For some hours my companion lay in that state of exhaustion which I could not distinguish from uneasy slumber, and which I attributed to the fatigue of our common labors. But his groans became so deep that I ventured to rouse him, and even to cheer him with the chances of escape.
Salathiel Recognizes Jubal
“I have not slept,” said he; “I shall never sleep again, until the grave gives me that slumber in which the wretched can alone find rest. Escape! No—for months, for years, I have had but one object. I have traversed mountain and sea for it; I have given to it day and night, all that I possessed in the world; I could give no more but my life, and that too I was to give. I stood within sight of that object. But it is snatched from me, and now the sooner I perish the better.” He writhed with mental pain.
“But what cause can you have for being here? You have not fought our tyrants. Who are you?”
“One whom you can never know—a being born to honor and happiness, but who perverted them by pride and revenge, and whose last miserable hope is, that he may die unknown, and without the curses that fall on the traitor and the murderer. Prince of Naphtali, farewell!”
I knew the speaker in those words of wo. I cried out: “Jubal, my friend, my kinsman, my hero! Is it you, then, who have risked your life to save me?”
I threw myself beside him. He crept from me. I caught his meager hand; I adjured him to live and hope.
He started away wildly. “Touch me not; I am unfit to live. I—I have been your ruin, and yet He who knows the heart, knows that I alone am not to blame. I was a dupe to furious passions, the victim of evil counselors, the prey of disease of mind. On my crimes may Heaven have mercy! They are beyond the forgiveness of man.”
By the feeble light, which showed scarcely more than the wretchedness of my dungeon, I made some little preparations for the refreshment of this feverish and famished being. His story agitated him, and strongly awakened as my curiosity was, I forbore all question. But it lay a burden on his mind, and I suffered him to make his confession.
Jubal’s Explanation