He hid his face in his hands, and his strong frame shook with agony from head to heel.
It was the turn of Calchas now to start to his feet, and look about him as if in search of a weapon. His first impulse was resistance to oppression, even by the strong hand. With Eleazar, on the contrary, the instincts of the soldier predominated, and the very magnitude of the emergency seemed to endow him with preternatural coolness and composure. He knit his thick brows indeed, and there was a smothered glare in his eye that boded no good to an enemy when the time for an outbreak should arrive, but his voice was low and distinct, as in a few sharp eager questions he gathered the outline of the plot that was to rob him of his daughter. Then he thought for a few seconds ere he spoke.
“The men that were to take her? What were they like? I would fain know them if I came across them.”
His white teeth gleamed like a wild beast’s with a smile ominous of his intentions on their behalf.
“Damasippus and Oarses,” replied the Briton. “The former stout, sleek, heavy, and beetle-browed. The latter pale, dark, and thin. An Egyptian with an Egyptian’s false face, and more than an Egyptian’s cruelty and cunning.”
“Where live they?” asked the Jew, buckling at the same time a formidable two-edged sword to his side.
“In the Flaminian Way,” replied the other. “High up in some garret where we should never find them. But they will not take her there. She is by this time at the other end of the city in the tribune’s house.” And again he groaned in anguish of spirit at the thought.
“And that house?” asked Eleazar, still busied with his warlike preparations. “How is it defended? I know its outside well, and an easy entrance from the wall to the [pg 217]inner court; but what resistance shall we encounter within? what force can the tribune’s people raise at a moment’s outcry?”
“Alas!” answered Esca. “To-night of all nights, the house of Placidus is garrisoned like a fortress. A chosen band of gladiators are to sup with the tribune, and afterwards to take possession of the palace and drag Cæsar from the throne. When they find the banquet prepared for them, I know them too well to think they will separate without partaking of it, even though their host be lying dead on the festal couch. She will become the prey of men like Hippias, Lutorius, and Euchenor. But if we cannot rescue her, at least we may die in the attempt.”
Even in his anxiety for his daughter, such news as this could not but startle the emissary of the Jewish nation. In an instant’s time he had run over its importance, as it regarded his own mission and the probable influence on the destinies of his country. Should the conspiracy succeed, Vitellius might already be numbered with the dead, and instead of that easy self-indulgent glutton, over whom he had already obtained considerable influence, he would have to do with the bold, sagacious, far-seeing general, the remorseless enemy of his nation, whom neither he nor any of his countrymen had ever succeeded in deceiving by stratagem or worsting by force of arms. When the purple descended on Vespasian the doom of Jerusalem was sealed. Nevertheless, Eleazar concentrated his mind on the present emergency. In a few words he laid out his plan for the rescue of his daughter.