Lowering his hands, the signal was at once answered by the inward rush of some score or two of vigorous young men, who had been in readiness outside the court. These were stripped to the waist, and had their loins girt. Some bore huge stones in their bare arms; others, loosening the pavement with crow and pick-axe, stooped down and tore it up with a fierce and cruel energy, as though they had already been kept waiting too long. They were followers of John of Gischala, and their chief, though he took no part in the proceeding, stood at their head. His first glance was one of savage triumph, which faded into no less savage disappointment, as he saw Eleazar’s place vacant in the assembly of judges—that warrior’s duties against the enemy excusing his attendance on the occasion. John had counted on this critical moment for the utter discomfiture of his rival; but [pg 429]the latter, whose fortitude, strung as it had been to the highest pitch, could scarcely have carried him through such a trial as was prepared for him, had escaped it by leading a chosen band of followers to the post of danger, where the inner wall was weakest, and the breach so lately made had been hastily and insufficiently repaired.
John saw in this well-timed absence another triumph for his invincible enemy. He turned away with a curse upon his lips, and ordered the young men to proceed at once in the execution of their ghastly duty. It seemed to him that he must not lose a moment in following his rival to the wall, yet he could not resist the brutal pleasure of witnessing that rival’s brother lying defaced and mangled in the horrible death to which he had been condemned. Already the stones were poised, the fierce brows knit, the bare arms raised, when even the savage executioners held their hands, and the grim Sanhedrim glanced from one to another, half in uncertainty, half in pity, at what they beheld. The figure of a woman darting from the gloomy cloister, rushed across the court to fall in Esca’s arms with a strange wild cry, not quite a shout of triumph, not quite a shriek of despair; and the Briton looking down upon Mariamne, folded her head to his breast, with a murmur of manly tenderness that even such a moment could not repress, while he shielded her with his body from the threatened missiles, in mingled gentleness and defiance, as a wild animal turned to bay protects its young.
She passed her hands across his brow with a fond impulsive caress. With a woman’s instinct, too, of care and compassion, she gently stroked his wrist where it had been chafed and galled by his bonds; then she smiled up in his face, a loving happy smile, and whispered, “My own, my dear one; they shall never part us. If I cannot save thee, I can die with thee; oh! so happy. Happier than I have ever been before in my life.”
It was a strange feeling for him to shrink from the beloved presence, to avoid the desired caress, to entreat his Mariamne to leave him; but though his first impulse had been to clasp her in his arms, his blood ran cold to think of the danger she was braving, the fate to which those tender limbs, that fair young delicate body, would too surely be exposed.
“No, no,” he said, “not so. You are too young, too beautiful to die. Mariamne, if you ever loved me—nay, as you love me, I charge you to leave me now.”
She looked at Calchas, whom she had not yet seemed to recognise, and there was a smile—yes! a smile on her face, while she stood forth between the prisoners, and fronted that whole assembly with dauntless forehead and brave flashing eyes; her fair slight figure the one centre of all observation, the one prominent object in the court.
“Listen,” she said, in clear sweet tones, that rang like music to the very farthest cloisters. “Listen all, and bear witness! Princes of the House of Judah, elders and nobles, and priests and Levites of the nation! ye cannot shrink from your duty, ye cannot put off your sacred character. I appeal to your own constitution and your own awful vow. Ye have sworn to obey the dictates of wisdom without favour; ye have sworn to fulfil the behests of justice without mercy. I charge ye to condemn me, Mariamne, the daughter of Eleazar Ben-Manahem, to be stoned with stones until I die; for that I too am one of those Nazarenes whom men call Christians. Yea, I triumph in their belief, as I glory in their name. Ye need no evidence, for I condemn myself out of my own mouth. Priests of my father’s faith, here in its very Temple I deny your holiness, I abjure your worship, I renounce your creed! This building that overshadows me shall testify to my denunciations. It may be that this very day it shall fall in upon you and cover you with its ruins. If these have spoken blasphemy, so have I; if these are offenders worthy of death, so am I. I bear witness against you! I defy you! I bid you do your worst on those who are proud and happy to die for conscience’ sake!”
Her cheek glowed, her eye flashed, her very figure dilated as she shook her white hand aloft, and thus braved the assembled Sanhedrim with her defiance. It was strange how like Eleazar she was at that moment, while the rich old blood of Manahem mounted in her veins; and the courage of her fathers, that of yore had smitten the armed Philistine in the wilderness, and turned the fierce children of Moab in the very tide of conquest, now blazed forth at the moment of danger in the fairest and gentlest descendant of their line. Even her very tones thrilled to the heart of Calchas, not so much for her own sake, as for that of the brother whom he so loved, and whose voice he seemed to hear in hers. Esca gazed on her with a fond astonishment; and John of Gischala quailed where he stood, as he thought of his noble enemy, and the hereditary courage he had done more wisely not to have driven to despair.
But the tension of her nerves was too much for her [pg 431]woman’s strength. Bravely she hurled her challenge in their very teeth; and then, shaking in every limb, she leaned against the Briton’s towering form, and hid her face once more on his breast.
Even the Nasi was moved. Stern, rigid, and exacting, yet apart from his office he too had human affections and human weaknesses. He had mourned for more than one brave son, he had loved more than one dark-eyed daughter. He would have spared her if he could, and he bit his lip hard under the long white beard, in a vain effort to steady the quiver he could not control. He looked appealingly amongst his colleagues, and met many an eye that obviously sympathised with his tendency to mercy; but John of Gischala interposed, and cried out loudly for justice to be done without delay.