She shook her head, and smiled rather sadly.
“But after death,” she insisted; “after death do you believe you will see me no more?”
He looked blank and confused. The same question had been present almost unconsciously in his mind, but had never taken so definite a shape before.
“You would make me a coward, Mariamne,” said he; “when I think of you, I almost fear to die.”
They were standing under the holm-oak, where the moonlight streamed down clear and cold through the bare branches. It shone on a slab of marble, half defaced, half overgrown with moss. Nevertheless, on that surface was distinctly carved the horse’s head with which the Roman loved to decorate the stone that marked his last resting-place.
“Do you know what that means?” said she, pointing to this quaint and yet suggestive symbol. “Even the proud Roman feels that death and departure are the same,—that he is going on a journey he knows not where, but one from which he never shall return. It is a journey we must all take, none can tell how soon; for you and me the horse may be harnessed this very night. But I know where I am [pg 257]going, Esca. If you had slain me an hour ago with your sword, I should have been there even now.”
“And I?” he exclaimed. “Should I have been with you? for I would have died amongst the gladiators as I have seen a wolf die in my own country, overmatched by hounds. Mariamne, you would not have left me for ever? What would have become of me?”
Again she shook her head with the same pitiful plaintive smile.
“You do not know the way,” said she. “You have no guide to take you by the hand; you would be lost in the darkness; and I—I should see you no more. Oh! Esca, I can teach you, I can show it you. Let us travel it together, and, come what may, we need never part again!”
Then the girl knelt down under that dead tree, with the moonbeams shining on her pale face, and her lips moved in whispered thanksgiving for the late escape, and prayer for him who now stood by her side, and who watched her with wistful looks, as a child watches a piece of mechanism of which he sees plainly the effect, while he strives in vain to comprehend the cause. It seemed to Esca that the woman he loved must have found the talisman that all his youth he had felt a vague consciousness he wanted—something beyond manly courage, or burning patriotism, or the dogged obstinacy that fortifies itself by defying the worst. Moreover, the course of his past life, above all, the trials he had lately undergone, could not but have prepared the ground for the reception of that good seed which brings forth such good fruit,—could not but have shown him the necessity for a strength superior to the bravest endurance of mere humanity, for a hope that was fixed beyond the grave. A few minutes she remained on her knees, praying fervently for herself,—for him. He felt that it was so, and while his eyes were riveted on the dear face, so pure and peaceful, turned upward to the sky, he knew that his own being was elevated by her holy influence, that the earthly affection of a lover for his mistress, was in his breast refined by the adoration of a worshipper for a saint.