“Freedom!” retorted Adonijah with bitter scorn; “what is freedom now to me? Judea is become ‘a waste howling wilderness,’ and ‘our holy, our beautiful house, where our forefathers worshipped, is burnt up with fire.’ The sacred vessels and the book of the law have become the spoil of the Gentile conqueror, to whom the people of God have fallen into a second and more terrible captivity. What can freedom offer in exchange for the blood of a fellow-creature? Man, I will not do thy bidding: it is written in the law, ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ ”
“Slave,” replied Julius Claudius haughtily, “thy limbs are mine, and unless thou obeyest my will, and fightest this battle with them, I will rend them piecemeal.”
“Aye, do so—do anything, profligate, ungrateful wretch, but make Adonijah the murderer thou art. Violate thine oath to Lucius—to the virtuous, the valiant, and the wise, thy wicked arts destroyed. Reward the man who saved thee from the just steel Tigranes drew against thee, by slaying him in defiance of gratitude and honour.”
“I did not kill him; he died in his own bed!” replied Julius, hesitating and confounded at the accusation. “Who said I poisoned him?”
“I demand the full performance of thy promise, and claim the freedom bequeathed me by the noble Lucius Claudius. I did not mean to ask it at thy hands, but now necessity compels me.”
“Thou didst promise to be a faithful servant to me,” continued the quailed and humbled master.
“Man, I have been more than faithful; I have stood between thee and death and hell. In services, but not in crimes, I will still yield obedience to thy will. Go, seek some other Cain to do thy bidding.” With these words the Hebrew slave quitted the presence of his master, with an air of majesty that confounded the little-minded man who held the power of life and death over him, unrestrained by law or principle.
“Proud Jew, I will crush thee yet!” muttered Julius. “Thou shalt view the degradation of thy people, which to a soul like thine will be bitterer than death. Patiently he will not see it, and a word or look will do for him what I dare not do—will destroy him.”
That evening Julius Claudius and his household returned to Rome, where magnificent preparations were making for the triumphant entry of Vespasian and his son.
All the slaves received new habits suitable to their servile station; Adonijah alone was given the costume of his own country; the magnificence of the material evidently referring to his former condition, rather than to his present circumstances. The malice of Julius desired to make it evident to all men from what country his slave derived his birth; a measure likely to draw down upon his person the cruel mockeries of a people at once effeminate and barbarous, flushed too with the success their armies had gained over the miserable remnant of Israel.