The Egyptian’s Papers
Shortly after midnight I was brought before the tribunal. Onias was my accuser, and I was astonished at the dexterity, number, and plausibility of his charges—magic, treachery, the betrayal of my army, the refusal to push the defeated enemy to a surrender, lest by the cessation of the war my ambition should be deprived of its object; and last and most astonishing, the assassination of my kinsman, Jubal, through fear of his testimony!
I made my defense with the fearlessness of one weary of life. Some of the charges I explained; others I promptly repelled. To the imputation of treachery I answered in a single sentence.
“Read that correspondence with the enemy and judge which is the traitor.”
I took the Egyptian’s papers from my sash and flung them on the table. The aspect of my accuser at the words was one that might have made his sternest hater pity him. He gasped, he trembled, he gnashed his teeth in rage and terror, and finally took refuge in the ranks of his followers. But the judges themselves were in visible perplexity; they looked over the papers, held them to the lamps, and examined them in all imaginable ways, until the chief of the Sanhedrin rising, with a frown that fixed all eyes on me, flung the papers at my feet. The deepest silence was round me as I took up the rejected proofs. To my astonishment they were utterly blank!
The Secret of the Signet
I now recollected that on my entrance I had been pressed upon by the crowd. In that moment the false papers must have been substituted. I saw the Egyptian gliding away from the side of Onias, and saw by the countenance of my accuser that the tidings of the robbery had just reached him. He now declaimed against me with renewed energy. He was eloquent by nature; the habit of public affairs had given his speaking that character of practical vigor and reality which is essential to great public impression; his fortunes hung in the scale—perhaps his life; and he poured out the whole collected impulse in a torrent of the boldest and most nervous declamation upon my head. Still my name was high; my rank was not to be lightly assailed; my national services were felt; and even the corrupt judicature summoned for my ruin were not so insensible to popular feeling as to violate the forms of law to crush me. The trial lasted during the night. I had the misery to see my wife, my children, Constantius, Naomi, my domestics, my fellow warriors, every human being whom there was a chance of perplexing, or terrifying into testimony, brought forward against me.
As a last resource, on the secret suggestion of the Egyptian, who had his own revenge to satisfy, the adventures of the pirates’ cavern were declaimed upon, and the captain was summoned from his cell. His figure and noble physiognomy made him conspicuous, and a general murmur of admiration arose on his advance to the tribunal. Miriam was at my side. I felt her tremble; her color went and came, and she drank in every tone of his voice with an intense anxiety. But when, in answer to the questions of Onias, he detailed his story, and in answer to the charge of his being an enemy denied that he was either Roman or Greek, Miriam’s spirit hung upon every word.
“A soldier’s best pedigree,” said he, concluding, “is his sword. I know no more than that I was reared in the house of a Cypriot noble, to whom I had been brought by a trader of Alexandria. My protector made me a sailor, and would have made me his heir, but Roman insolence disgusted me, and I left my command, bearing with me no other inheritance than a heart too proud for slavery, my simitar, and this signet, which I have worn from my infancy.”