The Golden Hope: A Story of the Time of King Alexander the Great

by Robert H. Fuller

Simon made no further remonstrance. He took up a lamp and led the way down a flight of stone stairs to the cellar, where great amphoræ of wine, covered with dust and cobwebs, stood in the darkness. Picking his way between them, he advanced to the end of the cellar, where he gave the lamp to Joel while he rolled aside one of the jars. Then, with some difficulty, he raised the slab upon which it had stood, revealing a narrow opening in the floor and another flight of steps. Down these they passed to a small chamber hewn in the rock. Around its sides ran a stone platform not more than three feet in width, and the remainder of the floor space was occupied by a pool of water.

When the wall of the city was built, its base had been laid in such a manner as to bridge a natural fissure in the rock below the water line. Why this opening had been left, Simon did not know. Possibly it had been the intention of the architects to make it the outlet of a sewer. If so, the plan had been abandoned, but the opening had been allowed to remain.

Standing on the ledge of stone, Joel stripped off his clothing and removed his sandals. Simon took from a niche a small jar of oil and rubbed him with the contents from head to foot, at the same time instructing him how to proceed.

"When shall you return?" he asked.

"To-night, if I can," Joel replied. "If not, then to-morrow night in the third watch. Farewell!"

"Farewell!" Simon replied, stepping back and raising his lamp so that its light fell upon the pool.

Joel drew in a long breath, clasped his hands, and plunged head-foremost into the water. Simon placed the young man's clothing in the niche, put away the oil jar, and ascended to the first cellar. He did not close the opening in the floor, but arranged the amphoræ so as to conceal it, and returned to the room above.

The impetus of Joel's plunge carried him the length of the pool and into the fissure under the wall. He struck out vigorously, mindful of Simon's instructions, and knowing that if his breath should fail while he was below the masonry, nothing could save him. With the tips of his fingers he could feel the sides of the passage, and presently he became aware of a motion in the water caused by the underwash of the waves outside. His head seemed bursting, and there was a ringing in his ears. He felt that he must suffocate unless he could get air. He began to swim upward through the water, dreading each moment to feel his head strike the stones. What if the passage had been closed? None had passed through it for years, and the defenders of the city were constantly throwing down blocks of stone outside the walls. Something grazed his back. He threw his arms upward, but his hands found no obstruction. He had cleared the entrance.

He lay on the surface of the water filling his lungs again and again, and gazing up at the stars above the gray height of the wall against whose grim base the swell lazily washed. Half an hour later one of the watch on a quinquereme that lay off the mouth of the Egyptian Harbor to prevent the escape of any of the Tyrian vessels heard a voice under the stern and saw the white gleam of Joel's shoulders in the water.

There was no sound in the Macedonian camp save the monotonous cries of the sentinels when the young Israelite stepped from a small boat and climbed the southern slope of the mole. He looked back and saw Tyre, standing in the sea like an island raised upon cliffs of stone and crowned with a circle of light.