CHAPTER XXV
Salathiel in Strange Company
On the Road
My preparations were quickly made. I divested myself of my robes, led out my favorite barb, flung a haik over my shoulders, and by the help of my Arab turban might have passed for a plunderer in any corner of Syria. This was done unseen by any eye, for the crowd of attendants that thronged the palace in the day were now stretched through the courts, or on the terraces, fast asleep, under the double influence of a day of feasting and a night of tepid summer air. I rode without stopping until the sun began to throw up his yellow rays through the vapors of the Lake of Tiberias. Then to ascertain alike the progress of Constantius and to avoid the chances of meeting with some of those Roman squadrons which were continually moving between the fortresses, I struck off the road into a forest, tied my barb to a tree, and set forth to reconnoiter the scene.
Salathiel Meets Strangers
Traveling on foot was the common mode in a country which, like Judea, was but little fitted for the breed of horses, and I found no want of companions. Pedlers, peasants, disbanded soldiers, and probably thieves diversified my knowledge of mankind within a few miles. I escaped under the sneer of the soldier and the compassion of the peasant. The first glance at my wardrobe satisfied the robber that I was not worth the exercise of his profession, or perhaps that I was a brother of the trade. I here found none of the repulsiveness that makes the intercourse of higher life so unproductive. Confidence was on every tongue, and I discovered, even in the sandy ways of Palestine, that to be a judicious listener is one of the first talents for popularity all over the world. But of my peculiar objects I could learn nothing, though every man whom I met had some story of the Romans. I ascertained, to my surprise, that the intelligence which Septimius brought from the imperial cabinet was known to the multitude. Every voice of the populace was full of tales, probably reckoned among the profoundest secrets of the state. I have made the same observation in later eras, and found, even in the most formal mysteries of the most frowning governments, the rumor of the streets outruns the cabinets. So it must be while diplomatists have tongues and while women and domestics have curiosity.
But if I were to rely on the accuracy of those willing politicians, the cause of independence was without hope. Human nature loves to make itself important, and the narrator of the marvelous is always great, according to the distention of his news. Those who had seen a cohort, invariably magnified it into a legion; a troop of cavalry covered half a province; and the cohorts marching from Asia Minor and Egypt for our garrisons, were reckoned by the very largest enumeration within the teller’s capacity.
As I was sitting by a rivulet, moistening some of the common bread of the country which I had brought to aid my disguise, I entered into conversation with one of those unhoused exiles of society whom at the first glance we discern to be nature’s commoners, indebted to no man for food, raiment, or habitation, the native dweller on the road. He had some of the habitual jest of those who have no care, and congratulated me on the size of my table, the meadow, and the unadulterated purity of my potation, the brook. He informed me that he came direct from the Nile, where he had seen the son of Vespasian at the head of a hundred thousand men. A Syrian soldier, returning to Damascus, who joined our meal, felt indignant at the discredit thus thrown on a general under whom he had received three pike-wounds and leave to beg his way home. He swore by Ashtoreth that the force under Titus was at least twice the number.
A third wanderer, a Roman veteran, of whom the remainder was covered over with glorious patches, arrived just in time to relieve his general from the disgrace of so limited a command, and another hundred thousand was instantly put under his orders; sanctioned by asseverations in the name of Jupiter Capitolinus, and as many others of the calendar as the patriot could pronounce. This rapid recruiting threw the former authorities into the background, and the old legionary was, for the rest of the meal, the undisputed leader of the conversation. They had evidently heard some rumor of our preparations.
A Conversation
“To suppose,” said the veteran, “that those circumcized dogs can stand against a regular-bred Roman general is sacrilege. Half his army, or a tenth of his army, would walk through the land, north and south, east and west, as easily as I could walk through this brook.”