'By Hercules! will you let me pass? oh! I will get outside and wait for your miserable slave, and if she does not break her limbs in jumping into the street, I will break her bones!'
'Try to get down and save yourself, Genevieve,' cried Aurelia; 'fear nothing, they shall trample me under foot before I open the door—'
Genevieve raised her eyes to heaven to invoke the gods, jumped from the arch above the door and was lucky enough to reach the ground without hurting herself. She remained however for a moment, stunned by the fall; she then rose up hastily and took to flight, her heart beating at the cries she heard proceeding from her mistress, who was being ill treated by her husband.
The slave, after running some way to get beyond her master's house, stopped, breathless, to consider in what direction was situated the tavern of the Wild Ass, where she hoped to hear of the young man of Nazareth, whom she wished to warn of the danger that menaced him. At this tavern she learnt that some hours before he had gone, with several of his disciples, towards the river Cedron, to a garden planted with olive trees, where he often repaired at night to meditate and pray.
Genevieve ran hastily to this place. The moment she had passed the gate of the city, she saw in the distance the light of several torches reflected on the helmets and armor of a great number of soldiers; they marched in disorder and uttered confused clamors.
The slave, fearing that they were sent by the pharisees to seize the Nazarene, commenced running in the hope of getting before them, perhaps, and in time to give the alarm to Jesus, or to his disciples. She was but a short distance from these armed men, whom she recognized as the Jerusalem militia, but little renowned for their courage, when by the glare of the torches they carried she noticed, away from the road but following the same direction, a narrow path bordered with firs. She took this road that she might not be seen by the soldiers, at the head of whom she observed Judas, the disciple of the young man whom she had seen at the tavern of the Wild Ass one of the preceding nights. He was then saying to the officer of the men, who commanded the escort:
'Seigneur, he whom you see me embrace will be the Nazarene.'
'Oh! this time,' replied the officer, 'he shall not escape us; and to-morrow, before sunset, the rebel will have suffered the punishment due to his crimes. Let us hasten, let us hasten; some of his disciples might have given him notice of our arrival. Let us also be very prudent, for fear of falling into an ambush, and let us also be very prudent when we are on the point of seizing the Nazarene: he might employ against us magical and diabolical ways. If I recommend prudence to you,' added the officer to his men, in a valorous tone, '‘tis not that I fear danger, but ‘tis to secure the success of our enterprise.'
The soldiers did not appear greatly reassured by these words of their officer and slackened their march, from a fear, no doubt, of some ambush.—Genevieve profited by this circumstance and, still running, she arrived at the borders of the river of Cedron. Not far from thence she perceived a small hill, planted with olives; this wood, buried in the shade, was scarcely distinguishable from the darkness of the night. She listened, all was silent; nothing was heard but the measured tread of the soldiers as they slowly approached. Genevieve had a momentary hope, thinking that, perhaps, the young man of Nazareth, warned in time, had quitted this place. She advanced cautiously in the obscurity, when she stumbled against the body of a man stretched beneath an olive tree. She could not restrain a cry of fear, whilst the man against whom she had stumbled suddenly awoke and said: 'Master, pardon me but this time again; I could not overcome the sleep that invaded me.'
'A disciple of Jesus!' exclaimed the slave, once more alarmed. 'He is here, then?'