‘she walked boldly up to him’
It was her opportunity, and she seized it; but at the first movement she made the sentinel’s attention was aroused, and she knew she was discovered, for he challenged immediately. Even then, Mariamne could not but observe that his voice was unsteady, and the spear he levelled trembled like an aspen in his grasp. She thought it wisest to make no attempt at deception, but walking boldly up to him, implored his safe-conduct, and besought him to take her to the tent of the [pg 408]commander at once. The sentinel seemed uncertain how to act, and showed, indeed, but little of that military promptitude and decision for which the Roman army was so distinguished. After a pause, he answered—and the soft tones, musical even in their trouble, that rang in Mariamne’s ears, were unquestionably those of a woman—a woman, too, whose instincts of jealousy had recognised her even before she spoke.
“You are the girl I saw in the amphitheatre,” she said, laying a white hand, which trembled violently, on the arm of the Jewess. “You were watching him that day, when he was down in the sand beneath the net. I know you, I say! I marked you turned pale when the tribune’s arm was up to strike. You loved him then. You love him now! Do not deny it, girl! lest I drive this spear through your body, or send you to the guard to be treated like a spy taken captive in the act. You look pale, too, and wretched,” she added, suddenly relenting. “Why are you here? Why have you left him behind the walls alone? I would not have deserted you in your need, Esca, my lost Esca!”
Mariamne shivered when she heard the beloved name pronounced in such fond accents by another’s lips. Womanlike, she had not been without suspicions from the first, that her lover had gained the affections of some noble Roman lady—suspicions which were confirmed by his own admission to herself, accompanied by many a sweet assurance of fidelity and devotion; but yet it galled her even now, at this moment of supreme peril, to feel the old wound thus probed by the very hand that dealt it; and, moreover, through all her anxiety and astonishment, rose a bitter and painful conviction of the surprising beauty possessed by this shameless woman, clad thus inexplicably in the garb of a Roman soldier. Nevertheless, the Jewish maiden was true as steel. Like that mother of her nation who so readily gave up all claim to her own flesh and blood, to preserve it from dismemberment under the award of the wisest and greatest of kings, she would have saved her cherished Briton at any sacrifice, even that of her own constant and unfathomable love. She knelt down before the sentinel, and clasped the scarlet mantle in both hands.
“I will not ask you what or who you are,” she said; “I am in your power, and at your mercy. I rejoice that it is so. But you will help me, will you not? You will use all your beauty and all your influence to save him whom—whom we both love?”
She hesitated while she spoke the last sentence. It was as if she gave him up voluntarily, when she thus acknowledged another’s share. But his very life was at stake; and what was her sore heart, her paltry jealousy, to stand in the way at such a moment as this? The other looked scornfully down on the kneeling girl.
“You, too, seem to have suffered,” said the sentinel. “It is true then, all I have heard of the desolation and misery within the walls? But boast not of your sorrows; think not you alone are to be pitied. There are weary heads and aching hearts here in the leaguer, as yonder in the town. Tell me the truth, girl! What of Esca? You know him. You come from him even now. Where is he, and how fares it with him?”
“Bound in the Outer Court of the Temple!” gasped Mariamne, “and condemned to die with the first light of to-morrow’s sun!”
His fate seemed more terrible and more certain, now that she had forced herself to put it into words. The Roman soldier’s face turned deadly pale. The golden-crested helmet, laid aside for air, released a shower of rich brown curls, that fell over the ivory neck, and the smooth shoulders, and the white bosom panting beneath its breastplate. There could be no attempt at concealment now. Mariamne was obliged to confess that, even in her male attire, the woman whom she so feared, yet whom she must trust implicitly, was as beautiful as she seemed to be reckless and unsexed.