The Death-Bed of Gessius Florus
“And this is the thing,” soliloquized the son of El Hakim, “that men feared! In this senseless flesh was the power to make the free tremble for their freedom, and the slave curse the hour that he was born. This mass of mortality could stand between me and happiness—could make me a beggar, a wanderer, miserable, mad!”
He caught up the hand that hung nerveless from the couch.
“Accursed hand!” exclaimed he, “what torrents of blood have owed their flowing to thee! A word written by these fingers cost a thousand lives. And, O Heaven! in this cruel grasp was the key of thy dungeon, my Mary!—that dungeon of more than the body, the hideous prison-house that extinguished thy mind!”
He let fall the hand and wept bitterly.
To my utter surprise the procurator started upon his feet, and with the look that had so often made the heart quake, haughtily demanded who we were, and how we dared to interrupt his privacy? I felt as if a spirit had started up before me from the shroud. But this extraordinary revival was merely the last effort of a fierce mind. He tottered, and was falling, when my companion darted forward, grasped him by the bosom with one hand, and waving the falchion above him with the other—
“He hears! he sees!” exclaimed he exultingly. “Who are we? Who am I? Look upon me, Gessius Florus, before the sight leaves your eyes forever. See Sabat the Ishmaelite, the despised, the insulted, the trampled, the undone! But never did you prosper from the hour of my ruin. I was your spy, but it was only to bring you into a snare; I fed your pride, but it was only that it might turn the hearts of all men against you; I tempted your avarice, only that wealth might make your nights sleepless, and your days, days of fear; I roused your wrath into rage; I inflamed your ambition into frenzy! This night, I led your conquerors upon you. But I had made all sure. In another week, Gessius Florus, if you had escaped this sword, you would have been seized by order of the Emperor, stripped of your wealth, your accursed power, and your wretched life. The command for your blood is this night crossing the Mediterranean!”
The dying man struggled to get free, wrenched himself by a violent effort from the strong grasp that at once held and sustained him, and fell. He was dead!
The son of El Hakim stood gazing on the body in silence, when the glitter of a ring on the hand, as it lay spread upon the floor, struck his eye. He seized it with an outcry; the man was wholly changed; his frowning visage flashed with joy. I in vain demanded the cause. He pressed the signet to his lips.
“Farewell, farewell,” he exclaimed.