I felt as if he had stricken a lance through my heart. Fiery sparkles shot before my eyes. I instinctively put my hand to my brow, to feel if the mark of Cain was not already there. I gave one hurried glance at heaven, as if to see the form of the destroying angel stooping over me. But the consciousness that I was in the presence of the multitude compelled me to master my feelings. I commanded Jubal to be ready with his proofs of those calumnies against the time when I should confound my accusers. But I now spoke to the winds. The interval of reason was gone. He burst out into the fiercest horrors.
“They pursue me!” exclaimed he; “they come by thousands, with the poniard and the poison! They cry for blood! They would drive me to a crime black as their own!”
He flung himself at my feet, and, clasping them, prevented every effort to save him from this degradation. He buried his face in my robe, and, casting up a scared look from time to time, as if he shrank from some object of terror, apostrophized his vision.
Salathiel Arms Jubal
“Fearful being,” he cried, “spare me! turn away those searching eyes! I have sworn to do the deed, and it shall be done. I have sworn it, against the ties of nature, against the laws of Heaven; but it shall be done. Now, begone! See!”—he cowered, pointing to a cloud that floated across the sun—“see! he spreads his wings; he hovers over me; the thunders are flaming in his hands. Begone, Spirit of Evil! It shall be done! Look, where he vanishes into the heights of his kingdom! the prince of the power of the air.”
The cloud which fed the fancy of my unfortunate kinsman dissolved, and with it his fear of the tempter. But he lay exhausted at my feet, his eyes closed, his limbs shuddering—the emblem of weakness and despair. I tried to rouse him by that topic which would once have shot new life into his heroic heart.
“Rise, Jubal, and see the enemy. This battle must not be fought without you. To-day neither magic nor chance shall be imputed to the conqueror, if I shall conquer. Jerusalem sees the battle, and before the face of my country I will show myself the leader, or will leave the last drop of my blood upon those fields.”
The warrior kindled within him. He sprang from the ground and shot down an eagle glance at the enemy, who had now made rapid progress, and were beginning to show the heads of their columns in the plain. He was unarmed. I gave him my sword, and the proud humility with which he put it to his lips was a pledge to me that it would be honored in his hands.
“Glorious thing!” he exclaimed, as he flashed it before the sun, “that raises man at once to the height of human honors, or sends him where no care can disturb his rest; the true scepter that graces empire; the true talisman, more powerful than all the arts of the enchanter! What, like thee, can lift up the lowly, enrich the destitute, and even restore the undone? What talent, knowledge, gift of nature, nay, what smile of fortune can, like thee, in one hour, bid the obscure stand forth the hero of a people or the wonder of a world? Now for glory!” he shouted to the listening circle of the troops, who answered him with shouts.
“Now for glory!” they cried, and poured after him down the side of the mountain.