He spoke, and fell pierced with a hundred wounds. A smile of peculiar beauty lighted up his features. “Blessed be the God of Israel, the sole One, the Holy One!” he cried, and his spirit fled rejoicing to the God he served.
Slowly and painfully did Imri’s little family pursue their way. They chose the most secluded paths, but even there traces of misery and death awaited them, and they shrank from suffering they could not alleviate. There might be seen a group dragging along their failing limbs, their provisions exhausted, and the pangs of hunger swallowing up all other thoughts. There lay the blackening bodies of those who had sunk and died, scarcely missed, and often envied by the survivors. Often did the sound of their footsteps scare away large flocks of carrion birds, who, screaming and flapping their heavy wings, left to the travellers the loathsome sight of their half-devoured prey. And they saw, too, the fearful fascinated gaze of those in whom life was not utterly extinct, as they watched the progress of these horrible birds, dreading lest they should dart upon them ere death had rendered them insensible. Josephine looked on these things, and then on her young brother, whose strength each day too evidently declined.
Aréli’s too sensitive spirit shrank in shuddering anguish from every fresh scene of human suffering. He, whose young life had been so full of peace and bliss, knowing but love and goodwill passing from man to man, how might he sustain the change? He had no voice to speak those feelings, no time to give them vent in the sweet language of poesy, which, in happier hours, had been the tablet of his soul. As the invisible worm at the root of a blooming flower, secretly destroying its sap, its nourishment, and the flower falls ere one of its leaves hath lost its beauty, so it was with the orphan boy. Each day was Imri compelled to shorten more and more their journey, for often would Aréli drop fainting from his mule, though the cheek retained its exquisite bloom, his eye its lustre. Imri became fearfully anxious; from the comparative vicinity of the sea-shore, he had believed their provisions would be more than sufficient to last them on their way, but from these unlooked-for delays, the horrors of famine, thirst, that most horrible death, stood darkly before him. Josephine, his own, his loved, would she encounter horrors such as they had witnessed? Imri shuddered.
One evening, Aréli lay calmly on the soft bed of moss and heath his sister’s love had framed; his hand clasped hers; his eyes seemed to speak the unutterable love and gratitude he felt. They were in the wildest part of a thick forest in the Sierra Nevada; and Imri, unable to look on the sufferings of his beloved ones, had wandered forth alone. Distant sounds of the chase fell at intervals on the ears of Josephine; but they were far away, and her soul was too enwrapt to heed them. Suddenly, however, her attention was effectually roused by the large crashing of the bushes near them, accompanied by low yet angry growls. Aréli marked the sudden change in her features, his eye too had caught an object by her still unseen. He sprang up with that strength which energy of feeling so often gives when bodily force has gone, and grasped tightly the hunting spear he held; scarcely had he done so, when a huge boar sprung through the thicket, his flanks streaming with blood, his tusks upraised, his mouth gaping, covered with foam, and uttering growls, denoting pain and fury yet more clearly than his appearance. He stood for a second motionless, then, as if startled by the agonized scream of terror bursting from Josephine, he sprung upon the daring boy. Undauntedly Aréli met his approach. His spear, aimed by an eye that never failed, pierced him for a second to the earth, but, alas! the strength of the boy was not equal to his skill. The boar, yet more enraged, tore the weapon from the ground, which it had not pierced above an inch. Once more he fell, struck down by a huge stick, which Aréli, with the speed of lightning, had snatched up. Again he rose, and fastened on the child. A blow from behind forced him to relax his stifling hold; furious, he turned on the slight girl who had dared attack him, and Josephine herself would have shared her brothers fate, when the spear of Imri whizzed through the air, true to its mark, and the huge animal, with a cry of pain and fury, rolled lifeless on the ground.
The voice of his beloved had startled Imri from his mournful trance; the roar which followed explained its source, and winged by terror, he arrived in time. Josephine was saved indeed, but no word of thankfulness broke from that heart, which, in grateful devotion, had never been dumb before. She knelt beside the seemingly lifeless body of her Aréli, scarcely conscious of the presence of her husband; his hands, his neck, his brow, were deluged in blood; she bathed him plentifully with cold water. Could she remember at such a moment that no springs were near, and that, if overwhelmed with thirst, the pure element would be denied them? Oh, no, no; she saw only the helpless sufferer, to whom her spirit clung with a love that, in their affliction, had with each hour grown stronger.
But death was still a brief while deferred, though so fearfully had Aréli been injured, they could not move him thence. His wounds were numerous and painful, and strength to support himself, even in a sitting position, never again returned. Yet never was that sweet face sad; his smiles, his signs were ever to implore his sister not to weep for him—to take comfort and be happy in another land; that the blissfulness of heaven was already on his soul—that if it might be, he would pray for her before his God, and hover like a guardian spirit over her weary wanderings, till he led her to a joyous home. For him, indeed, Josephine might not grieve, but for Imri she felt the deepest anxiety. The horrors to which this unlooked-for delay exposed him had startled her into consciousness, and on her knees she besought him to seek his own safety; she would not weakly shrink, but when all was over she would follow him, and, in all probability, they would meet again in another land; not to risk his precious life and strength by lingering with her beside the dying boy. She pleaded with all a woman’s unselfish love, but, need we say, in vain?—that Imri’s sole answer was to lift his right hand to heaven and swear, by all they both held most sacred, NEVER to leave her—they would meet their fate together? Days passed; their small portion of food and water, economised as it was, dwindled more and more away, and so did the strength of Aréli. It was a night of unclouded beauty; millions and millions of stars spangled the deep blue heavens; the moon in her full glory walked forth to silver many a dark tree, and dart her most refulgent rays on that little group of human suffering. Yet all was not suffering; the purest happiness beamed on the features of the dying, and an unconscious calm pervaded the weary spirit of these lonely watchers. Nature was so still, they spoke almost in whispers, as fearing to disturb her.
A sudden change spread on the features of the dying boy. Imri started: “Josephine, the chains are rent—he HEARS us!” he cried; and Josephine, raising him in her arms, almost involuntarily spoke in uttered words, “Aréli, my own, my beautiful!”
He HEARD; the film was removed one brief moment from his ear; her voice, sweet as thrilling music, fell upon his soul: his lips moved, and one articulate word then came, unearthly in its sweetness, “Josephine!” He raised his clasped hands to heaven, and sunk back upon her bosom: his soul had hovered on the earth one moment FREE, then fled for ever.
Imri and Josephine joined in prayer beside the loved. They neither mourned nor wept, and calmly Josephine wrapped the fadeless flower in the last garment of mortality, while Imri formed his resting-place. They laid him in that humble grave, strewed flowers and moss upon it, prayed that their God would in mercy guard his body from the ravening beasts, then turned from that hallowed spot, and silently pursued their journey.
It wanted but two days to the completion of the allotted period, when, faint, weak, and well-nigh exhausted, Imri and his Josephine stood on the sea-shore, and there horrible indeed was the sight that presented itself. Hundreds of the wretched fugitives lay famishing on the scorching sands. Many who had dragged on their failing limbs through all the horrors of famine, of thirst, of miseries in a thousand shapes, which the very pen shrinks from delineating, arrived there but to die; for there were but few vessels to bear them to other lands, and these often sailed with half their number, either because the bribes they demanded were refused (for the wretched victims had nought to give), or that their captains swore so many heretics would sink their ships, and they would take no more. Then it was that, with a crucifix in one hand, and bread and wine in the other, the Catholic priests advanced to the half senseless sufferers, and offered the one, if they acknowledged the other. Was it marvel that at such a moment there were some who yielded? Oh, there is a glory and a triumph in the martyr’s death! Men look with admiring awe on those who smile when at the stake; but the faith that inspired courage and firmness and constancy ’mid suffering which we have but faintly outlined—’mid lingering torments ’neath which the heart, yet more than the frame, was crushed—that FAITH is regarded with scorn as a blinded, wilful misbelief. Could man endow his own spirit with this devotedness? Pride might lead him to the stake, but not to bear what Israel had borne, aye, and will bear till the wrath of his God is turned aside. No; the same God who strengthened Abraham to offer up his son, enables His wretched people to give up all for Him. Would He do this, had they denied and mocked Him?