I drew out a slender iron rod; a door deep in the wall gave way and disclosed a winding stair, by which we descended. We found the prisoner writing, and so earnestly occupied that our footsteps did not interrupt him.
“There,” soliloquized he as he ran his eye down the epistle. “I think, my masters if not the better, some of you will be the wiser for my labors. Home truths are the truths, after all. Titus will learn what a set of incurable reprobates he has about him, and by this time to-morrow, when I shall care as little for mankind as mankind ever cared for me, I shall do the state service; from my gibbet turn reformer and make the scaffold popular. And now, for the farewell to my lady and my love.”
He sighed and threw down the pen.
“No, my Naomi, I can say nothing half so fond or half so bitter as my feelings would have me say at this moment. Would that I had never seen you, if we are to part so soon. Yet why should I regret to have known innocence and beauty in their perfection? No, my love, rosy was the hour when I first saw you, and proud is even the parting hour that tells me I could have loved so noble a being—but all is better as it is. How could I have borne to see you following the fortunes of a wanderer, of a man without a country or a name? Then farewell, my Naomi dearest, farewell; you were the gleam of sunshine in my cloudy day, the star in my dreary night, and while my heart beats you shall be there. Your name shall be the last upon my lips, and if there be thought beyond the grave, you shall be remembered, and—oh, how deeply—loved!”
The Arab Captain Recognized
I had been on the point of disturbing his meditation, but Naomi, with the fine avarice of passion, would not lose a syllable. She held me back, and implored me by her countenance to let her have the full confession of her lover’s faith. That beautiful countenance ran through all the shades of feeling, and was covered with blushes and tears while the unconscious worshiper poured out his devotion. But the time was flying; I insisted on interrupting this epicureanism of the soul; and when Naomi found that she must hear no more, she would allow none but herself the pleasure of the surprise. A sigh which swelled from the prisoner’s heart was echoed. He turned suddenly, and pronounced her name with a loudness of delight that nothing but the chance that protects the imprudent could have prevented from bringing the guard upon us. His quick eye soon caught me where I stood in shadow, and he sprang forward to overpower the intruder. But the lamp saved us from the encounter, and lifting his hands and eyes in amazement, he laughed as loudly as he had spoken.
“In the name of all the wonders of the world,” exclaimed he, “are you here too? Where are we to meet next? We have met already in water, fire, and earth, and nothing is left for us now but the clouds. Come, be honest, prince, and tell me whether it was not for the sake of some such experiment that you ventured here; for if another hour finds us within these four walls, we shall know the grand secret as assuredly as Titus wears a head and has a traitor at his elbow.”
It was the Arab captain! I was rejoiced to find that in attempting to save the life of Naomi’s lover, I was discharging a debt to the preserver of my own. To my mention of this service he replied with soldierlike frankness that “I owed him no obligation whatever; he had long hated the intolerable cruelty of Cestius, and the debt was on his side, as I had indulged him with an opportunity that every officer in the service would have been happy to use.”
Naomi hung upon me, pale, and anxiously listening to every sound abroad.
“This little trembler,” said he sportively, as he took her passive hand, “I am destined to meet always in alarm. I first found her flying from a troop of human brutes who were robbing the baggage of the Roman camp; I thought her worth something better than to keep goats on the Libanus and weave turbans for some Syrian deserter; she was of the same opinion, and fell in love with me on the spot.”