It happened, in a jovial meeting of youngsters when somewhat heated by excitement and wine, that the character and actions of Castello were canvassed somewhat more freely than sobriety would have ventured. One of them at length remarked, that in all probability he was glad to avail himself of the retreat of Eshcol, to eschew the hundred eyes of justice or revenge.
“Then die in thy falsehood, liar!” were the words that, uttered in thunder, startled the assembly. “The man lives not who dares impugn the honour of Castello!” and the hapless youth sunk to the earth before them, stricken unto death. The speechless horror of all around might easily have permitted flight, but Castello scorned it. He knew his doom, and met it in stern unflinching silence;—to wander forth alone, with the thoughts of blood clinging to his conscience, till the mandate of his God summoned him to answer for his crime;—death, if he ever ventured to insult the sacred precincts of his native vale by seeking to return.
The voice of his father faltered not as from his seat of judgment, amid the elders of his people, he pronounced this sentence. His cheek blanched not as the wife and child of the murderer flung themselves at his feet, beseeching permission to accompany the exile. It could not be. Nay more, did he return, the law was such, that his own wife or child must deliver him up to justice, or share the penalty of his crime. Hour by hour beheld the wretched suppliants pleading for mercy, but in vain.
Nor did this more than Roman firmness (for it was based on love, not stoicism) desert him when, in agonized remorse, his son besought his forgiveness and his blessing. He confessed his sin, for he felt it such. No provocation could call for blood. And headstrong and violent as were the passions of Simeon Castello, his father believed in his remorse, his penitence; for he knew deeds of blood were foreign to his nature. He raised his clasped hands to heaven, he prayed that the penitence of the sinner might be accepted, he spoke his forgiveness and his blessing, and then flinging his arms around his son, his head sunk upon his shoulder. Minutes passed and there was no sound—the Hebrew father had done his duty: but his heart had broken—he was dead!
From the moment she was released from the parting embrace of her doubly-wretched husband, and her strained eyes might no longer distinguish his retreating figure, no word escaped the lips of Rachel. For the first time, she looked on the sorrow of her poor child, without any attempt to soothe or console. She resumed her usual duties, but it was as if a statue had been endowed with movement. Nor could the entreaties of her aged grandfather, her sole remaining relative, nor the caresses of Josephine, wring even one word of suffering from her lips.
A week passed, and Josephine held a little brother in her arms; the looks of her mother appeared imploring her to cherish and protect him, and kneeling, she solemnly swore to make him the first object of her life; belief beamed in the eyes of the dying—her look seemed beseeching the blessing of heaven on them both; but Josephine yearned in vain for the sweet accents of her voice—she never spoke again.
From that hour the gay and sprightly child seemed changed into premature and sorrowing womanhood. She stood alone of her race. Alone, with the sole exception of that aged relative, who had seen his children and children’s children fall around him, and her infant brother. She shrunk, in her sensitiveness, from the young companions who would have soothed her grief. She did not fear that the crime of her father would be visited upon her innocent head, for such feelings were unknown to the simple government of Eshcol; but her loneliness, the shock which had crushed every hope and joy of youth, caused her to cling closer to her aged relative, and direct every energy to the welfare of her young and—as, alas! she too soon discovered—afflicted brother. She watched his increase in strength, intelligence, and loveliness, and pictured in vivid colouring the delight which would attend his instruction; she longed intensely for the moment when her ear should be blessed by the sweet accents of his voice. That moment came not! the affliction of her mother had descended to the child she bore, and Josephine, in irrepressible anguish, became conscious that not only was his voice withheld from her, but hers might never reach his ear.
Her deep affection for him, however, roused her from this mournful conviction; and energetically she sought to render his affliction less painful than it had appeared, and she succeeded. She led him into the fields of nature—every spot became to the child a fruitful source of intelligence and love, providing him with language, even in inanimate objects; by his mother’s grave she instilled the thoughts of God and heaven, of their peculiar race and history; of the God of Israel’s deep love and long-suffering; and she was understood—though to what extent she knew not, imagined not, till the hour of trial came. That she was inexpressibly assisted by the child’s rapid conception of the good and evil, of the sublime and beautiful—by its extraordinary intellect and truly poet’s soul, is true, but the lowly spirit of Josephine felt as if a special blessing had attended her task, and urged yet further efforts for his improvement.
By means of waxen tablets, formed by the hand of Imri Benalmar, she taught him to read and write. Leading his attention to familiar objects, she would write down their appropriate names, and familiarising his eye to the writing, he gradually associated the written word with the visible object. The rest was easy to a mind like his. The flushed cheek and sparkling eye denoted the intense delight with which he perused the manuscripts collected, and often adapted for his use by Imri, and poesy became his passion; breathing in the simplest words, on his waxen tablets, the love he bore his devoted sister, and the pure, beautiful sentiments which filled his soul.
The kindness of Imri to her Aréli, passed not unfelt by the heart of Josephine. Tremblingly she became conscious that an emotion towards him was obtaining ascendency, which she deemed it her duty to conquer, or at least profoundly to hide. She could not forget the stigma on her name, and believed none could seek her love. The daughter of a murderer (for though the crime was involuntary, such he was) was lonely upon earth. Dignified and reserved, they would have thought her proud, had not her constant kindness, her total forgetfulness of self, in continually serving others, belied the thought; but this they did think (and Imri Benalmar himself, so well did she hide her heart) that her affections were centred in her aged relative and her young brother.