The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa
Page 53
CHAPTER XI THE DOOMED CITY
Mariamne watched her father for a few impatient minutes, that seemed tolengthen themselves into hours, till she had made sure by his deeprespiration that her movements would not wake him. Then she extinguishedthe lamp and stole softly from the room, scarcely breathing till she foundherself safe out of the house. The door through which she emerged was aprivate egress, opening on the wide terrace that overhung the gardens. Itsstone balustrades and broad flight of steps were now white and glisteningin the moonlight, which shone brighter and fairer in those mellow skiesthan doth many a noonday in the misty north. While she paused to drawbreath, and concentrate every faculty on the task she had undertaken, shecould not but admire the scene spread out at her very feet. There lay thegardens in which she had followed many a childish sport, and dreamed outmany a maiden's dream, sitting in the shade of those black cypresses, andturning her young face to catch the breeze that stirred their whisperingbranches, direct from the hills of Moab, blending in the far distance withthe summer sky. And lately, too, amid all the horrors and dangers of thesiege, had she not trod these level lawns with Esca, and wondered how shecould be so happy while all about her was strife, and desolation, and woe?The thought goaded her into action, and she passed rapidly on;nevertheless, in that one glance around, the fair and gorgeous picturestamped itself for ever on her brain.
Beneath her--here black as ebony, there glistening like sheets of burnishedsteel--lay the clear-cut terraces and level lawns of her father's statelyhome, dotted by tall tapering cypresses pointing to the heavens, andguarded by the red stems of many a noble cedar, flinging their twistedbranches aloft in the midnight sky. Beyond, the spires and domes andpinnacles of the Holy City glittered and shone in the mellow light, orloomed in the alternate shade, fantastic, gloomy, and indistinct. Massiveblocks of building, relieved by rows of marble pillars supporting theirheavy porticoes, denoted the dwellings of her princes and nobles; whileencircling the whole could be traced the dark level line of her lastdefensive wall, broken by turrets placed at stated intervals, and alreadyheightened at the fatal breach opposite the Tower of Antonia, from thesummit of which glowed one angry spot of fire, a beacon kindled for somehostile purpose by the enemy. High above all, like a gigantic championguarding his charge, in burnished armour and robes of snowy white, rosethe Temple, with its marble dome and roof of beaten gold. It was thechampion's last watch--it was the last sleep of the fair and holy city.Never again would she lie in the moonlight, beautiful, and gracious, andundefaced. Doomed, like the Temple in which she trusted, to be utterlydemolished and destroyed, the plough was already yoked that should scoreits furrows deep into her comeliness; the mighty stones, so hewn andcarved and fashioned into her pride of strength, were even now vibratingto that shock which was about to hurl them down into such utter ruin, thatnot one should be left to rear itself upon the fragments of another!
The moonbeams shone calm and pleasant on the doomed city, as they shone onthe stunted groves of the Mount of Olives, on the distant crest of thehills of Moab, and, far away below these, on the desolate plains thatskirt the waters of the Dead Sea. They shone down calm and pleasant, asthough all were in peace and safety, and plenty and repose; yet even nowthe arm of the avenger was up to strike, the eagle's wing was pruned, hisbeak whetted; and Mariamne, standing on the terrace by her father's door,could count the Roman watch-fires already established in the heart of theLower City, twinkling at regular distances along the summit of MountCalvary.
The view of the enemy's camp, the thought of Esca's danger, spurred her toexertion. She hurried along the terrace, and down into the garden,following the path which she knew was to lead her to the marble basin withits hidden entrance to the secret passage. Her only thought now was one ofapprehension that her unassisted strength might be unable to lift theslab. Full but of this care, she advanced swiftly and confidently towardsthe disused fountain, to stop within ten paces of it, and almost screamaloud in the high state of tension to which her nerves had been strung--sostartled was she and scared at what she saw. Sitting with its back to her,a long lean figure stooped and cowered over the empty basin, waving itsarms, and rocking its body to and fro with strange unearthly gestures, andbroken, muttered sentences, varied by gasps and moans. Her nation are notsuperstitious, and Mariamne had too many causes for fear in this world tospare much dread for the denizens of another; nevertheless she stood for aspace almost paralysed with the suddenness of the alarm, and theunexpected nature of the apparition, quaking in every limb, and unableeither to advance or fly.
There are times when the boldest of human minds become peculiarlysusceptible to supernatural terrors--when the hardest and leastimpressionable persons are little stronger than their nervous andsusceptible brethren. A little anxiety, a little privation, the omissionof a meal or two, nay, even the converse of such abstinence in too greatindulgence of the appetites, bring down the boasted reason of mankind to asad state of weakness and credulity. The young, too, are more subject tosuch fantastic terrors than the old. Children suffer much from fears ofthe supernatural, conceiving in their vivid imaginations forms andphantoms and situations, which they can never have previously experienced,and of which it is therefore difficult to account for the origin. But allclasses, and all ages, if they speak truth, must acknowledge, that at onetime or another, they have felt the blood curdle, the skin creep, thebreath come quick, and the heart rise with that desperate courage whichsprings from intense fear, at the fancied presence or the dreadedproximity of some ghostly object which eludes them after all, leaving avague uncertainty behind it, that neither satisfies their curiosity norensures them against a second visitation of a similar nature.
Mariamne was in a fit state to become the victim of any such supernaturaldelusion. Her frame was weakened by the want of food; for like the rest ofthe besieged, she had borne her share of the privations that created suchsufferings in the city for many long weeks before it was finally reduced.She had gone through much fatigue of late--the continuous unbroken fatiguethat wears the spirits even faster than the bodily powers; and above allshe had been harassed for the last few hours by the torture of inaction ina state of protracted suspense. It was no wonder that she should suffer afew moments of intense and inexplicable fear.
The figure, still with its back to her, and rocking to and fro, wasgathering handfuls of dust from the disused basin of the fountain, andscattering them with its long lean arms upon its head and shoulders,chanting at the same time, in wild, mournful tones, the words "Wash and beclean," over and over again. It obviously imagined itself alone, andpursued its monotonous task with that dreary earnestness and endlessrepetition so peculiar to the actions of the insane.
After a while, Mariamne, perceiving that she was not observed, summonedcourage to consider what was best to be done. The secret of the hiddenpassage was one to be preserved inviolate under any circumstances; and to-night everything she most prized depended on its not being discovered bythe besieged. While the figure remained in its present position, she coulddo nothing towards the furtherance of her scheme. And yet the moments werevery precious, and Esca's life depended on her speed.
There was no doubt, the unfortunate who had thus wandered into herfather's gardens was a maniac; and those who suffered under this severeaffliction were held in especial horror among her people. Unlike theEastern nations of to-day, who believe them to be not only under itsspecial protection, but even directly inspired by Providence, the Jewsheld that these sufferers were subject to the great principle of evil;that malignant spirits actually entered into the body of the insane,afflicting, mocking, and torturing their victim, goading it in itsparoxysms to the exertion of that supernatural strength with which theyendowed its body, and leaving the latter prostrate, exhausted, andhelpless when they had satiated their malice upon its agonies. To bepossessed of a devil was indeed the climax of all mental and corporealmisery. The casting out of devils by a mere word or sign, was perhaps t
hemost convincing proof of miraculous power that could be offered to apeople with whom the visitation was as general as it was mysterious andincomprehensible.
Mariamne hovered about the fountain, notwithstanding her great fear, as abird hovers about the bush under which a snake lies coiled, but whichshelters nevertheless her nest and her callow young. Standing there, inlong dark robes, beneath a flood of moonlight, her face and hands white asivory by the contrast, her eyes dilating, her head bent forward, her wholeattitude that of painful attention and suspense, she might have been anenchantress composing the spell that should turn the writhing figurebefore her into stone, cold and senseless as the marble over which itbent. She might have been a fiend, in the form of an angel, directing itsconvulsions, and gloating over its agonies; or she might have been a pureand trusting saint, exorcising the evil spirit, and bidding it come out ofa vexed fellow-creature in that name which fiends and men and angels mustalike obey.
Presently the night-breeze coming softly over the Roman camp, brought withit the mellow notes of a trumpet, proclaiming that the watch was changed,and the centurions, each in his quarter, pacing their vigilant rounds. Ereit reached Mariamne's ears, the maniac had caught the sound, and sprang tohis feet, with his head thrown back and his muscles braced for a springlike some beast of chase alarmed by the first challenge of the hound.Gazing wildly about him, he saw the girl's figure standing clear anddistinct in the open moonlight, and raising a howl of fearful mirth, heleaped his own height from the ground, and made towards her with theheadlong rush of a madman. Then fear completely overmastered her, and sheturned and fled for her life. It was no longer a curdling horror thatweighed down the limbs like lead, and relaxed the nerves like a palsy, butthe strong and natural instinct of personal safety, that doubled quicknessof perception for escape and speed of foot in flight.
Between herself and her father's house lay a broad and easy range ofsteps, leading upward to the terrace. Instinctively she dared not trustthe ascent, but turned downwards over the level lawn into the gardens,with the maniac in close pursuit. It was a fearful race. She heard hisquick-drawn breath, as he panted at her very heels. She could almost fancythat she felt it hot upon her neck. Once the dancing shadow of herpursuer, in the moonlight, actually reached her own! Then she boundedforward again in her agony, and eluded the grasp that had but just missedits prey. Thus she reached a low wall, dividing her father's from aneighbour's ground; feeling only that she must go straight on, she boundedover it, she scarce knew how, and made for an open doorway she saw ahead,trusting that it might lead into the street. She heard his yell of triumphas he rose with a vigorous leap into the air, the dull stroke of his feetas he landed on the turf so close behind her, and the horror of thatmoment was almost beyond endurance. Besides, she felt her strengthfailing, and knew too well that she could not sustain this rate of speedfor many paces farther; but escape was nearer than she hoped, and reachingthe door a few yards before the madman, she gained slightly on him as sheshot through it, and sped on, with weakening limbs and choking breath,down the street.
She heard his yell once again, as he caught sight of her, but two humanfigures in front restored her courage, and she rushed on to implore theirprotection from her enemy; yet fear had not so completely mastered herself-possession, as to drive her into an obvious physical danger, even toescape encounter with a lunatic. Nearing them, and indeed almost withinarm's-length, she perceived that one was blasted with the awful curse ofleprosy. The moon shone bright and clear upon the white glistening surfaceof his scarred and mortifying flesh. On his brow, on his neck, in thepatches of his wasting beard and hair, on his naked arms and chest, nay,in the very garment girt around his loins, the plague-spots deepened, andwidened, and festered, and ate them all away. It would be death to come incontact, even with his garments--nay, worse than death, for it would entaila separation from the touch of human hand, and the help of human skill.
Yet grovelling there on the bare stones of the street, the leper wasstruggling for a bone with a strong active youth, who had nearlyoverpowered him, and whom famine had driven to subject himself to thecertainty of a horrible and loathsome fate, rather than endure any longerits maddening pangs. There was scarcely a meal of offal on the prize, andyet he tore it from the leper whom he had overpowered, and gnawed it witha greedy brutish muttering, as a dog mumbles a bone.
Gathering her dress around her to avoid a chance of the fatal contact,Mariamne scoured past the ghastly pair, even in her own imminent terrorand distress feeling her heart bleed for this flagrant example of thesufferings endured by her countrymen. The maniac, however, permitted hisattention to be diverted for a few moments, by the two struggling figures,from his pursuit; and Mariamne, turning quickly aside into a narrowdoorway, cowered down in its darkest corner, and listened with feelings ofrelief and thankfulness to the steps of her pursuer, as, passing thisunsuspected refuge, he sped in his fruitless chase along the street.