“Comrades, crown the bowl with wine,
Round your locks the ivy twine,
Deeper drink and join again
Bacchus and his reeling train.”
His first impulse was to tear the ivy-wreath from his head. Then he reflected that if he could endure to wear it for a few moments longer, it might serve him as a passport. The event proved that he was right. He passed unquestioned through the crowd of revellers, left the precincts of the valley, and striking on an unfrequented path, hurried on at the top of his speed, not pausing till he had put at least six miles between himself and the scene of his late adventure. Then he threw himself on the ground and bewailed his grievous fall in an agony of shame and remorse. After a while the fatigue and excitement of the day, helped by the fumes of the wine, which his rapid movements had sent to his brain, overpowered him, and he sank into a heavy sleep.
His slumbers lasted late into the day. When he woke, his head aching with the excess of the day before, he felt even more wretched, more hopeless. To return to the city was out of the question. But where was he to go? While he was debating this question with himself, and could find nothing in the [pg 112]least resembling an answer, he caught the sound of approaching footsteps. Mingled feelings of shame and fear suggested to him that he should hide himself, and he plunged into the bushes which lined the side of the road.
The traveller approached. He was a renegade Jew, and Shallum recognized him as one who had taken an active part in the festivities of the preceding day. Just as he passed Shallum’s hiding-place an unlucky impulse made him burst forth into a snatch of the Bacchic chant—
“Deeper drink and join again
Bacchus and his reeling train.”
His listener heard the words with mingled feelings of disgust and rage, and leaping down into the road felled him senseless to the ground.