John saw his opportunity, and availed himself of it on the instant. No sooner had Calchas placed his foot once more within the town, than his head was covered, so that he might not be recognised; and he was carried off by a guard of John’s adherents, and placed in secure ward, their chief adroitly arresting him by a false name, for the information of the populace, lest the rumour should reach Eleazar’s ears. He knew his rival’s readiness of resource, and determined to take him by surprise. Then he rent his garment, and ran bareheaded through the streets towards the Temple, calling [pg 361]with a great voice, “Treason! Treason!” and sending round the fragments of his gown amongst the senators, to convoke them in haste upon a matter of life and death, in their usual place of deliberation. So rapidly did he take his measures that the Outer Court was already filled and the Council assembled, ere Eleazar, busied with his labours at the wall far off, opposite the Tower of Antonia, knew that they had been summoned. Covered with sweat and dust, he obeyed at once the behest of the Levite who came breathlessly to require his presence, as an elder of Israel; but it was not without foreboding of evil that he observed the glances of suspicion and mistrust shot at him by his colleagues when he joined them. John of Gischala, with an affectation of extreme fairness, had declined to enter upon the business of the State, until this, the latest of her councillors, had arrived; but he had taken good care, by means of his creatures, to scatter rumours amongst the Senate, and even amongst the Zealots themselves, deeply affecting the loyalty of their chief.
No sooner had Eleazar, still covered with the signs of his toil, taken his accustomed station, than John stood forth in the hall and spoke out in a loud, clear voice.
“Before the late troublous times,” said he, “and when every man in Judæa ate of his own figs from his own fig-tree, and trod out his own grapes in his own vineyard; when we digged our wells unmolested, and our women drew water unveiled, and drank it peacefully at sundown; when our children played about our knees at the door, and ate butter and honey, and cakes baked in oil; when the cruse was never empty, and the milk mantled in the milking-vessels, and the kid seethed in the pot—yea, in the pleasant time, in the days of old, it chanced that I was taking a prey in the mountain by the hunter’s craft, in the green mountain, even the mountain of Lebanon. Then at noon I was wearied and athirst, and I laid me down under a goodly cedar and slept, and dreamed a dream. Behold, I will discover to the elders my dream and the interpretation thereof.
“Now the cedar under which I lay was a goodly cedar, but in my dream it seemed that it reached far into the heavens, and spread its roots abroad to the springs of many waters, and sheltered the birds of the air in its branches, and comforted the beasts of the field with its shade. Then there came a beast out of the mountain—a huge beast with a serpent between its eyes and horns upon its jaws—and leaned against the cedar, but the tree neither bent nor broke. So there came a great wind against the cedar—a mighty [pg 362]wind that rushed and roared through its branches, till it rocked to and fro, bending and swaying to the blast—but the storm passed away, and the goodly tree stood firm and upright as before. Again the face of heaven was darkened, and the thunder roared above, and the lightning leaped from the cloud, and smote upon the cedar, and rent off one of its limbs with a great and terrible crash; but when the sky cleared once more, the tree was a fair tree yet. So I said in my dream, ‘Blessed is the cedar among the trees of the forest, for destruction shall not prevail against it.’
“Then I looked, and behold, the cedar was already rotting, and its arms were withered up, and its head was no longer black, for a little worm, and another, and yet another were creeping from within the bark, where they had been eating at its heart. Then one drew near bearing fagots on his shoulders, and he builded the fagots round the tree, and set a light to them, and burned them with fire, and the worms fell out by myriads from the tree, and perished in the smoke.
“Then said he unto me, ‘John of Gischala, arise! The cedar is the Holy City, and the beast is the might of the Roman Empire, and the storm and the tempest are the famine and the pestilence, and none of these shall prevail against it, save by the aid of the enemies from within. Purge them therefore with fire, and smite them with the sword, and crush them, even as the worm is crushed beneath thy heel into the earth!’
“And the interpretation of the dream hath remained with me to this day, for is it not thus even now when the Roman is at the gate, as it hath ever been with the Holy City in the times of old? When the Assyrian came up against her, was not his host greater in number than the sands of the seashore? But he retired in discomfiture from before her, because she was true to herself. Would Nebuzaradan have put his chains on our people’s neck, and Gedaliah scorned to accept honour from the conqueror, and to pay him tribute? When Pompey pitched his camp at Jericho and surrounded the Holy City with his legions, did not Aristobulus play the traitor and offer to open the gate? and when the soldiers mutinied, and prevented so black a treason, did not Hyrcanus, who was afterwards high-priest, assist the besiegers from within, and enable them to gain possession of the town? In later days, Herod, indeed, who was surnamed the Great, fortified Jerusalem like a soldier and a patriot; but even Herod, our warrior king, soiled his hands with Roman gold, and bowed his head to the Roman [pg 363]yoke. Will you tell me of Agrippa’s wall, reared by the namesake and successor of the mighty monarch? Why was it never finished? Can you answer me that? I trow ye know too well; there was fear of displeasing Cæsar, there was the old shameful truckling to Rome. This is the leaven that leaveneth all our leaders; this is the palsy that withereth all our efforts. Is not the chief who defended Jotapata now a guest in the tent of Titus? Is not Agrippa the younger a staunch adherent of Vespasian? Is he not a mere procurator of the Empire, for the province, forsooth, of Judæa? And shall we learn nothing from our history? Nothing from the events of our own times, from the scenes we ourselves witness day by day? Must the cedar fall because we fail to destroy the worms that are eating at its core? Shall Jerusalem be desecrated because we fear to denounce the hand that would deliver her to the foe? We have a plague-spot in the nation. We have an enemy in the town. We have a traitor in the Council, Eleazar Ben-Manahem! I bid thee stand forth!”
There is an instinct of danger which seems to warn the statesman like the mariner of coming storms, giving him time to trim his sail, while they are yet below the horizon. When the assembled Senate turned their startled looks on Eleazar, they beheld a countenance unmoved by the suddenness and gravity of the accusation, a bearing that denoted, if not conscious innocence, at least a fixed resolution to wear its semblance without a shadow of weakness or fear. Pointing to his dusty garments, and the stains of toil upon his hands and person, he looked round frankly among the elders, rather, as it seemed, appealing to the Senate than answering his accuser, in his reply.
“These should be sufficient proofs,” said he, “if any were wanting, that Eleazar Ben-Manahem hath not been an instant absent from his post. I have but to strip the gown from my breast, and I can show yet deeper marks to attest my loyalty and patriotism. I have not grudged my own blood, nor the blood of my kindred, and of my father’s house, to defend the walls of Jerusalem. John of Gischala hath dealt with you in parables, but I speak to you in the plain language of truth. This right hand of mine is hardened with grasping sword and spear against the enemies of Judah; and I would cut it off with its own fellow, ere I stretched it forth in amity to the Roman or the heathen. Talk not to me of thy worms and thy cedars! John of Gischala, man of blood and rapine—speak out thine accusation plainly, that I may answer it!”
John was stepping angrily forward, when he was arrested by the voice of a venerable long-bearded senator.