A moment after, reflecting on what he had said aloud, he started with terror as from a frightful dream. “Can that be Sulamith?” he said with a sigh. The image of his wife, in all her gentleness and loveliness, stood before his mind, and softened, he exclaimed, “It is impossible.” Had Sulamith at that moment spoken but a word to him, he would have forgiven her all. He even quitted the Alijah to go to her: but when he looked down on the door of the Armon, and the thought flashed on him that through it the man had passed by whom he had been dishonoured, every returning thought of love and compassion was banished from his mind.
The inferior court, which was held on the spot where the offence was alleged to have been committed, assembled in this instance on the following morning at the gate of the city; Selumiel, appearing as accuser of his own daughter, stood on the right of the judges, and Sulamith on their left. The whole gate was filled with citizens of Jericho, among whom the news of this affair had rapidly spread, and excited universal curiosity.
Sulamith felt, at her first entrance, overpowered by the solemnity of this venerable assemblage, of which she had heard so much, but which she had never seen; that feeling having subsided, she regained her self-possession. Helon stood with a bewildered countenance, not venturing to look at his wife, or he must have read her vindication in her countenance, in which the pride of conscious innocence struggled with the feeling of ignominious exposure, and in her bright eyes now red with weeping, but untroubled by any expression of guilt or fear.
The father related what had happened, and Helon confirmed his statement. The judges turned to Sulamith, and asked her if she acknowledged the truth of what was alleged against her. “I call Jehovah to witness,” she replied with lofty tranquillity of manner, “that I am innocent, and will take the oath of purgation.” “Be it unto thee,” said the elder, “as thou hast desired.” Two assessors were selected to accompany her to the Sanhedrim, before whom alone the oath could be taken, to protect her on the way from the fury of the men, and to lay the whole affair before the supreme council.
They departed from Jericho immediately. The whole city was assembled, men, women, and children. Sulamith’s mother stood among the crowd wringing her hands. Most of the females sympathized with their suffering sister; but the whispers of malice and the taunts of malignant joy were also heard.
Helon followed them at a distance, by the same road by which at Pentecost he had gone up to Jerusalem an affianced bridegroom, full of joy and hope. Then the desert had seemed to be converted into a paradise. How was his condition changed! Elisama was dead, the land of promise had proved a land of chastisement to him; his enthusiasm for the sacerdotal office was dead within him; his wife went before him as an adulteress. With what regret did he look towards the distant Oasis of the Essenes, and long to bury himself in it, without a wife, without the priesthood, a stranger in the land of promise, solitary and single among the people of Israel!
They arrived in the evening at Jerusalem. Iddo was sitting in the gate, but when he saw them, and discovered the purpose for which they were come, he fled with averted head, and hands stretched out as if to repel some threatening evil. They ascended the temple-hill; all who met them were astonished to see her, who at the feast had been the object of universal admiration, brought up as a transgressor. She was confined for the night in a chamber of the temple; and Helon and Selumiel passed it in dejection and gloom in the house of Iddo.
The morning, the fearful morning came! After the usual sacrifice, the Sanhedrim assembled in the hall Gazith. All its seventy-one members were present, the high-priest, the elders, and the Levites sitting in a semicircle. Sulamith was led through the multitude that filled the courts, and placed before the tribunal. The assessors of the court of Jericho then laid the matter before the Sanhedrim, and Selumiel and Helon confirmed their statement. The father and husband were commanded to withdraw, and Sulamith, in her mourning garments, remained standing alone, in the midst of the judges.
They addressed her at first in a friendly tone, and endeavoured to bring her to confession, alleging grounds of excuse from her youth and her husband’s own culpability. “Daughter,” said one of the Sanhedrim, “glorify the great name of God, and do not allow that this sacred name should be washed with water and blotted out.” At other times they assumed an angry tone, blamed her silence, which they interpreted as an evidence of guilt, and bade her beware that she did not by her obstinacy plunge herself into an untimely death. Sulamith adhered to her denial, and, as they often urged her to confession, replied, “I am innocent and falsely accused. Put me to what test ye will, but ask of me no other confession than this, that I am innocent.”
The Sanhedrim, convinced by her noble firmness, ceased to importune her, and decreed that she should drink the water of jealousy, and take the oath of purgation. “Daughter,” said one of them, “if thou art innocent, put thy trust in Jehovah and drink boldly. It is with the bitter water as with poison, which laid upon a wounded part produces death, but has no effect when the flesh is sound.”