“What were the sacrifice of myself,” thought I, “wretched and sentenced as I was, to the preservation of beings made for happiness? Or was I to hesitate, let the risk be what it might, when virtue, patriotism, and boundless knowledge were added to that preservation? For the trivial honors that man could give to man, the highest intellects of the earth had been influenced, but the honors of the restorer of Judah were an immortal theme—the old splendors of triumph were pronounced vain and dim, the old supremacy of thrones weakness, to the domination and grandeur of the sovereign who should sway the returning tribes of Zion.”
Judea Must Fall
The figure approached me, and in a voice that sank with subtle force through every nerve pronounced the vow that I was to utter. I was terror-struck; a cloud came over my sight; strange lights moved and glittered before me. I felt the unspeakable dread that my faculties should betray me, and that I should unconsciously yield to a temptation which yet I had no strength to withstand.
While I sat helpless and almost blind, I was aroused by a majestic voice. I looked up. Eleazar was at my side. I would have flung myself into his arms; I would have cast myself at his feet, but an indescribable sensation told me that my noble brother was to be so approached no more.
“Well and wisely hast thou resisted,” were his solemn words, “for in thee are the last fortunes of thy people. Judea must fall; but fallen with her as thou shalt be, and desolate, despairing, and wild as shall be thy sojourn, the last blow of ruin to both would be given hadst thou yielded to the adversary.”
I glanced at the minstrel. His visage was horror; he stood deformed, like one dead in the moment of torture. I closed my eyes against the hideous spectacle. A sound of hurrying steps made me open them, after how long an interval I know not. I was alone!