Within Sound of Battle
My new quarters were within the walls of one of those huge country mansions which the pride of our ancestors had built to be the plague of their posterity; for those the enemy chiefly employed for our prisons. Their solid strength defied desultory attack; time made little other impression on them than to picture their walls with innumerable stains; and the man must be a practised prison-breaker who could force his way out of their depths of marble. But if my eyes were useless, my ears had their full indulgence. Every sound of the conflict was heard. The attack was furious, and must have often been close to the walls of my dungeon. The various rallying-cries of the tribes rang through its halls; then a Roman shout, and the heavy charge of the cavalry would roll along until, after an encountering roar and a long clashing of weapons, the tumult passed away, to be rapidly renewed by the obstinate bravery of my unfortunate countrymen.
I felt as a man and a leader must feel during scenes in which he ought to take a part, yet to which he is virtually as dead as the sleeper in the tomb. My life had been activity; my heart was in the cause; I had knowledge, zeal, and strength that might in the chances of battle turn the scale. I even often heard my name among the charging cries of the day. But here I lay within impassable barriers. A thousand times during those miserable hours I measured their height with my eye; then threw myself on the ground, and placing my hands over my ears, labored to exclude thought from my soul.
The Sons of Chance
But my fellow prisoners were practical philosophers to a man; untaught in the schools, ’tis true, yet fully trained in that great academy worth all that Philosophy ever dreamed in—experience. In all my wanderings among mankind I never before had so ample an opportunity of studying variety of character. War is the hotbed that urges all our qualities, good and evil, into their broadest luxuriance. The generous become munificent; the mean darken into the villainous; and the rude harden into brutality. The camp is the great inn at which all the dubious qualities set up their rest, and a single campaign perfects the culprit to the height of his profession. There were round me in these immense halls about five hundred profligates, any one of whose histories would have been invaluable to a scorner of human nature.
Among the loose armies of the East those fellows exercised their vocation as regular appendages; often lived in luxury, and sometimes shot up into leaders themselves. But robbery in the Roman armies required master-hands. The temptation was strong, for the legionary was the grand ravager, and like the lion, he left the larger share of the prey to the jackal. Yet justice, inexorable and rapid, was his rule—in all cases but his own; and the jackal, suspected of trespassing within the legitimate distance from the superior savage, ran imminent hazard of being disqualified for all encroachment to come. Three-fourths of my associates had played this perilous game, and its penalties were now awaiting only the first leisure of the troops. Peace, at all times vexatious to their trade, had thus a double disgust for them, and the most patriotic son of Israel could not have taken a more zealous interest in the defeat of the legions.
A Victim of Ingratitude
But philosophy still predominated; if hope was at an end, hilarity took its place, and the prison rang with reckless exhibitions of practical glee, riotous songs, and mockeries. In the idleness of the lingering hours the professional talents of those sons of chance were brought into play. The mimic collected his audience, burlesqued the pompous officials of the army, and gathered his pence and plaudits as if he were under the open sky and could call his head his own. The nostrum-vender had his secrets for the cure of every ill, and harangued on the impotence of brand, scourge, and blade, if the patient had but the wisdom to employ his irresistible unguent. The soothsayer sold fate at the lowest price, and fixed the casualties of the next four-and-twenty hours—an easy task with the principal part of his audience. The minstrel chanted the pleasures of a life unencumbered by care or conscience; and the pilferer, with but an hour to live, exercised his trade with an industry proportioned to the shortness of his time.
In the whole gang I met with but one man thoroughly out of spirits. He had obviously been no favorite of fortune, for the human form could scarcely be less indebted to clothing. His swarthy visage was doubly blackened by hunger and exhaustion, and even his voice had a prison sound. Driven away from the joyous groups by the natural repulsion which the careless feel at visages that remind them of trouble, he took refuge in the corner where I lay, tormented by every echo of the battle. Not unwilling to forget the melancholy scenes in which every moment was draining the last blood of my country, I turned to the wretch beside me and asked the cause of his sorrows.
“Ingratitude,” was the reply. “This is a villainous world; a man may spend his life in serving others, and what will he gain in the end? Nothing. There is, for instance, the prince of Damascus wallowing in wealth; yet the greatest rogue under this roof has not a more pitiful stock of honor. Witness his conduct to me. He was out of favor with his uncle, the late prince; was not worth more than the raiment on his limbs, and as likely to finish his days on the gibbet as any of the knot of robbers that helped him to scour the roads about Sidon. In his distress he applied to me. I had driven a handsome share of the free-trade between Egypt and the north, and now and then gave him a handsome price for his booty. The idea of bringing his uncle to terms was out of the question. I named my price; it was allowed to be fair. I made my way into the palace, was exalted to the honors of cupbearer, and on my first night of office gave the old man a cup which cured him of drunkenness forever. And what do you think was my reward?”