CHAPTER XVIII
THE COST OF CONQUEST
Mariamne turned from the still insensible form of Calchas to the beautiful face, that even now, though pale from exhaustion and warped with agony, it pained her to see so fair. Gently and tenderly she lifted the golden helmet from Valeria’s brows; gently and tenderly she smoothed the rich brown hair, and wiped away the dews of coming death. Compassion, gratitude, and an ardent desire to soothe and tend the sufferer left no room for bitterness or unworthy feeling in Mariamne’s breast. Valeria had redeemed her promise with her life—had ransomed the man whom they both loved so dearly, at that fatal price, for her! and the Jewess could only think of all she owed the Roman lady in return; could only strive to tend and comfort her, and minister to her wants, and support her in the awful moment she did not fail to see was fast approaching. The dying woman’s face was turned on her with a sweet sad smile; but when Mariamne’s touch softly approached the head of her father’s javelin, still protruding from the wound, Valeria stayed her hand.
“Not yet,” she whispered with a noble effort that steadied voice and lips, and kept down mortal agony; “not yet; for I know too well I am stricken to the death. While the steel is there it serves to stanch the life-blood. When I draw it out, then scatter a handful of dust over my forehead, and lay the death-penny on my tongue. I would fain last a few moments longer, Esca, were it but to look on thy dear face! Raise me, both of you. I have somewhat to say, and my time is short.”
The Briton propped her in his strong arms, and she leaned her head against his shoulder with a gesture of contentment and relief. The winning eyes had lost none of their witchery yet, though soon to be closed in death. Perhaps they never shone with so soft and sweet a lustre as now, while they looked upon the object of a wild, foolish, and [pg 441]impossible love. While one white hand was laid upon the javelin’s head, and held it in its place, the other wandered over Esca’s features in a fond caress, to be wetted with his tears. Her voice was failing, her strength was ebbing fast, but the brave spirit of the Mutian line held out, tameless and unshaken still.
“I have conquered,” gasped the Roman lady, in broken accents and with quick-coming breath. “I have conquered, though at the cost of life. What then? Victory can never be bought too dear. Esca, I swore to rescue thee. I swore thou shouldst be mine. Now have I kept my oath. I have bought thee with my blood, and I give thee—give thee, my own, to this brave girl, who risked her life to save thee too, and who loves thee well; but not so well, not half so well, as I have done. Esca, my noble one, come closer, closer yet.” She drew his face down nearer and nearer to her own while she guided his hand to the javelin’s head, still fast in her side. “I can bear this agony no longer,” she gasped, “but it is not hard to die in thine arms, and by thy dear hand!”
Thus speaking, she closed his grasp within her own, round the steel, and drew it gently from the wound. The blood welled up in dark-red jets to pour forth, as it cleared its channel, in one continuous stream that soon drained life away. With a quiver of her dainty limbs, with a smile deepening in her fair face, with her fond eyes fixed on the man she loved, and her lips pressed against his hand, the spirit of that beautiful, imperious, and wilful woman passed away into eternity.
Blinded by their tears, neither Esca nor Mariamne were, for the moment, conscious of aught but the sad fate of her who had twice saved the one from death, and to whom the other had so lately appealed as the only source of aid in her great need. Dearly as he loved the living woman by his side, the Briton could not refrain from a burst of bitter sorrow while he looked on the noble form of Valeria lying dead at his feet; and Mariamne forgot her own griefs, her own injuries, in holy pity for her who had sacrificed virtue, happiness, wealth, life itself in his behalf, whom she, too, loved more dearly than it behoves human weakness to love anything this side the grave.
But the living now claimed that attention which it availed no longer to bestow upon the dead. Calchas, though sadly bruised and mangled, began to show signs of restored life. The stone that stretched him on the pavement had, indeed, dealt a fatal injury; but though it stunned him for a time, [pg 442]had failed to inflict instantaneous death. The colour was now returning to his cheek, his breath came in long deep sighs, and he raised his hand to his head with a gesture of renewed consciousness, denoted by a sense of pain. Esca, careless and almost unaware of the conflict raging around, bent sorrowfully over his old friend, and devoted all his faculties to the task of aiding Mariamne in her efforts to alleviate his sufferings.
In the meantime, the tide of battle surged to and fro, with increasing volume and unmitigated fury. The Legion of the Lost, flushed with success, and secure of support from the whole Roman army in their rear, pressed the Jews, with the exulting and unremitting energy of the hunter closing in on his prey. These, like the wild beasts driven to the toils, turned to bay with the dreadful courage of despair. Led by Eleazar, who was ever present where most needed, they made repeated sallies from the body of the Temple, endeavouring to regain the ground they had lost, at least as far as the entrance to the Court of the Gentiles. This became, therefore, an arena in which many a mortal combat was fought out hand to hand, and was several times taken and retaken with alternate success.
Hippias, according to his wont, was conspicuous in the fray. It was his ambition to lead his gladiators into the Holy Place itself, before Titus should come up, and with such an object he seemed to outdo to-day the daring feats of valour for which he had previously been celebrated. Hirpinus, who had no sooner regained his feet than he went to work again as though, like the fabled Titan, he derived renewed energy from the kisses of mother Earth, expostulated more than once with his leader on the dangers he affronted, and the numerical odds he did not hesitate to engage, but received to each warning the same reply. Pointing with dripping sword at the golden roof of the Temple flashing conspicuously over their heads, “Yonder,” said the fencing-master, “is the ransom of a kingdom. I will win it with my own hand for the legion, and share it amongst you equally, man by man.” Such a prospect inspired the gladiators with even more than their usual daring; and though many a stout swordsman went down with his face to the enemy, and many a bold eye looked its last on the coveted spoil, ere it grew dark for ever, the survivors did but close in the fiercer, to fight on, step by step, and stroke by stroke, till the court was strewed with corpses, and its pavement slippery with blood.