CHAPTER XXVI
In the Lions’ Lair
A Beggar’s Signals
The violence of the beggar’s anguish, and the strong probabilities of his story, engrossed me so much that I at first regretted the extraordinary flight which put it out of my power to offer him any assistance. I returned with a feeling of disappointment to the spot where I had left my horse, and was riding toward the higher country, to avoid the enemy’s straggling parties, when I heard a loud outcry. On a crag so distant that I thought human speed could scarcely have reached it in the time, I saw this strange being making all kinds of signals, sometimes pointing to me, then to some object below him, and uttering a cry which might easily be mistaken for the howl of a wild beast.
A Secluded Spot
I reined up; it was impossible for me to ascertain whether he were warning me of danger or apprising others of my approach. Great stakes make man suspicious, and the prince of Naphtali, speeding to the capture of the principal armory of the legions, might be an object well worth a little treachery. I rapidly forgot the beggar’s sorrows in the consideration of his habits; decided that his harangue was a piece of professional dexterity, probably played off every week of his life, and that if I would not be in Roman hands before night, I must ride in the precisely opposite direction to that which his signals so laboriously recommended. Nothing grows with more vigor than the doubt of human honesty. I satisfied myself in a few moments that I was a dupe, and dashed through thicket, over rock, forded torrent, and from the top of an acclivity, at which even my high-mettled steed had looked with repugnance, saw with the triumph of him who deceives the deceiver, the increased violence of the impostor’s attitudes. He leaped from crag to crag with the activity of a goat, and when he could do nothing else, gave the last evidence of Oriental vexation by tearing his robes. I waved my hand to him in contemptuous farewell, and dismounting, for the side of the hill was almost precipitous, led my panting Arab through beds of wild myrtle, and every lovely and sweet-smelling bloom, to the edge of a valley that seemed made to shut out every disturbance of man.
A circle of low hills, covered to the crown with foliage, surrounded a deep space of velvet turf, kept green as the emerald by the moisture of a pellucid lake in its center, tinged with every color of heaven. The beauty of this sylvan spot was enhanced by the luxuriant profusion of almond, orange, and other trees that in every stage of production, from the bud to the fruit, covered the little knolls below and formed a broad belt round the lake.
Parched as I was by the intolerable heat, this secluded haunt of the very spirit of freshness looked doubly lovely. My eyes, half-blinded by the glare of the sands, and even my mind, exhausted by the perplexities of the day, found delicious relaxation in the verdure and dewy breath of the silent valley. My barb, with the quick sense of animals accustomed to the travel of the wilderness, showed her delight by playful boundings, the prouder arching of her neck, and the brighter glancing of her eye.
“Here,” thought I, as I led her slowly toward the steep descent, “would be the very spot for the innocence that had not tried the world, or the philosophy that had tried it and found all vanity. Who could dream that within the borders of this distracted land, in the very hearing, almost within the very sight, of the last miseries that man can inflict on man, there was a retreat which the foot of man perhaps never yet defiled, and in which the calamities that afflict society might be as little felt as if it were among the stars!”
A violent plunge of the barb put an end to my speculation. She exhibited the wildest signs of terror, snorted and strove to break from me; then fixing her glance keenly on the thickets below, shook in every limb. Yet the scene was tranquillity itself; the chameleon lay basking in the sun, and the only sound was that of the wild doves, murmuring under the broad leaves of the palm-trees. But my mare still resisted every effort to lead her downward; her ears were fluttering convulsively; her eyes were starting from their sockets. I grew peevish at the animal’s unusual obstinacy, and was about to let her suffer thirst for the day, when I was startled by a tremendous roar.