“I loved Salome,” said he; “but I was so secure of acceptance, according to the custom of our tribe, that I never conceived the possibility of an obstacle to our marriage. My love and my pride were equally hurt. The new distinctions of her husband made my envy bitterness. To change the scene, I went to Jerusalem. I there found malice active. Your learning and talents had made you obnoxious long before; your new fame and rank turned envy into hatred. Onias, whose dagger you turned from the bosom of the noble Eleazar, remembered his disgrace. He headed the conspiracy against you, and nothing but the heroic vigor with which you stirred up the nation could have saved you long since from the last extremities of faction. My unhappy state of mind threw me into his hands. I was inflamed against you by perpetual calumnies. It was even proposed that I should accuse you before the Sanhedrin of dealing with the powers of darkness. Proofs were offered which my bewildered reason could scarcely resist. I was assailed with subtle argument; stimulated by sights and scenes of strange import, horrid and mysterious displays, which implicate the leaders of Jerusalem deeply in the crime of the idolaters. Spirits, or the semblances of spirits, were raised before my eyes; voices were heard in the depths and in the air, denouncing you, even you, as the enemy of Judea and of man; I was commanded, in the midst of thunders, real or feigned, to destroy you.”
Here his voice sank, his frame quivered; and wrapping his head in his cloak, he remained long silent. To relieve him from his confession, I asked for intelligence of my family and of the country.
“Of your family I can tell you nothing,” said he mournfully; “I shrank from the very mention of their name. During these two years I had but one pursuit—the discovery of your prison. I refused to hear, to think, of other things. I felt that I was dying, and I dreaded to appear before the great tribunal with the groans from your dungeon rising up to stifle my prayers.”
“But is our country still torn by the Roman wolves?”
“The whole land is in tumult.[38] Blood and horror are under every roof from Lebanon to Idumea. The Roman sword is out, and it falls with cruel havoc; but the Jewish dagger pays it home, and the legions quail before the naked valor of the peasantry. Yet what is valor or patriotism to us now? We are in our grave!”
Another Chance of Escape
The thought of my family exposed to the miseries of a ferocious war only kindled my eagerness to escape from this den of oblivion. It was evening, and the melancholy moon threw the old feeble gleam on the water which had so long been to me the only mirror of her countenance. I suddenly observed the light darkened by a figure stealing along the edge of the pool. It approached, and the words were whispered: “It is impossible to break open the door from without while the guard is on the watch; but try whether it can not be opened from within.” A crowbar was pushed into the loophole; its bearer, the slave, who had escaped by swimming, jumped down and was gone.
I left Jubal where he lay, lingered at the door till all external sounds ceased, and then made my desperate attempt. I was wasted by confinement, but the mind is force. I labored with furious effort at the mass of bolt and bar, and at length felt it begin to give way. I saw a star, the first for two long years, twinkling through the fracture. Another hour’s labor unfixed the huge hinge, and I felt the night air, cool and fragrant, on my cheek. I now grasped the last bar, and was in the act of forcing it from the wall when the thought of Jubal struck me. There was a struggle of a moment in my mind. To linger now might be to give the guard time to intercept me. I was hungering for liberty. It was to me at that moment what water in the desert is to the dying caravan—the sole assuaging of a frantic thirst, of a fiery and consuming fever of the soul. If the grains of dust under my feet were diamonds, I would have given them to feel myself treading the dewy grass that lay waving on the hillside before me.
A tall shadow passed along. It was that of a mountain shepherd, spear in hand, guarding his flock from the wolves. He stopped at a short distance from the dungeon, and, gazing on the moon, broke out with a rude but sweet voice into song. The melody was wild, a lamentation over the fallen glories of Judea, “whose sun was set, and whose remaining light, sad and holy as the beauty of the moon, must soon decay.” The word freedom mingled in the song, and every note of that solemn strain vibrated to my heart. The shepherd passed along.
The Ridicule of the Guard