“Then Miriam, unable to bear any longer seeing him thus tortured, whispered to me, and pointed to a corner of the room, where the hoard had been built in. The old man’s eyes flashed fire, and he denied what she said; but the plunderers knocked at the wall, found that it rang hollow, broke into it, and greeted the shower of gold and silver that rattled down on the floor with peals of mocking laughter. Again I reminded them of the promise of mercy to Leo. The chief agreed.
“‘All fair, the secret is out,’ he said. ‘We have the treasure, and that is torture enough for the old miser.’ And at his command they cut the cords and let the victim down.
“He fell in a helpless heap on the floor, all hope and courage crushed out of him, and wept and sobbed like a child. If it had been wife and child for whom he had suffered any one must have wept with him.”
“It was wife and child and country to him,” Ethne murmured; “it was the double glamour which bewildered him—the hideous curse of Mammon and the fond dream of affection. But what of Miriam?”
“She knelt down beside him,” Marius said, “the noble Jewish woman. She threw her arms around him and sustained him; she took his poor wounded hands and held them to her heart; she sobbed out every tender name she could; I understood them by the tones, though the words were in their own Hebrew. There was tender reverence in her every gesture, even more than affection; and turning to me, she said, in a tone almost of triumph, ‘It is not himself, it is his deadliest enemy they have slain. And now he will be himself again.’ And she added, ‘Thy wife will understand!’”
“I do understand,” Ethne said, with a victorious radiance like a halo on her face; “and I have found him his true gold! I have found his child! The idol is broken, but the dream of love shall prove true.”
The next morning she crept quietly into the chamber where they had left Eleazar and Miriam. The old man had fallen at last into a heavy sleep. Miriam was sitting on the floor beside him, holding one of his hands. Ethne sat down beside her, and for some minutes said nothing.
“The evil spirit has gone out of him,” Miriam said. “You see, he sleeps as sweetly as a child.”
“And the lost child is coming to him,” Ethne answered. “Coming to you both, mother and father! Your Rachel is found.”