“I know no more,” replied the officer, “than that the general has arrived here a few minutes since, and that as some attempts have been lately made on his life, the council have thought proper to put the Jewish poniards as much out of his way as they can. The order is universal, and I am directed to lead you to your apartment.”
“Then let them look to my escape,” said I; “I thank the council for this service. While I continued above suspicion, they might have thrown open every door in their dungeons. But since they thus degrade me, you may tell them that their walls should be high and their bolts strong to keep me their prisoner. Lead on, sir.”
Salathiel’s New Quarters
The council seemed to have been aware of my opinion, for my new chamber was in one of the turrets. The lower floor being occupied by the guard, there could be no undermining; the smallness of the building laid all the operations of the fugitive open to the sentinel’s eye, and the height was of itself an obstacle that, even if the bars were forced, might daunt the adventurer. The steward followed me to my den, wringing his hands. Yet the little apartment was not incommodious; there were some obvious attempts at rendering it a fitter place of habitation than usual, and a more delicate frame than mine might have found indulgence in its carpets and cushions. Even my solitary hours were not forgotten, and some handsome volumes from the governor’s library occupied a corner. There was a lyre, too, if I chose to sing my sorrows, and a gilded chest of wine if I chose to drink them away. The height was an inconvenience only to my escape, but a lover of landscape and fresh air would have envied me, for I had the range of the horizon and the benefit of every breeze from its four quarters. A Chaldee would have chosen it for his commerce with the lights of heaven, for every star, from the gorgeous front of Aldebaran to the minutest diamond spark of the sky, shone there in all its brightness. And a philosopher would have rejoiced in the secluded comfort of a spot which, in the officer’s parting pleasantry, was in every sense “so much above the world.”
CHAPTER LXI
A Steward’s Narrative
To me, the prison and the palace were the same. No believer in fate, and a strong believer in the doctrine that in the infinite majority of cases the unlucky have to thank only themselves, I was yet irresistibly conscious of my own stern exception. That there was an influence hanging over me I deeply knew; that I might as well strive with the winds was the fruit of my whole experience; and with the loftiest calculation of the wonders that human energy may work, I abandoned myself on principle to the chances of the hour. I was the weed upon the wave, and whether above or below the surface, I knew that the wave would roll on, and that I must roll on along with it. I was the atom in the air, and whether I should float unseen forever or be brought into sight by the gilding of some chance sunbeam, my destiny was to float and quiver up and down. I was the vapor, and whether, like the evening cloud, my after-years were to evolve into glorious shapes and colors, or I should creep along the pools and valleys of fortune till the end of time—yet there I was, still in existence, and that existence bound by laws incapable of the choice or the caprices of man.
Salathiel’s Burden
I had yet to learn the true burden of my great malediction, for the circumstances of my life were adverse to its fated solitude of soul; its bitter conviction that there was not a being under the canopy of heaven whose heart was toward me. I was still in the very tumult of life and battling with the boldest. Public cares, personal interests, glowing attachments, the whole vigorous activity of the citizen and the soldier were mine. I was still husband, father, friend, and champion; my task was difficult and grave, but it was ardent, proud, and animating. I was made for this energy of the whole man; master of a powerful frame that defied fatigue, and was proof against the sharpest visitations of nature; and of an intellect which, whatever might be its rank, rejoiced in tasking itself with labors that appalled the multitude.