Onesimus helped her to dismount the panting camel and take place on his own horse, fresh because he had ridden little. He felt the tremor of her slender form as he helped her to saddle. Far as eye could see were tents on the heights and plains: but the Holy City they could not see for the fog of smoke and dust and mist.
One great yellow tent spacious enough to house a thousand men lay not a hundred yards to the left of their road. Above it blew the eagle pennants of Rome.
“On,” shouted the old Idumean, “we are safe here. That is the General’s tent. They have paused because this is the Jewish Sabbath and they parley for surrender. To-day will see their Holy City fall and ring to our trumpets’ victory.”
The caravan moved slowly forward. Soldiers rose sleepily where they lay on the ground and saluted the old Idumean. The camels moved through the mist in grotesque ghosts. Myriad tents were myriad island peaks in the lifting morning mist. Then the sun outburst over the rose-tinted mountains of Moab in the east; and the trumpets blew in a million echoes through glen and grotto.
Mountains and plains seemed to awaken with myriad soldier forms from ground and tent. Their metal helmets gave back the morning light in silvered fire. As the trumpets blew their silvery blasts amid the echoing rocks, the young presbyter’s horse reared in panic terror. The Idumean and the young presbyter sprang to snatch at the bridle. The Princess threw out her arm and struck the trembling creature a blow on its flank with the bridle rein. It bounded in mid-air and fled as on winged feet straight for the tent of the sleeping Roman General.
The old Idumean came a-sprawl on the ground, rolled over and sprang up with his helmet awry. The astounded young presbyter had retained his seat on the wearied camel, but gazed after the fleeing form as one who has received his death blow.
“A curse upon her and all her vixen foxy Herod brood,” raged the old man, getting stiffly to his feet. “I might have known it was a trick when she said she would go to the Grecian Isles with you.”
The caravan moved forward again. The old Idumean was galloping furious as his Arab horse could leap in wild bounds towards the General’s tent. Just as the sunlight burst in a shield of fire over the embattled hosts, the young presbyter looked back.
The old Idumean had thrown himself from his horse and stood with drawn lance across the door to the tent of the sleeping Roman General.
“And because Peter erred through love in a slippery place, it gave his great heart tenderness for all who trust in flesh,” said Apollos. Then he smiled gently at his young presbyter. “The old Idumean is closer to truth though he fell hard and cursed as Peter, than this Princess, blinder in the fetters of her own wiles than the Queen Herodias, prisoner back in the Fort,” he said. “We all have to learn by errors, Onesimus, but it makes the way longer; and he who follows truth by a circling road, comes out where he began.”