She heard his yell once again, as he caught sight of her, but two human figures in front restored her courage, and she rushed on to implore their protection from her enemy; yet fear had not so completely mastered her self-possession, as to drive her into an obvious physical danger, even to escape encounter with a lunatic. Nearing them, and indeed almost within arm’s-length, she perceived that one was blasted with the awful curse of leprosy. The moon shone bright and clear upon the white glistening surface of his scarred and mortifying flesh. On his brow, on his neck, in the patches of his wasting beard and hair, on his naked arms and chest, nay, in the very garment girt around his loins, the plague-spots deepened, and widened, and festered, and ate them all away. It would be death to come in contact, even with his garments—nay, worse than death, for it would entail a separation from the touch of human hand, and the help of human skill.
Yet grovelling there on the bare stones of the street, the leper was struggling for a bone with a strong active youth, who had nearly overpowered him, and whom famine had driven to subject himself to the certainty of a horrible and loathsome fate, rather than endure any longer its maddening pangs. There was scarcely a meal of offal on the prize, and yet he tore it from the leper whom he had overpowered, and gnawed it with a greedy brutish muttering, as a dog mumbles a bone.
Gathering her dress around her to avoid a chance of the fatal contact, Mariamne scoured past the ghastly pair, even in her own imminent terror and distress feeling her heart bleed for this flagrant example of the sufferings endured by her countrymen. The maniac, however, permitted his attention to be diverted for a few moments, by the two struggling figures, from his pursuit; and Mariamne, turning quickly aside into a narrow doorway, cowered down in its darkest corner, and listened with feelings of relief and thankfulness to the steps of her pursuer, as, passing this unsuspected refuge, he sped in his fruitless chase along the street.
CHAPTER XII
DESOLATION
Panting like a hunted hind, yet true to the generous blood that flowed in her veins, Mariamne recovered her courage even before her strength. No sooner was the immediate danger passed, than she cast aside all thoughts of personal safety, and only considered how she might still rescue the man she loved. Familiar with the street in which she had taken refuge, as with every other nook and corner of her native city—for the Jews permitted their women far more liberty than did their Eastern neighbours—she bethought her of taking a devious round in case she should be followed, and then returning by the way she had come, to her father’s gardens. It was above all things important that Eleazar should not be made aware of his daughter’s absence; and she calculated, not without reason, that the fatigues he had lately gone through, would ensure a few hours at least of sound unbroken sleep. The domestics, too, of his household, worn out with watching and hunger, were not likely to be aroused before morning; she had, therefore, sufficient time before her to put her plan into execution.
She reflected that it was impossible to approach her father’s garden unnoticed at this hour, save by the way she had taken in her flight. To go through his house from the street was not to be thought of, as the entrance was probably secured, and she could not gain admittance without giving an explanation of her absence, and exciting the observation she most wished to avoid. Then she fell to thinking on the paths she had followed in her headlong flight, tracing them backward in her mind with that clear feminine perception, which so nearly approaches instinct, and is so superior to the more logical sagacity of man. She knew she could thread them step by step, to the marble basin of the fountain; and once again at that spot she felt as if her task would be half accomplished, instead of scarce begun. Doubtless the exertion of mind served to calm her recent terrors, and to [pg 399]distract attention from the dangers of her present situation—alone in a strange house, with the streets full of such horrors as those she had lately witnessed, and thronged by armed parties of lawless and desperate men.
She had gathered her robes about her, and drawn her veil over her head preparatory to emerging from her hiding-place, when she was driven back by the sound of footsteps, and the clank of weapons, coming up the street. To be seen was to accept the certainty of insult, and to run the risk of ill-usage, and perhaps death. She shrank farther back, therefore, into the lower part of the house; and becoming more accustomed to the gloom, looked anxiously about, to ascertain what further chance she had within for concealment or escape.
It was a low irregular building, of which the ground-floor seemed to have been used but as a space for passage to and from the upper apartments, and, perhaps, before the famine consumed them, as a shelter for beasts of burden, and for cattle. Not a particle of their refuse, however, had been left on the dry earthen floor; and though a wooden manger was yet standing, not a vestige remained of halter or tethering ropes, which had been long since eaten in the scarcity of food.[20] A boarded staircase, fenced by carved wooden balustrades, led from this court to the upper chambers, which were carefully closed; but a glimmer of light proceeding from the chinks of an ill-fitting door at its head, denoted that the house was not deserted. It was probably inhabited by some of the middle class of citizens; a rank of life that had suffered more than the higher, or even the lower during the siege—lacking the means of the one, and shrinking from the desperate resources of the other.