along.
Every group of soldiery that slept, or sang, or gamed, or
gazed, along the ramparts under the bright and quiet day
which followed so fearful a night; every archer pacing on
*
204
SALATHIEL.
his tower; every solitary wanderer in the streets; every
change of the guard; every entering courier; was visible
to me, and all were objects of keen interest. At length,
my courier came. I saw his approach from a pass of the
mountains at the remotest point from our cover, his well-
contrived exhaustion, the ostentatious dust upon his tattered
habiliments, and the fearless impudence with which he be-
guiled the sulky guard at the gate, and stalked before the
centurion by whom he was brought to the Governor.
With what eyes of impatience I now watched the sun! I
wished for the power of extinguishing day from the heavens.
As the hour of fate approached, the fever of the mind grew.
To defer the attack beyond the night, was to abandon it
for by morn the troops under Florus must reach Masada.
Yet a strange sensation, a chilliness of heart, sometimes
came on me, in which my hands were as feeble as an infant's.
I felt like one before a tribunal, awaiting the word that must
decide his destiny. Nothing tries the soul more deeply than
this concentration of its fortunes into a few moments.
man sees himself standing on the edge of a precipice down
which there is no second step. But the thought of returning
errandless and humiliated, and this too, from my first enter-
prise, was intense bitterness. I made my decision. From
that instant I breathed freely, my strength returned, hope
glowed in my bosom; and, clinging to the granite spire of
the mountain, I looked down upon the haughty strong-hold,
like its evil genius descending from the clouds.
The
The sun touched the western ridge. A horseman came
at full stretch across the plain at its foot, and entered the
fortress. He evidently brought news of importance, for the
troops were hurried under arms, flags hoisted on the ram.
parts, and the walls lined with archers. All was military
bustle.
My first conception was, that my emissary had betrayed
us, and that we were about to be attacked. I plunged from
the pinnacle, and was following the windings of the goat-
track to our lair, when I saw the rising of a cloud of dust in
the distance. It moved with great rapidity, and soon deve-
loped its contents. Intelligence of the assault had reached
Florus. His sagacity saw what perils turned on the loss of
the fortress; he shook off his indolence, and came, without
delay to its succor. Banners, helmets, and scarlet cloaks,
poured across the plain. A torrent of brass, burning and
SALATHIEL
205
flashing in the sunbeam, continued to roll down the defile;
and before the evening star glittered, the whole cavalry of
the fifteenth legion was trampling over the draw-bridge of
Masada.
Here was the death-blow. My enterprise was henceforth
ten-fold more hopeless; but with me the time for prudence
was past. If the reinforcement had arrived but an hour be-
fore, I should probably have given up the attempt in despair.
But my mind was fixed, I had made an internal vow; and if
the whole host of Rome were crowded within the walls be-
neath, I should have hazarded the assault.
I descended, found my troop collected, and, to my alarm
and vexation, Constantius, enfeebled as he was, obstinately
determined to assault the rampart again. With the noble
daring of his enthusiastic heart he told me, that unless I
suffered him to attempt the retrieval of his defeat, he felt it
impossible to survive.
"Shame and grief," said he, "are as deadly as the sword;
and never will I return to the face of her whom I love, nor
of the family whom I honor, unless I can return with the
consciousness of having at least deserved to be successful."
Against this I reasoned, but reasoned in vain. We finally
divided our followers. I gave him the attack of the rampart,
which was to be the place of his triumph or his grave; flung
myself into his embrace, and listened to his parting steps,
with a heart throbbing at every tread. I then moved round
the foot of the mountain towards the secret passage.
The night fell dark as we could wish. I waited impa-
tiently for the signal, a light from the walls. Yet, no signal
twinkled from wall or tower, and I began to distrust again;
but while I lingered, a shout told me that Constantius was
already engaged. "Let what will come," exclaimed I,
“Onward.”
We scrambled up the face of the rock, and at length found
the entrance of the subterranean. It was so narrow, that
even in the day-time it must have been nearly invisible from
below. A low iron door a few yards within the fissure was
the first obstacle. To beat it down might alarm the garrison.
The passage allowed but of our advance one by one. I led
the way, hatchet in hand. A few blows given with as little
noise as possible, broke the stones round the lock. The
door gave way, and we all crept in. In this manner we
wound along for a distance, which I began to think endless.
VOL. I.
18
206
SALATHIEL.
The passage was singularly toilsome. We ascended con-
siderable heights, we descended steep paths, in which it was
with the utmost difficulty that we could keep our feet; we
heard the rush of waters through the darkness; blasts of
bitter wind swept against us; the thick and heavy air that
closed round us after them, almost impeded our breathing,
and from time to time the vapor of sulphur gave the fearful
impression that we had lost our way, and were actually en-
gulfed in the bowels of a burning mine.
The heart of my hunters was bold, and they still held on;
but the mere fatigue of struggling through this poisoned
atmosphere, was fast exhausting their courage. I cheered
them with what topics I could, but never was my imagination
more barren. I heard, at every step I took, fewer feet fol-
lowing me. The close and pestilential air was beginning
to act even upon myself: but the great stake was playing
above, and onward I must go. I dared not speak louder
than in a whisper; soon no whisper responded to mine. I
tottered on, till, overpowered by the feeling that our sacrifice
was in vain, a sensation like that of a sickly propensity to
sleep bound up my faculties; and, whether I slept or fainted,
I for a time lost all recollection.
A roar, like thunder, over head, roused me. A sight the
most superb burst on my awaking eyes; a roof of gold,
arched so high, that even its splendor was partially dimmed;
walls of diamond, pillared with a thousand columns of every
precious gem; whole shafts of emerald; pavilions of jasper ·
and beryl; couches wrought with pearl and silver; a floor,
as far as the glance could pierce, studded with amethyst and
ruby; treasures, to which the accumulated spoils of the
Greek or the Persian were nothing; the finest devices of the
most exquisite art, mingled with the most colossal forms
which wealth could wear; opulence in its massive and neg.
ligent grandeur; opulence in its delicate, and almost spirit-
ualized beauty, were before me. A slender flame burning
at the foot of an idol, lighted up this stupendous temple.
I was alone; but the orifice by which I had entered was
visible; the light shot far down into it, and I soon collected
the greater number of my troop. All were equally wrapt in
wonder, and the superstitious feelings which the presence of
the Roman and Syrian idolaters had partially generated even
in the Jewish mind, began to startle those brave men.
"We had, perhaps, come into forbidden ground; the
SALATHIEL.
207
gods of the earth, whether gods or demons, were powerful;
and we stood in the violated centre of the mountain."
For the first time, I found the failure of my influence. A
few adhered to me, but the majority calmly declared that,
however fearless of man, they dared go no farther. I threw
myself on the ground before the entrance of the cavern, and
desired them to consummate their crime by trampling on
their prince and leader. But they were determined to retire.
I taunted them, I adjured them, I poured out the most vehe-
ment reproaches. They stepped over me, as I lay at the
mouth of the fissure; and at length one and all left me to
cry out in my dazzling solitude, against the treachery of
human faith, and the emptiness of human wishes.
The roar again rolled above; I heard distant shouts and
trumpets. In the sudden and desperate consciousness that
all was now to be gained or lost, I rushed after the fugitives,
to force them back. I plunged into the darkness, and grasped
the first figure that I could overtake. My hand fell on the
iron cuirass of a Roman! my blood ran chill.
"We were
betrayed; decoyed into the bowels of the mountain to be
massacred."
The figure started from me. I gave a blind blow of the
axe, and heard it crush through his helmet. The man fell
at my feet. I wildly demanded, "How he came there, and
how we might make our way into the light?"
"You are undone," said he, faintly. "Your spy was
seized by the procurator. Your attack was known, and the
door of the subterranean left unguarded, to entrap you.
This passage was the entrance to a former mine; and in the
mine is your grave.” The voice sank, he groaned, and was
no more.
His words were soon confirmed by the hurried return of
my men. They had found the passage obstructed by a port-
cullis, dropt since their entrance. Torches were seen
through the fissures above, and the sound of arms rattled
round us. The ambush was complete. Now," said I,
we have but one thing for it ;-the sword, first for our ene
my, last for ourselves. If we must die, let us not die by
Roman halters."
CC
One and all, we rushed back into the mine. But we had
now no leisure to look upon the beauty of those spars and
crystals, which, under the light of the altar, glittered and
blushed with such gem-like radiance. From that altar rose
208
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:
a fierce and broad pyramid of fire; piles of fagots, conti-
nually poured from a grating above, fed the blaze to intole
rable fierceness. Smoke filled the mine. To escape was
beyond hope. The single orifice had been already tried.
Around us was a solid wall as old as the world. It was
already heating with the blaze; our feet shránk from the
floor. The flame, shooting in a thousand spires, coiled and
sprang against the roof, the walls, and the ground. To re-
main where we were was to be a cinder. The catastrophe
was inevitable!
In the madness of pain I made a furious bound into the
column of fire. All followed, for death was certain, and the
sooner it came the better. With unspeakable feelings I saw,
at the back of the mound of stone on which the fagots
burned, an opening, hitherto concealed by the huge figure of
the idol. We crowded into it; here we were at least out of
reach of the flame. But what was our chance but that of a
more lingering death? We hurried in; a portcullis stood
across the passage! What was to be our fate, but famine?
We must perish in a lingering misery-of all miseries the
most appalling; and with the bitter aggravation of perishing
unknown, worthless, useless, stigmatized for slaves or das-
tards! What man of Israel would ever hear of our deaths?
What chronicler of Rome would deign to vindicate our ab-
sence from the combat?
We were within hearing of that combat. The assault
thundered more wildly than ever over our heads; the alter-
nate shout of Jew and Roman descended to us. But where
were we? caged, dungeoned, doomed! If the earth had laid
her treasures at my feet that night, I would have given them
for one hour of freedom-one saving, hallowed effort. Oh!
for one struggle beside my warriors, to redeem my name,
and avenge my country. The contrast subdued me utterly.
I sank into a corner, and wept like a child.
The roar of battle grew feeble. "Was all lost? Con-
stantius slain? for with life he would not yield. Was the
whole hope of Judea crushed at a blow ?" I cried aloud to
my followers to force the portcullis. They dragged and tore
at the bars. But it was of a solid strength that not ten times
ours could master.
In the midst of our hopeless labors, the sound of heavy
blows above caught my ear, and fragments of rock fell in;
SALATHIEL.
209
the blows were continued. Was this but a new expedient to
crush or suffocate us?
A crevice showed the light of a torch overhead. I
grasped the axe to strike a last blow at the gate, and die.-I
heard a voice pronounce my name! Another blow opened
the roof. A face bent down, and a loud laugh proclaimed
my crazy friend.
"Ha!" said he, "are you there at last?
You have had a hard night's work of it. But, come up; 1
have an incomparable joke to tell you about the tribune and
the procurator. Come up, my prince, and see the world."
I had no time to rebuke his jocularity. I climbed up the
side of the passage, and found myself still in a dungeon.
To my look of disappointment he gave no other answer than
a laugh; and unscrewing a bar from the loophole above his
head, "It is my custom," said he, "to make myself at my ease
wherever I go; and as prisons fall to a man's lot, like other
things, I like to be able to leave my mansion whenever I am
tired of it."
"Forward, then," said I, impatiently.
Backward," said the beggar, with the most unruffled
coolness. "That loop-hole is for me alone. I may be un-
der the governor's care again, and I have showed it to you
now merely as a curiosity. Drink, my brave fellows," said
he, turning to the troop below, and giving them a skin of
wine. "Soldiers must have their comforts, my gallant
prince, as well as beggars. If that villain Procurator had
not come by express (for no man alive is quicker to catch an
idea, where he is likely to lose or gain), you should have
been by this time sleeping in the governor's bed, and the go-
vernor, probably, supping with me. But all is fortune, good
and bad, in this world. The Procurator, putting your escape
and mine together, began to think that his presence might be
useful here; and the laziest rogue in Palestine came with a
speed that might have done honor to the quickest, who stands
before you in my person. I had gone on swimmingly with
the governor on the strength of your love-letter, angry as it
made him. But the first sight of Florus put an end to my
chance of opening the gates for your triumphal entry. I
was tied, neck and heels, and flung here, to be gibbeted to-
morrow morning. But that morning has not come yet.
He paced the cell uneasily. At length he sprang up, and
looking from the loop-hole, whispered "Now!"-A low,
creaking sound of machinery followed. "Down into the
""
1
4

18*
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SALATHIEL.
.
་་
T
cavern," said he, "that accursed cohort has moved at last.
Away, my prince, and seek your fortune."
✓
I exhibited some reluctance to be engulfed again. But
his countenance assumed a sudden sternness. His only
word was, "Down!" As we were parting, he solemnly pro-
nounced,—“ May whatever power befriends the righteous
cause, and blasts the man of infamy and blood, send the
lightnings before you!" A tear stood in his uplifted eye.
His worn countenance flushed as he spoke the words. He
seized a spear from a corner, and plunged after me into the
cavern.
The portcullis no longer obstructed us; the passage opened
at the foot of the rampart. My heart bounded; I could
have rushed upon an army. The same eagerness was in us
all. But the hand of my guide was on my shoulder.-
"Your attack," said he, "can be nothing, unless it be a sur-
prise. Move along unseen, if possible, till you come to
the flank of the first tower. There wait for my signal!" I
demanded its nature. But he was gone.
The sound of the assault swelled again, though it was
palpably receding. I climbed the rampart alone. The
torches on a distant battlement showed me the Romans in
force, and evidently making way. I could restrain myself
no longer. My troop, too, murmured at their inaction. I
gave the word-led them on-concealed by the shadow of
the colossal wall, saw the Romans crowding on the battle-
ments above, fell upon the guard at the gate, and cast it
open!
Constantius was the first that saw me. He sprang for-
ward, with a cry of exultation. The Romans on the battle-
ment felt themselves cut off, were struck with panic, and
threw down their arms; but we had more important objects,
and rushed back to the citadel. Our work was not yet done
we were entangled in the streets, and lost time. The gar-
rison was strong, and fought like men who had no resource
but in the sword. We were pressed on all sides; an arrow
lodged in my shoulder, and I could wield the axe no more.
In a few discharges, every man round me was bruised or
bleeding. I saw a Roman column hurrying along the ram-
part, whose charge must finish the battle at once. But in
the instant of despair, a blaze sprang up in the rear of the
enemy, Another and another followed. The governor's
palace was on fire! The sight broke the Roman courage.
SALATHIEL.
211
Cries of treachery rang through the ranks; they turned,
flung away spear and shield, and I was master of the strong-
est fortress in Palestine!
CHAPTER XXX.
RESISTANCE was at an end, and we had now nothing to do
but to prevent the conflagration from snatching the prize out
of our hands. The flames rose menacingly from the roof
of the palace; and another hour might see the famous arse.
nal beyond the power of man. Leaving to Constantius the
care of securing the prisoners, I entered the palace, followed
by a detachment. In the bustle I had missed my deliverer;
but scarcely could think about him, or any thing else, while
the enemy were showering lances and shafts as thick as
snow upon us. But now, some fears of his extravagance
recurred to me, and I ordered strict search to be made for
him.
The fire had seized on but a wing of the palace, and was
speedily extinguished. I was ascending the stair, when a
figure bounded full against me from a side door. It was the
beggar. His voice, however, was my only means of recog-
nition, for his outward man had undergone a total change.
He wore a rich cuirass and helmet, a Greek falchion glittered
in his embroidered belt, a tissued mantle hung over his
shoulder, and a spear, ponderous, but inlaid and polished
with the nicest art, was brandished in his hand. 66 What,"
said he, “is all over? May all the fogs of earth and skies
cloud me, but I was born under the most malignant planet
that ever did mischief; I left you only to do some business of
my own; I failed there. My next business was to join and
help you to give a lesson to those Roman hounds; or, if
they were to give the lesson to us, take chance along with
you, and exhibit as a soldier. I made bold to borrow the
governor's arms, as you see; but I am always unlucky."
"If it was you who set this roof on fire, your torch was
worth an army. ""
66
'Aye, I never saw fire fail; no man is ashamed of run-
ning away from a blaze; and I thought that the Romans
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SALATHIEL.
were tired enough to be glad of the excuse. But I had a
point besides to carry. Florus is somewhere under these
ceilings. I determined to burn him out, and pay home my
long arrear, as he attempted to make his escape. But you
have just extinguished the cleverest earthly contrivance for
the discovery of rascal governors; and I must break an oath
I made long ago against his ever dying in his bed."
·
"Florus here! then we must have him without delay.
But, who comes?"
At the word I seized a slave of the palace, in the attempt
to escape. He begged hard for life, and promised to con-
duct us where the Procurator was concealed. We hurried
on through a succession of winding passages; a strong door
stopped us : "There," said the slave.
"By the beard of my fathers, the wolf shall not be long
in his den," cried the son of El Hakim.
"Procurator, your
last crime is committed."
He threw himself against the door with prodigious force;
the bars burst away, and before us lay the terror of Judea!
He was to be a terror no more. A cup, the inseparable
amethystine cup, stood on the table beside his couch. He
lay writhing with pain. His countenance wore the ghastli-
est hue of death. I bade him surrender. He smiled, took
the cup in his trembling hand, and eagerly swallowed the
remaining drops in its bottom.
"What; poison?" exclaimed my companion. Has the
villain escaped me! Here is my planet again; never was
man so unlucky. But, he is not dead yet.
""
""
He drew his falchion, and lifted it up with the look of one
about to offer a solemn sacrifice. I seized his arm.
"He
is dying," said I; "he is beyond earthly vengeance.'
The wretched criminal before us was nearly insensible to
his brief preservation. The poison, acting upon a frame
already broken with public and private anxieties, was mak-
ing quick work; and the glazed eye, the fallen countenance,
and the collapsed limb, showed that his last hour was
come.
"And this is the thing," soliloquized the son of El Ha-
kim, "that men feared! In this senseless flesh was the
power to make the free tremble for their freedom, and the
slave curse the hour that he was born. This mass of mor-
tality could stand between me and happiness-could make
me a beggar, a wanderer, miserable, mad!" He caught up
SALATHIEL.
213
the hand that hung nerveless from the couch. "Accursed
hand!" exclaimed he, "what torrents of blood have owed
their flowing to thee! A word written by these fingers cost
a thousand lives. And, Oh, Heaven! in this cruel grasp
was the key to thy dungeon, my Mary; that dungeon of
more than the body, the hideous prison-house that extin-
guished thy mind!" He let fall the hand, and wept
bitterly.
To my utter surprise, the Procurator started upon his feet,
and, with the look that had so often made the heart quake,
haughtily demanded who we were, and how we dared to
interrupt his privacy. I felt as if a spirit had started up
before me from the shroud. But this extraordinary revival
was merely the last effort of a fierce mind. He tottered,
and was falling, when my companion darted forward,
grasped him by the bosom with one hand, and waving the
falchion above him with the other-" He hears! he sees !"
exclaimed he exultingly. "Who are we? Who am I.
Look upon me, Gessius Florus, before the sight leaves your
eyes for ever. See Sabat the Ishmaelite-the despised, the
insulted, the trampled, the undone. But never did you
prosper from the hour of my ruin. I was your spy, but it
was only to bring you into a snare; I fed your pride, but it
was only that it might turn the hearts of all men against
you; I stimulated your avarice, only that wealth might make
your nights sleepless, and your days, days of fear; I stirred
your wrath into rage; I set your prudence asleep; I inflamed
your ambition into frenzy! This night I led your conque-
rors upon you. But I had made all sure. The vengeance
was at hand. In another week, Gessius Florus, if you had
escaped this sword, you would have been seized by order of
the Emperor; stripped of your wealth, your honors, your
accursed power, and your wretched life. The command for
your blood is this night crossing the Mediterranean !”
The dying man struggled to get free, wrenched himself by
a violent effort from the strong grasp, that at once held and
sustained him, and fell.—He was dead!
The son of El Hakim stood gazing on the body in silence;
when the glitter of a ring on the hand, as it lay spread on
the floor, struck his eye. He seized it with an outcry: the
man was wholly changed; his frowning visage flashed with
joy. I in vain demanded the cause. He pressed the sig-
net to his lips. "Farewell, Farewell!" he exclaimed,
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SALATHIEL.
"Will you not wait for your share of the spoil, your ample
and deserved reward?"
"Farewell!” he repeated, and burst from the chamber.
This memorable night made changes in more than the
Ishmaelite. Constantius was, at last, in his element. I had
hitherto seen him disguised by circumstances: the fugitive
from his country, the lover under the embarrassments of for-
bidden passion, the ill-starred soldier. His native vigor of
soul was under a perpetual cloud. But now the cloud broke
away; and victory, the consciousness of having nobly re-
trieved his check, and the still prouder consciousness of the
career that this triumph laid open before him, brought the
character of his mind into full light. He was now the
lofty enthusiast that nature made him. He breathed gene-
rous ambition: his step was the step of command; and
when he rushed to my embrace with almost the eagerness
of a boy, and a voice stifled with emotion, I saw in him the
romance, the soaring spirit, and the passionate love of glory,
that moulded the Greek hero.
He had done his duty nobly. All were in admiration of
his assault. The Romans had been fully prepared. He
scaled the rampart, and scaled it almost singly in their teeth.
His men followed gallantly. He pressed on: the second
rampart was stormed. I found him at the foot of the third,
checked by its impregnable mass alone, but defying the
whole garrison to drive him back. When I afterwards saw
the strength of those bulwarks, I felt that, with such a leader,
at the head of troops animated by his own spirit, there was
nothing extravagant in the boldest hope of war.
This was an eventful night; and there was still much to
be done before we slept. I threw over my tattered garments
one of the many mantles that lay loose round the chamber,
flung another on the body of the Procurator, and sallied
forth to give the final orders of the night. The prisoners
had been already secured, and I found the great hall of the
palace crowded with their officers. The interview was
whimsical for a while I escaped recognition; the gashed
faces and torn raiments of my hunters, which bore the
marks of our dreary march through the subterranean : the
rough heads and hands stained with the fight, a startling
contrast to the perfect equipment of the Roman under all
circumstances, gave them the look of the wildest of the rob.
ber tribes. My disguise was in the contrary way, yet com
SALATHIEL.
215
plete. The cloak was accidentally one of the most showy
in the Procurator's wardrobe. I found myself enveloped in
furs and tissues; and their Arab acquaintance was forgotten,
in what seemed to them the legitimate monarch of the
mountains.
I was received by the circle of officers with the deference
which, let the captor be who he may, marks the distinction
between him and his prisoner; yet with the decent dignity
of the brave. There was but one exception, which I might
have guessed-the tribune. He was all humiliation, stooped
to make some abject request about his baubles, and was pro-
bably on the point of apologizing for his ever having taken
up the trade of war: when I turned on my heel, and shook
hands with my old friend the captain. He looked in evident
perplexity. At last, through even the grim evidences of the
night's work on my countenance, and the problem of my
pompous mantle, his brightening eye began to recognize me;
and he burst out with, "The Arab, by Jupiter!" But when
I asked him, "what had become of his baggage," I touched
the tender string; and, with a countenarce as cast down, as
if he had sustained an irreparable calamity, he told me, that
his whole travelling cellar was in the hands of my men;
and it was his full belief, that he was at that moment not
worth a flask in the wide world.
The tribune turned away in conscious disgrace; and I sent
him to a dungeon, to meditate till morn on the awkwardness
of insolence to strangers. With the others I sat down to
such entertainments as a sacked fortress could supply; but
which hunger, thirst, and fatigue, rendered worth all the ban-
quets of the idle. The old captain cheered his soul, and
grew rhetorical.
"Wine," said he, flask in hand, "does
wonders. It is the true leveller, for it leaves no troublesome
inequality of conditions. It is the true sponge, that pays all
debts at sight, for it makes us forget the existence of a
creditor. It is the true friend, that sticks by a man to the last
drop.; the faithful mistress, that jilts no man; and the most
charming of wives, whose tongue no husband hears, whose
company is equally delightful at all hours, and who is as be-
witching this day as she was this day fifty years ago."
The panegyric was popular. The governor's cellar flowed.
The Italian connoisseurship in vintages was displayed in the
most profound style; and long before we parted, the great
"sponge" which wipes away debt, had wiped away every
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SALATHIEL.
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recollection of defeat. The idea of their being prisoners,
never clouded a sunbeam that came from the bottle. The
letters scattered from the tribune's saddle were an unfailing
topic. The legion picked them up on the march; they had
the piquancy of scandal of their particular friends; and the
addition made to their intelligence by my wild associate, was
unanimously declared the most dexterous piece of frolic, the
most pleasant venom, and the most venomous pleasantry,
that ever emanated from the wit of man.
But my task was not yet done. I left those gay soldiers
to their wine; and with Constantius, and some torchbearers,
hastened to the Armory of Herod the forbidden ground;
the treasure-house of war; and if old rumor were to be be-
lieved, the place of many a mysterious celebration, unlawful
to be seen by human eyes.
The building was in the centre of the citadel, and was of
the stateliest architecture. The massive doors were thrown
open. At the first step, I sprang from the blaze of steel and
gold that shot back against the torches. The walls of this
gigantic hall were covered with arms and armor of every na-
tion-cuirasses, Persian, Roman, and Greek; the plate-mail
of the Gaul; the Indian chain-armor ;—innumerable head-
pieces, from the steel cap of the Scythian, to the plumed and
triple-crested helmet of the Greek, the richest combination
of strength and beauty ever borne by soldiership-shields of
every shape and sculpture; the Greek orb; the Persian rhomb;
the Cimmerian crescent;-all arms, the ponderous spear of
the phalanx; the Thracian pike; the German war-hatchet;
the Italian´ javelin;—the bow, from the Nubian, twice the
height of man, to the small half circle of the Assyrian caval.
ry ;—swords, the broad-bladed and fearful falchion of the
Roman, every thrust of which let out a life; the huge two-
handed sword of the Baltic tribes; the Syrian scimetar; the
Persian acinaces; the deep-hilted knife of the Indian island-
er; the Arab poniard ; the serrated blade of the African; all
were there, in their richest models the collection of Herod's
life. War had raised him to a rank, which allowed the in-
dulgence of his most lavish tastes of good and ill; the sword
was his true sceptre; and never king bore the sign of his
sovereignty more royally emblazoned.
After long admiration of this display of the wealth dearest ·
to the soldier, I was retiring; when a slave approached, and
prostrating himself, told me that a hall remained, still more
SALATHIEL.
217
singular, "the hall in which the Great Herod received his
death-warning." I gazed round the armory; there was no
door but the one by which we entered
"Not here," said the Ethiopian; "yet it is beside us.
The foot of a Roman has never entered it. The secret re-
mained with me alone. Does my lord command that it shall
be revealed?"
The order was given. The slave took down one of the
coats of mail, pushed back a valve, and we entered a winding
stair which led us downwards for some minutes. The narrow
passage and heavy air reminded me of the subterranean.
Our torches burned dimly, and the visages of my attendants
showed how little their gallantry was to be relied on; if we
were to be brought into contact with magicians and ghosts.
Here," said the Ethiopian, "it was the custom of the
great king, in his declining years, when his heart was bro-
ken by the loss of the most beloved of his wives, and mad-
dened by the conspiracies of the princes his sons, to come
and consult others than the God of Jerusalem. Here the
Chaldee men of wisdom came to raise the spirits of the de-
parted, and show the fates of his kingdom. We are now in
the bowels of the mountain."
He loosed a chain, which disappeared into the ground with
a hollow noise. A huge mass of rock slowly rolled back,
and showed a depth of darkness through which our twinkling
torches scarcely made way
66
Stop," said the slave, "I should have first lighted the
shrine." He left us, and we shortly saw a blaze of many
colors on a tripod in the centre. As the blaze strengthened,
a scene of wonder awoke before the eye. A host of armed
men grew upon the darkness. The immense vault was peo-
pled with groups of warriors, all the great military leaders
of the world, in their native arms, and surrounded by a clus-
ter of their captains; the disturbers of the earth, from Sesos-
tris down to Cæsar and Anthony, brandishing the lance, or
reining the charger, each in his known attitude of command.
There rushed Cyrus in the scythed chariot, surrounded by
his horsemen, barbed from head to heel. There Alexander,
with the banner of Macedon waving above his head, and
armed as when he leaped into the Granicus. There Han-
nibal, upon the elephant that he rode at Canæ. There Cæ-
sar, with the head of Pompey at his feet. Those, and a long
succession of the masters, of victory, each in the moment of
VOL. I.
19
218
SALATHIEL.
supreme fortune, made the vault a representative palace of
human glory. But the view from the entrance told but half
the tale. It was when I advanced and lifted the torch to the
countenance of the first group, that the moral was visible.
All the visages were those of skeletons. The costly armor
was upon bones. The spears and sceptres were brandished
by the thin fingers of the grave. The vault was the repre-
sentative sepulchre of human vanity.
This was one of the fantastic fits of a mind which felt too
late the emptiness of earthly honors. Half pagan, the pow-
erful intellect of the man gave way to the sullen superstitions
of the murderer. Egypt was still the mystic tyrant of Pales-
tine; and Herod in his despair, sank into the slave of a cre.
dulity at once weak and terrible.
In the last hours of a long and deeply varied life, exhausted
more by misery of soul than disease; when medicine was
hopeless, and he had returned from trying the famous springs
of Callirhoë in vain, the king ordered himself to be brought
into this vault, and left alone. He remained in it for some
hours. The attendants were at length roused by hideous
wailings; they broke open the entrance, and found him in a
paroxysm of terror. The vault was filled with the strong
odors of some magical preparations still burning on the
tripod. The sound of departing feet was heard, but Herod
sat alone. In accents of the wildest woe, he declared that
he had seen the statues filled with sudden life, and charging
him with the death of his wife and children.
He left Masada instantly, pronouncing a curse upon the
hour in which he first listened to the arts of Egypt. He
was carried to Jericho, and there laid on a bed from which
he never rose. Alternate bursts of blasphemy and remorse
made his parting moments frightful. But tyranny was in his
last thought; and he died holding in his hand the order for
the massacre of every leading man in Judea.
SALATHIEL.
219
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE first decided blow of the war was given. I had in-
curred the full wrath of Rome; the trench between me and
forgiveness was impassable; and I felt a stern delight in the
conviction that the hope of truce or pardon was at an end:
the seizure of Masada was a defiance of the whole power of
the empire.
But it had the higher importance of a triumph at the be-
ginning of a war, the moment when even the courageous are
perplexed by doubt, and the timid watch their opportunity to
raise the cry of ill fortune. It showed the facility of con-
quest, where men are determined to run the full risk of
good or evil; it shook the military credit of the enemy, by
the proof that they could be over-matched in activity, spi-
rit, and conduct. The capture of a Roman fortress by as-
sault was a thing almost unheard of. But the consummate
value of the enterprise was in its declaration to those who
would fight; that they had leaders, able and willing to take
the last chance with them for the freedom of their country.
When day broke, and the strength of this celebrated for.
tress was fairly visible, I could scarcely believe that our suc-
cess was altogether the work. of man. The genius of an-
cient fortification produced nothing more remarkable than
Masada. It stood on the summit of a height, so steep that
the sun never reached the bottom of the surrounding defiles.
Its outer wall was a mile round, with thirty-eight towers, each
eighty feet high. Immense marble cisterns; granaries, like
palaces, capable of holding provisions for years; exhaustless
arms and military engines, in buildings of the finest Greek
art; and defences of the most costly skill, at every com-
manding point of the interior; showed the kingly magnifi-
cence and warlike care of the most brilliant, daring, and suc-
cessful monarch of Judea, since Solomon.
By the first sun beam, a new wonder struck the multitude,
whom the tumult of the night had gathered on the neighboring
hills. I ordered the great standard of Naphtali to be hoisted
on the citadel. It was raised in the midst of shouts and
hymns; and the huge scarlet fold spread out, majestically
220
SALATHIEL.
displaying the emblem of our tribe, the Silver Stag, before
the morn.
Shouts echoed and re-echoed round the horizon.
The hill tops, covered as far as the eye could reach, did
homage to the banner of Jewish deliverance; and, inspired
by the sight, every man of their thousands took sword and
spear, and made ready for battle.
My first care was to relieve the mind of my family; and
Constantius, with triumph in every feature, and love and
honor glowing in his heart, was made the bearer of the glad
tidings.
The duties of command devolved rapidly on me. An
army to be raised—a plan of operations to be determined
on-the chieftains of the country to be combined—and the
profligate feuds of Jerusalem to be extinguished; were dif
ficulties, that lay before my first step. It is in preliminaries
like those, that the burning spirit of man, full of the manliest
resolutions, and caring no more for personal safety than he
cares for the weed under his feet, is fated to feel the true
troubles of high enterprise.
I soon experienced the wretchedness of having to contend
with the indolent, the artful, and the base. My mind, eager
to follow up the first success, was entangled in tedious and
intricate negotiation, with men whom no sense of right or
wrong could stimulate to integrity. Rival interests to be
conciliated-gross corruptions to be crushed-paltry passions
to be stigmatized-family hatreds to be reconciled-childish
antipathies grasping avarice-giddy ambition-savage
cruelty, to be rectified, propitiated, or punished; were among
my tasks, before I could plant a foot in the field. If those
are the fruits that grow round even the righteous cause, what
must be the rank crop of conspiracy!
But, one point I speedily settled. The first assemblage of
the chieftains satisfied me of the absurdity of councils of war.
Every man had his plan; and every plan contemplated some
personal object. I saw that to discuss them would be useless
and endless. I had already begun to learn the diplomatic
art of taking my own way, with the most unruffled aspect.
I begged of the proposers to reduce their views to writing;
received their papers with perfect civility; took them to my
cabinet, and gave their brilliancy to add to the blaze of my
fire. High station is soon compelled to dissemble. A month
before, I should have spoken out my mind, and treated the
plans and the proposers alike with scorn. But a month be、
SALATHIEL.
221
fore, I was neither general nor statesman. Freed from the
encumbrance of many counsellors, I decided on a rapid march
to Jerusalem ;-there was power and glory in the word: by
this measure I should be master of all that final victory could
give, the popular mind, the national resources, and the high-
est prize of the most successful war.
Those thoughts banished rest from my pillow. I passed
day and night in a perpetual, feverish, exaltation of mind;
yet, if I were to compute my few periods of happiness, among
them would be the week when I could neither eat, drink,
nor sleep, from the mere overflowing of my warlike reveries
at Masada.
We may well forgive the splenetic apathy and sullen scorn
of life, that beset the holder of power, when time or chance
leaves his grasp empty. The mighty monarch; the general,
on whose sword hung the balance of empires; the states-
man, on whose counsel rose or sank the welfare of millions;
fallen into inaction, sunk into the feeble and unexciting em-
ployments of common life, their genius and their fame a bur-
den and a reproach, the source of a restless and indignant
contrast between what they were and what they are; how
feeble an emblem of such minds is the lion fanged, or the
eagle chained to a log! We may pass by even the fooleries
which so often make the world stare at the latter years of
famous men. When they can no longer soar to their natural
height, all beneath, is equal to them; our petty wisdom is not
worth their trouble. They scorn the little opinions of com-
mon place mankind, and follow their own tastes-contemptu-
ously trifle, and proudly play the fool.
Before the week was out, I was at the head of a hundred
thousand men; I was the champion of a great country; the
leader of the most formidable insurrection that ever contend-
ed with Rome in the East, the general of an army whose
fidelity and spirit were not to be surpassed on earth. Could
ambition ask more! There was even more, though too
solemn to be asked by human ambition. My nation was
sacred; a cause above human nature was to be fought for;
in that cause I might, at once, redeem my own name from
obscurity, and be the instrument of exalting the name, autho-
rity, and religion of a people, the regal people of the Sove-
reign of all!
Constantius returned. It was in vain that I had directed
my family to take refuge in the mountain country of Naphtali.
f
19*
-
SALATHIEL.
:
222
My authority was for once disputed at home. Strong affec
tion mastered fear, and, swift as love could speed, I saw
them entering the gates of Masada.
Such meetings can come but once in a life. I was sur-
rounded by innocent fondness, beauty most admirable, and
faith that no misfortunes could shake; and I was surrounded
by them in an hour when prosperity seemed laboring to lavish
on me all the wishes of man. I felt too, by the glance with
which Miriam looked upon her "hero," that I had earned a
higher title to the world's respect. Had she found me in
chains, she would have shared them without a murmur.
But her lofty heart rejoiced to find her husband thus vindi-
cating his claims to the homage of mankind.
Yet to those matchless enjoyments I gave up but one day.
By the next dawn, the trumpet sounded for the march. I
knew the importance of following up the first blow in all
wars; its indispensable importance in a war of insurrection.
To meet the disciplined troops of Rome in pitched battles
would be madness. The true manoeuvre was, to distract
their attention by variety of onset, cut off their communica-
tions, keep their camps in perpetual alarm, and make our
activity, numbers, and knowledge of the country, the substi
tutes for equipment, experience, and the science of the.
soldier.
In summoning those brave men, I adhered to the regula
tions of the law of our prophet; a law whose humanity and
regard for natural feelings, distinguished it in the most
striking manner from the stern violence of the pagan levy.
No man was required to take up arms, who had built a house
and had not dedicated it; no man who had planted a vine-
yard or olive ground, and had not yet reaped the produce;
no man who had betrothed a wife, and had not yet taken her
home; and, no man during the first year of his marriage.
My prisoners were my last embarrassment. To leave
them to the chance of popular mercy, or to leave them im-
mured in the fortress, would be cruelty. To let them loose,
would be, of course, to give so many soldiers to the enemy.
I adopted the simpler expedient of marching them to Berytus,
seizing a detachment of the Roman provision ships, and
embarking the whole for Italy.
To my old friend, the captain, whose cheerfulness could
be abated only by a failure of the vintage, I offered a tranquil
settlement among our hills. The etiquette of soldiership
SALATHIEL.
223
was formidably tasked by my offer, for the veteran was
thoroughly weary of his thankless service. He hesitated,
swore that I deserved to be a Roman, and even a captain of
horse; but finished by saying that, bad a trade as the army
was, he was too old to learn a better. I gave him and some
others their unconditional liberty; and he parted from the
Jewish rebel with more obvious regret, than perhaps he ever
dreamed himself capable of feeling for any thing but his
horse and his bottle.
Eleazar took the charge of my family and the command
of Masada. The sun burst out with cheerful omen on the
troops, as I wound down the steep road, named the Serpent,
from its extreme obliquity. The sight before me was of a
nature to exhilarate the heaviest heart; an immense host
making the air ring with acclamations at the coming of their
chieftain. The mental perspective of public honors and
national service, was still more exalting. Yet I felt a boding
depression, as if within those walls had begun and ended my
prosperity.
On the first ridge which crossed our march, I instinctively
stopped to give a farewell look. The breeze had sunk, and
the scarlet banner shook out its folds to the sun no more; a
cloud hung on the mountain peak, and covered the fortress
with gloom. I turned away.
The omen was true!
But sickly thoughts were forgotten, when we were once
fairly on the march. Who that has ever moved with an
army, has not known its ready cure for heaviness of heart?
The sound of the moving multitude, their broad mirth, the
mere trampling of their feet, the picturesque lights that fall
upon the columns as they pass over the inequalities of the
ground, keep the eye and the mind singularly alive.
Our men felt the whole delight of the scene; and gam.
bolled like deer, or horses let loose into pasture. But, to the
military habits of Constantius, this rude vigor was the highest
vexation. He galloped from flank to flank with hopeless
diligence, found that his arrangements only perplexed our
bold peasantry the more, and at length fairly relinquished
the idea of gaining any degree of credit by the brilliancy of
their discipline. But I, no more a tactician than themselves,
was content with seeing in them the material of the true
soldier: the spear was carried rudely, but the hand that
carried it was strong; the march was irregular, but the step
was firm; if there was song, and mirth, and clamor, they
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SALATHIEL.
1
were the cheerful voices of the brave; and I could read in
the countenances of ranks, that no skill could keep in order,
the hardihood and generous devotedness that in wars like
ours, have so often baffled the proud, and left of the mighty
but clay.
During the day, we saw no enemy; and drove along with
the unembarrassed step of men going up to one of the festi-
vals. The march was hot, the zeal of our young soldiers
made it rapid, and we continued it long after their usual
hour of repose. But then sleep took its thorough revenge.
It was fortunate for our fame that the enemy were not nigh;
for sleep fastened irresistibly and at once upon the whole
multitude. Sentinels were planted in vain; the spears fell
from their hands, and the watchers were tranquilly laid side
by side with the slumbering. Outposts and the usual pre-
cautionary arrangements were equally useless. Sleep was
our master. Constantius exerted his vigilance with fruitless
activity; and, before an hour passed, he and I were probably
the sole sentinels of the grand army of Judea.
"What can be done with such sluggards?" said he, in-
dignantly pointing to the heaps that, wrapped in their cloaks,
covered the fields far round, and in the moonlight looked
more like surges tipped with foam, than human beings.
"What can be done ?-wonders."
"Will they ever be able to manœuvre in the face of the
legions?"
"Never."
"Will they ever be able to move like regular troops ?"
"Never."
"Will they ever be able to keep their eyes open after
sunset ?"
"Never, after such a march as we have given them to-
day."
"What then, under heaven, will they be good for?"
"To beat the Romans out of Palestine !"
SALATHIEL.
225
CHAPTER XXXII.
BEFORE the sun was up, my peasants were on the march
again. From the annual journeys of the tribes to the great
city, no country was ever known so well to its whole popu-
lation as Palestine. Every hill, forest, and mountain stream,
was now saluted with the shout of old recognition. Disci
pline was forgotten, as we approached those spots of memory;
and the troops rambled loosely over the ground on which in
gentler times they had rested in the midst of their caravans.
Constantius had many an irritation to encounter; but I com.
bated his wrath, and pledged myself, that when the occasion
arrived, my countrymen would show the native vigor of the
soil.
"Let those brave peasants take their way," said I. "If
they will not make an army, let them make a mob; let them
come into the field with the bold propensities and generous
passions of their nature, unchecked by the trammels of
regular warfare: let them feel themselves men and not ma-
chines, and I pledge myself for their victory."
"They will soon have an opportunity: look yonder."
He pointed to a low range of misty hills some miles onward.
"Are we to fight the clouds? for I can see nothing else."
"Our troops, I think, would be exactly the proper an-
tagonists. But there is one cloud upon those hills, that
something more than the wind must drive away.
The sun threw a passing gleam upon the heights, and it
was returned by the sparkling of spears. The enemy were
before us. Constantius galloped with some of our hunters
to the front, to observe their position. The trumpets sounded,
and my countrymen justified all that I had said, by the en-
thusiasm that lighted up every countenance at the hope of
coming in contact with the oppressor. We advanced; shouts
rang from tribe to tribe; we quickened our pace; at length
the whole multitude ran. At the foot of the height every
man pushed forward without waiting for his fellow: it was a
complete confusion. The chief force against us was cavalry,
and I saw them preparing to charge. We must suffer pro-
digiously, let the day end how it would. The whole cam-
226
SALATHIEL.
paign might hang on the first repulse. I stood in agony. I
saw the squadrons level their lances. I saw the centurions
dash out in front.
All was ready for the fatal charge. To
my astonishment, the whole of the cavalry wheeled round
and disappeared.
The panic was like miracle-equally rapid and unac-
countable. I rode to the top of the hill, and discovered the
secret. Constantius, observing the enemy's attention taken
up with my advance, had made his way round the heights.
His trumpet gave the first notice of the manœuvre. Their
rear was threatened, and the cavalry fled, leaving a cohort
in our hands.
The first success in war is as full of consequences as the
first repulse. The flight and capture of any fragment of the
legions, was magnified into a sign of perpetual triumph. But
never was successful soldier honored with a more clamorous
triumph than Constantius. Nature speaks out among her
untutored sons. Envy has nothing to do in such a field as
ours. He was applauded to the skies.
Well," said I, as I pressed the gallant hand that had
planted the first laurel on our brows; "you see that, if
ploughmen and shepherds make rude soldiers, they make
capital judges of soldiership. You might have conquered a
kingdom without receiving half this panegyric in Rome.”
"The service is but begun, and we shall have another
lesson to get or give before to-morrow.
Those fellows are
grateful, I allow," said he, with a smile, "but you must
allow that, for what has been done, we have to thank the
discipline that brought us in the Roman rear."
"Yes, and the discipline that made them so much alarmed
about their rear as to run away, when they might have
charged and beaten us."
This little affair put us all in spirits, and the songs and
cheerful clamors burst out with renewed animation. But the
symptoms of the enemy soon became thicker. We found
the ruined cottage, the torn-up garden, the burnt orchard;
those habitual evidences of the camp. As we advanced, the
tracks of wagons and of the huge wheels of the military en-
gines were fresh in the grass; and from time to time some
skeleton of a beast of burden, or some half-covered wreck
of man, showed that desolation had walked there; the ca-
valry soon showed themselves on the heights in larger bodies;
but all was forgotten in the sight that at length rose upon the
SALATHIEL.
227
horizon; we beheld, bathed in the richest glow of a sum-
mer's eve, the summits of the mountains round Jerusalem,
and glorious above them, like another sun, the golden beauty
of the Temple of temples.
What Jew ever saw that sight but with homage of heart?
Fine fancies may declaim of the rapture of returning to one's
country after long years. Rapture! to find ourselves in a
land of strangers, ourselves forgotten, our early scenes so
changed, that we can scarcely retrace them, filled up with
new faces, or with the old so worn by time and care that we
read in them nothing but the emptiness of human hope; the
whole world new, frivolous, and contemptuous of our feel-
ings. Where is the mother, the sister, the woman of our
heart? We find their only memorials among the dead, and
bitterly feel that our true country is the tomb.
But the return to Zion was not of the things of this world.
The Jew saw before him the city of prophecy and power.
Mortal thoughts, individual sorrows, the melancholy expe-
riences of human life, had no place among the mighty hopes
that gathered over it, like angels' wings. Restoration, bound-
less empire, imperishable glory, were the writing upon its
bulwarks. It stood before him the Universal City, whose
gates were to be open for the reverence of all time; the
symbol to the earth of the returning presence of the Great
King; the promise to the Jew of an empire, triumphant over
the casualties of nations, the crimes of man, and the all-
grasping avarice of the grave.
The multitude prostrated themselves; then rising, broke
forth into the glorious hymn sung by the tribes on their
journeys to the Temple.
"Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city
of our God, the mountain of his holiness.
"Beautiful, the joy of the earth is Mount Zion, the city
of the Great King!
"God is known in her palaces for a refuge.
"We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God, in the
midst of thy temple..
"Walk about Zion; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye her
bulwarks; consider her palaces. For her God is our God,
forever and ever; he will be our guide in death; his praise
is to the ends of the earth. Glory to the King of Zion.”
The harmony of the adoring myriads rose sweet and so-
lemn upon the air; the sky was a canopy of sapphire; the
228
SALATHIEL.
breeze rich with the evening flowers; Jerusalem before me!
I felt as if the covering of my mortal nature were about to
be cast away, and my spirit to go forth, divested of its grosser
incumbrances, on a bright and boundless career of fortune.
But recollections, never to be subdued, saddened my me-
mory of the Temple; and when the first influence of the
worship passed, I turned from the sight of what was to me
the eternal monument of the heaviest crime and calamity of
man. I gave one parting glance as day died upon the spires.
To my surprise, they were darkened by more than twilight;
I glanced again, smoke rolled cloud on cloud over Mount
Moriah; flame and the distant roar of battle started us—
"had the enemy anticipated our march, and was Jerusalem
about to be stormed before our eyes?"
We were not long left to conjecture. Crowds of fright-
ened women and children were seen flying across the coun-
try. The roar swelled again; we answered it by cries of
indignation, and rushed onward. Unable to ascertain the
point of attack, I halted the multitude at the entrance of one
of the roads ascending to the great gate of the upper city,
and galloped forward with a few of my people.
A horseman rushed from the gate with a heedless rapidity
which must have flung him into the midst of us, or sent him
over the precipice. His voice alone enabled me to recognize
in this furious rider my kinsman, Jubal. But never had a
few months so altered a human being. Instead of the bold
and martial figure of the chieftain, I saw an emaciated and
exhausted man, apparently in the last stage of life and sor-
row: the florid cheek was of the color of clay; the flashing
glance was sunken; the loud and cheerful voice was sepul
chral. I welcomed him with the natural regard of our rela-
tionship; but his perturbation was fearful: he trembled, grew
fiery red, and could return my greeting only with a feeble
tongue and a wild eye.
But this was no time for private feelings. I inquired the
state of things in Jerusalem. Here his embarrassment was
thrown aside, and the natural energy of the man found room.
“Jerusalem has three curses at this hour," said he, fiercely,
"the priests, the people, and the Romans; and the last is
the lightest of the three.-The priests bloated with indul-
gence, and mad with the love of the world; the people pam.
pered with faction, and mad with bigotry; and the Romans
availing themselves of the madness of each to crush all.”
SALATHIEL.
229
“But has the assault been actually made? or is there force
enough within to repel it?" interrupted I.
"The assault has been made, and the enemy have driven
every thing before them, so far as has been their pleasure.
Why they have not pushed on is inconceivable, for our re-
gular troops are good for nothing. I have been sent out to
raise the villages; but my labor will be useless, for, see, the
eagles are already on the wall."
I looked; on the northern quarter of the battlements I saw,
through smoke and flame, the accursed standard. Below,
rose immense bursts of conflagration; the whole of the New
City, the Bezetha, was on fire.
My plan was instantly formed. I divided my force into
two bodies; gave one to Constantius, with orders to enter
the city, and beat the Romans from the walls; and with the
other, threaded the ravines toward their position on the hills.
I had to make a long circuit. The Roman camp was pitched
on the ridge of Mount Scopas, seven furlongs from the city.
Guided by Jubal, I gained its rear. My troops, stimulated
by the sight of the fugitive people, required all my efforts to
keep them from rushing on the detachments that we saw
successively hurrying to reinforce the assault.
Night fell; but the signal for my attack, a fixed number of
torches on the tower of the Temple, did not appear. The
troops, ambushed in the olive-groves skirting the ridge, had
hitherto escaped discovery. At length they grew furious,
and bore me along with them. As we burst up the rugged
sides of the hill, like a huge surge before the tempest, I cast
a despairing glance toward the city: the torches at that mo-
ment rose. Hope lived again. I pointed them out to the
troops: the sight added wings to their speed; and, before
the enemy could recover from their astonishment, we were
in the centre of the camp.
Nothing could be more complete than our success. The
legionaries, sure of the morning's march into Jerusalem, and
the plunder of the Temple, were caught leaning in crowds
over the ramparts, unarmed, and making absolute holiday.
Caius Cestius, their insolent general, was carousing in his
tent after the fatigues of the evening. The tribunes followed
his example; the soldiery saw nothing to require their supe-
rior abstemiousness, and the wine was flowing freely in healths
to the next day's rapine, when our roar opened their eyes. To
resist was out of the question. Fifty thousand spearmen, as
VOL. I.
20
230
SALATHIEL.
daring as ever lifted weapon, and inflamed with the feelings
of their harassed country, were in the midst, and they ran in
all directions. I pressed on to the general's tent; but the
prize had escaped; he was gone, on the first alarm. My
followers indignantly set it on fire: the blaze spread, and
the flame of the Roman camp rolled up, like the flame of a
sacrifice to the god of battles.
The seizure of the position was the ruin of the detach-
ments abandoned between the hill and the city. At the
sight of the flames the gates were flung open; and Constan-
tius drove the assailants from point to point, until our shouts
told him that we were marching upon their rear. The shock
then was final. The cohorts, dispirited and surprised, broke
like water; and scarcely a man of them lived to boast of
having insulted the walls of Jerusalem.
Day arose; and the Temple met the rising beam, un-
stained by the smoke of an enemy's fire. The wreck of the
legions lay upon the declivities, like the fragments of a fleet
on the shore. But this sight, painful even to an enemy, was
soon forgotten in the concourse of the rescued citizens, the
exultation of the troops, and the still more seducing vanities
that filled the heart of their chieftain.
Towards noon a long train of the principal people, headed
by the priests and elders, was seen issuing from the gates to
congratulate me. Music and triumphant shouts announced
their approach through the valley. My heart bounded with
the feelings of a conqueror. The whole long vista of na-
tional honors, the popular praise, the personal dignity, the
power of trampling upon the malignant, the clearance of my
character, the right to take the future lead on all occasions of
public service and princely renown, opened before my daz-
zled eye.
I was standing alone upon the brow of the promontory.
As far as the eye could reach all was in motion, and all was
directed to me: the homage of soldiery, priests, and people,
centered in my single being. I involuntarily uttered aloud
"At last, I shall enter Jerusalem in triumph." I heard a
voice at my side-" Never shall you enter Jerusalem, but in
sorrow!"
An indescribable pang accompanied the words. There
was not a living soul near me to have uttered them. The
troops were standing at a distance below, and in perfect si-
SALATHIEL.
231
fence. The words were spoken close to my ear. But I
fatally knew the voice, and conjecture was at an end.
My limbs felt powerless, as if I had been struck by light-
ning. I called Jubal up the peak to assist me.
But the blow
that smote my frame seemed to have smote his mind. His
look had grown tenfold more haggard in this single night.
His eyes rolled wildly; his speech was a collection of un-
meaning sounds, or the language of a fierce disturbance of
thought, altogether unintelligible. A lunatic stood before me.
Was this to be the foretaste of my own inflictions? I
shuddered as the past horrors rose upon my memory. Or
was I to see my kindred, friends, family, put under the yoke
of bodily and mental misery, as a menace of the punishment
that was to cut asunder my connection with human nature?
CHAPTER XXXIII.
IN pain and terror I drew my unfortunate kinsman from
the gaze of the troops; and entreated him to tell me, by
what melancholy chance his feelings had been thus disturbed.
He looked at me with a fierce glance, and half unsheathed
his dagger. But I was not to be repelled; and still laboured
to soothe him. He hurriedly grasped the weapon, flung it
down the steep, and sinking at my feet, burst into tears.
An uproar in the valley roused me from the contemplation
of this wreck of youth and hope. The enemy, though de-
feated, had suffered little comparative loss. The pride of
the legions could not brook the idea of defeat, by what they
deemed the rabble of the city and the fields. Cestius,
under cover of the broken country on our flanks, had rallied
the fugitives of the camp; and now, between me and
the city, were rapidly advancing in columns, forty thousand
men.
The manœuvre was bold. It might either cut us off from
Jerusalem, and force us to fight at a ruinous disadvantage;
or leave the city totally exposed. But, like all daring games,
it was perilous; and I was determined to make the haughty
Roman feel that he had an antagonist, who would not leave
the game at his discretion.
*
232
SALATHIEL
From the pinnacle on which I stood, the whole champaign
lay beneath me. Nothing could be lovelier. The grandest
combinations of art and nature were before the eye-Jeru-
salem on her hills, a city of palaces, and in that hour dis-
playing her full pomp; her towers streaming with banners;
her battlements crowded with troops; her priesthood and
citizens in their festal habits, pouring from the colossal gates,
and covering the plain with processions; that plain itself,
colored and teeming with the richest produce of the earth;
groves of the olive; declivities, purple with the vine, or yel-
low with corn, gleaming in the sun, sheets of vegetable gold,
richer than ever was dug from Indian mine.
I gazed, with an eye enraptured by the scene of beauty.
But the signals of my advanced parties along the heights,
soon told me that the enemy were in movement.
My plan was already adopted. On the right spread the
plain; on the left lay the broken and hilly country, through
which the enemy were moving by the three principal ravines.
I felt that, if they could unite and form, success, with our
undisciplined levies, was desperate. The only hope was,
of beating the columns separately, as they emerged into the
plain. The moment of action was rapidly arriving. Ca-
valry had begun to scatter over the ground, and ride down
upon the processions; which, startled at the sight, were in-
stantly scattered, and flying towards Jerusalem.
.
"The day of congratulation is clearly over," said Jubal,
pointing in scorn to the dispersed citizens. "To-day, at
least, you will not receive the homage of those hypocrites of
the Sanhedrim."
"Nor, perhaps, to-morrow, fellow soldier, for we must
first see of what materials those columns are made. If we
beat them, we shall save the elders the trouble of crossing
the plain, and receive our honours within the walls."
In Jerusalem!" exclaimed he, wildly. "No; never!
You have dangers to encounter within those walls, that no
art of man could withstand; dangers keener than the dag-
ger, more deadly than the aspic, more resistless than the
force of armies! Enter Jerusalem, and you are undone.”
I looked upon him with astonishment. But there was in
his eye a sad humility, a strangely imploring glance, that
formed the most singular contrast to the wildness of his
words. "Be warned!" said he, pressing close, as if he
dreaded that his secret should be overheard. “I have seen
!
SALATHIEL.
233
horrid things, I have heard horrid things, since I last entered
the city. Beware of the leaders of Jerusalem! I tell you
that they have fearful power, that their hate is inexorable,
and that you are its great victim!"
"This is altogether beyond my conception: how have I
offended ?"
"I know not; but mysterious things are whispered. You
are charged with unutterable acts. Your sudden abandon-
ment of the priesthood: sights seen in your deserted cham-
bers, which not even the most daring would venture to inha-
bit-your escape from dangers, that must have extinguished
any other human being, have bred fatal rumors. It has
been said that you worshipped in the bowels of the moun-
tain of Masada, where the magic fire burns eternally before
the form of the Evil one; that you even conquered the for-
tress, impregnable as it was to man, by a horrid compact;
and that the raising of your standard was the declared sign
of that compact, dreadfully to be repaid by you and yours!"
"Monstrous and incredible calumny! Where was their
evidence? My actions were before the face of the world.-
Hypocrites and villains!"
"If your virtues were written in a sun beam, envy would
darken, malice pervert, and hatred destroy;" exclaimed my
kinsman, with the bold countenance and manly feeling of
his better days. "They have in their secret councils
stained you with a fate more gloomy than I can comprehend
-that you are sentenced to even here the misery reserved
for the guilty beyond the grave.
""
I felt as if he had stricken a lance through my heart.
Mortal sickness seized on every vein. My blood was ice.
Fiery sparkles shot before my eyes. "There," thought I,
"is the first infliction of the sentence that is to separate, to
smite, to pursue me, to the last hour of time!"
I instinctively put my hand to my brow, to feel if the mark
of Cain was not already there. I gave one hurried glance
at Heaven, as if to see the form of the destroying angel
stooping over me.
But the consciousness that I was in the presence of the
multitude, compelled me to master my feelings. I assumed
a desperate firmness, and commanded Jubal to be ready
with his proofs of those calumries, against the time when I
should confound my accusers. But I spoke to the winds,
20*
234
SALATHIEL.
I need have dreaded no observer in him. The interval of
reason was gone. He burst out into the fiercest horrors.
They pursue me!" exclaimed he; "they come by
thousands, with the poniard and the poison! they cry for
blood! they would drive me to a crime black as their own!"
He flung himself at my feet: and clasping them, prevented
every effort to save him from this degradation. He buried
his face in my robe; and casting up a sacred look from time
to time, as if he shrank from some object of terror, apostro-
phized his vision.
"Fearful being," he cried, "spare me; turn away those
searching eyes, I have sworn to do the deed, and it shall be
done. I have sworn it against faith and honor, against the
ties of nature, against the laws of Heaven; but it shall be
done. Now, begone! See!" he cowered, pointing to a
cloud that floated across the sun; <<
'see, he spreads his
wings, he hovers over me; the thunders are flaming in his
hands. Begone, spirit of power and evil! It shall be done!
Look, where he vanishes into the heights of his kingdom!
the prince of the power of the air."
The cloud which fed the fancy of my unfortunate kinsman
dissolved, and with it his fear of the temper. But he lay ex-
hausted at my feet,-his eyes closed, his limbs shuddered,
the emblem of weakness and despair. I tried to rouse
him by that topic which would once have shot new life into
his heroic heart.
“Rise, Jubal; and see the enemy, whom we have so long
thirsted to meet. This battle must not be fought without
you. To-day, neither magic nor chance shall be imputed
to the conqueror, if I shall conquer. Jerusalem sees the
battle and before the face of my country I will show the
faculties that make the leader, or will leave the last drop of
my blood upon those fields."
The warrior kindled within him. He sprang from the
ground, and shot down an eagle glance at the enemy, who
had made rapid progress, and were beginning to show the
heads of their columns in the plain. He was unarmed; I
gave him my sword; and the proud humility with which he
put it to his lips, was a pledge to me that it would be honored
in his hands.
"Glorious thing!" he exclaimed, as he flashed it before
the sun," that raises man at once to the height of human
honors, or sends him where no care can disturb his rest; thou
SALATHIEL.
235
art the true sceptre that guards and graces empire; the true
talisman, more powerful than all the arts of the enchanter!
What, like thee, can lift up the lowly, enrich the destitute,
restore the undone! What talent, consummate knowledge,
gift of nature, nay, what smile of fortune can, like thee, in
one hour bid the obscure stand forth the idol of a people, or
the wonder of a world! Now, for glory!" he shouted to the
listening circle of the troops, who answered him with shouts.
-"Now, for glory!" they cried, and poured after him down
the side of the mountain.
The three gorges of the valleys through which the enemy
moved, opened into the plain at wide intervals from each
other. I delayed our march until the moment at which the
nearest column should show its head. I saw that the eager-
ness of Cestius to reach the open ground was already hurry-
ing his columns; and, that from the comparative facilities of
the ravine immediately under my position, the nearest
column must arrive unsupported.
The moment came. The helmets and spears were already
pouring from the pass, when a gesture of my hand let loose
the whole human torrent upon them. Our advantage of the
ground, our numbers, and impetuosity, decided the fate of
this division at once. The legionaries were not merely re-
pulsed, they were absolutely trampled down; they lay as if
a mighty wall, or a fragment of the mountain, had fallen upon
them.
The two remaining columns were still to be fought. Their
solid front, the compact and broad mass of iron that rushed
down the ravines, seemed irresistible; and when I cast a
glance on the irregular and waving lines behind me, I felt
the whole peril of the day. Yet I feared idly. The enemy
charged, and forced their way into the very centre of the
multitude, like two vast wedges crushing all before them. But
though they could repel, they could not conquer. The spirit
of the Jew fighting before Jerusalem was more than heroism.
To extinguish a Roman, though at the instant loss of life; to
disable a single spear, though by receiving it in his bosom;
to encumber with his corpse the steps of the adversary, was
reward enough for the man of Israel.
I saw crowds of those bold peasants fling themselves on
the ground, to creep in between the feet of the legionaries,
and die stabbing them; others casting away the lance to
seize the Roman bucklers, and encumber them with the
236
SALATHIEL.
strong grasp of death; crowds mounted the rising grounds,
and leaped down on the spears.
The enemy, overborne with the weight of the multitude,
at length found it impossible to move farther: yet their solid
strength was not to be broken. Wherever we turned, there
was the same wall of shields, the same thick fence of levelled
lances. We might as well have assaulted a rock. Our ar-
rows rebounded from their impenetrable armor: the stones
that poured on them from innumerable slings, rolled off like
the hail of a summer shower from a roof. But, to have stop-
ped the columns, and prevented their junction, was itself a
triumph. I felt that thus we had scarcely to do more, than
fix them where they stood, and leave the intense heat of
the day, thirst, and weariness, to fight our battle. But my
troops were not to be restrained. They still rolled in furious
heaps against the living fortification. Every broken lance
in that impenetrable barrier, every pierced helmet was a
trophy; the fall of a single legionary roused a shout of exul-
tation, and was the signal for a new charge.
But the battle was no longer to be left to our unassisted
efforts. The troops in Jerusalem moved down, with Con-
stantius at their head. In the perpetual roar of the conflict,
their shouts escaped my ear; and my first intelligence of
their advances was from Jubal, who had well redeemed his
pledge during the day. Hurrying with him to one of the
eminences that overlooked the field, I saw with pride and
delight the standard of Naphtali spreading its red folds at
the head of the advancing multitude. "Who commands
them?" asked Jubal eagerly.
"Who should command them, with that banner at their
head," replied I, "but my son, my brave Constantius ?”
He heard no more; but, bending his turban to his saddle
bow, struck the spur into his horse, and, with a cry of mad-
ness, plunged into the centre of the nearest column. The
stroke came upon it like a thunderbolt; the phalanx wavered
for the first time; a space was broken in its ranks. The
chasm was filled up by a charge of my hunters. To save
or die with Jubal, was the impulse! That charge was never
recovered; the column loosened, the multitude pressed in
upon it, and Constantius arrived only in time to see the rem-
nant of the proud Roman army flying to the disastrous shelter
of the ravine.
The day was won-I was a conqueror! The invincible
SALATHIEL.
237
legions were invincible no more. I had conquered under
the gaze of Jerusalem! Where was the, enmity that would
dare to murmur against me now! What calumny would not
be crushed by the force of national gratitude! A flood of
absorbing sensations filled my soul. No eloquence of man
could express the glowing and superb consciousness that
swelled my heart, in the moment when I saw the Romans
shake, and heard the shouts of my army proclaiming me
victor!
After this day, I can forgive the boldest extravagance of
the boldest passion for war. That passion is not cruelty, nor
the thirst of possession, nor the longing for supremacy; but
something made up of them all, and yet superior to all-the
essential spirit of the stirring motives of the human mind-
the fever of the gamester, kindled by the loftiest objects, and
ennobled by them-a game were the stake is an endless in-
heritance of renown, a sudden lifting of the man into the rank
of those on whose names time can make no impression; who,
let their place on earth be what it may, are at the head of
mankind. Immortals, without undergoing the penalty of the
grave?
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