The Gladiators. A Tale of Rome and Judæa

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

  CHAPTER XV

  FANATICISM

  While faith has its martyrs, fanaticism also can boast its soldiers andits champions. Calchas in his bonds was not more in earnest than Eleazarin his breastplate; but the zeal that brought peace to the one, goaded theother into a restless energy of defiance, which amounted in itself totorture.

  The chief of the Zealots was preparing for the great struggle that hisknowledge of warfare, no less than the words of his brother before theSanhedrim (words which yet rang in his ears with a vague monotony ofrepetition), led him to expect with morning. Soon after midnight, he hadwoke from the slumber in which Mariamne left him wrapped, and withoutmaking inquiry for his daughter, or indeed taking any thought of her, hehad armed himself at once and prepared to visit the renewed defences withthe first glimpse of day. To do so he was obliged to pass through theCourt of the Gentiles, where his brother and his friend lay bound; for inthe strength of the Temple itself consisted the last hopes of thebesieged, and its security was of the more importance now that the wholeof the lower town was in possession of the enemy. Eleazar had decided thatif necessary he would abandon the rest of the city to the Romans, andthrowing himself with a chosen band into this citadel and fortress of hisfaith, would hold it to the last, and rather pollute the sacred placeswith his blood, than surrender them into the hand of the Gentiles.Sometimes, in his more exalted moments, he persuaded himself that even atthe extremity of their need, Heaven would interpose for the rescue of thechosen people. As a member of the Sanhedrim and one of the chief nobilityof the nation, he had not failed to acquire the rudiments of that magiclore, which was called the science of divination. Formerly, while incompliance with custom he mastered the elements of the art, his strongintellect laughed to scorn the power it pretended to confer, and themysteries it professed to expound. Now, harassed by continual anxiety,sapped by grief and privation, warped by the unvaried predominance of oneidea, the sane mind sought refuge in the shadowy possibilities of thesupernatural, from the miseries and horrors of its daily reality.

  He recalled the prodigies, of which, though he had not himself been aneye-witness, he had heard from credible and trustworthy sources. Theycould not have been sent, he thought, only to alarm and astonish anignorant multitude. Signs and wonders must have been addressed to him, andmen like him, leaders and rulers of the people. He never doubted now thata sword of fire had been seen flaming over the city in the midnight sky;that a heifer, driven there for sacrifice, had brought forth a lamb in themidst of the Temple; or that the great sacred gate of brass in the samebuilding had opened of its own accord in the middle watch of the night;nay, that chariots and horsemen of fire had been seen careering in theheavens, and fierce battles raging from the horizon to the zenith, withalternate tide of conquest and defeat, with all the slaughter andconfusion and vicissitudes of mortal war.(22)

  These considerations endowed him with the exalted confidence which borderson insanity. As the dreamer finds himself possessed of supernaturalstrength and daring, attempting and achieving feats which yet he knows thewhile are impossibilities, so Eleazar, walking armed through the waningnight towards the Temple, almost believed that with his own right hand hecould save his country--almost hoped that with daylight he should find anangel or a fiend at his side empowered to assist him, and resolved that hewould accept the aid of either, with equal gratitude and delight.

  Nevertheless, as he entered the cloisters that surrounded the Court of theGentiles, his proud crest sank, his step grew slower and less assured.Nature prevailed for an instant, and he would fain have gone over to thatgloomy corner, and bidden his brother a last kind farewell. Thepossibility even crossed his brain of drawing his sword and setting theprisoners free by a couple of strokes, bidding them escape in thedarkness, and shift for themselves; but the fanaticism which had been solong gaining on his better judgment, checked the healthy impulse as itarose. "It may be," thought the Zealot, "that this last great sacrifice isrequired from me--from me, Eleazar Ben-Manahem, chosen to save my peoplefrom destruction this day. Shall I grudge the victim, bound as he is nowwith cords to the altar? No, not though my father's blood will redden itwhen he dies. Shall I spare the brave young Gentile, who hath been to meas a kinsman, though but a stranger within my gate, if his life too berequired for an oblation? No! not though my child's heart will break whenshe learns that he is gone forth into the night, never to return. Jephthahgrudged not his daughter to redeem his vow; shall I murmur to yield thelives of all my kindred, freely as mine own, for the salvation ofJerusalem?" And thus thinking, he steeled himself against every softerfeeling, and resolved he would not even bid the prisoners farewell. Hecould not trust himself. It might unman him. It might destroy hisfortitude; nay, it might even offend the vengeance he hoped to propitiate.Besides, if he were known to have held communication with two professedChristians, where would be the popularity and influence on which hecalculated to bear him in triumph through the great decisive struggle ofthe day? It was better to stifle such foolish yearnings. It was wiser toharden his heart and pass by on the other side.

  Nevertheless he paused for a moment and stretched his arms with a yearninggesture towards that corner in which his brother lay bound, and, while hedid so, a light step glided by in the gloom; a light figure passed so nearthat it almost touched him, and a woman's lips were pressed to the hem ofhis garment with a long clinging kiss, that bade him a last farewell.

  Mariamne, returning to the city by the secret way from her interview withValeria in the Roman camp, had been careful not to enter her father'shouse, lest her absence might have been discovered, and her liberty ofaction for the future impaired. She would have liked to see that fatheronce more; but all other considerations were swallowed up in the thoughtof Esca's danger, and the yearning to die with him if her efforts had beentoo late to save. She sped accordingly through the dark streets to theTemple, despising, or rather ignoring, those dangers which had soterrified her in her progress during the earlier part of the night. Whileshe stole under the shadow of the cloisters towards her lover, her earrecognised the sound of a familiar step, and her eye, accustomed to thegloom, and sharpened by a child's affection, made out the figure of herfather, armed and on his way to the wall. She could not but remember thatthe morning light which was to bring certain death to Esca, might not,improbably shine upon Eleazar's corpse as well. He would defend the placeshe knew to the last drop of his blood; and the Roman would never enterthe Temple but over the Zealot's body. She could never hope to see himagain, the father whom, notwithstanding his fierceness and his faults, shecould not choose but love. And all she could do was to shed a tear uponhis garment, and wish him this silent and unacknowledged farewell. Thus itwas that Eleazar bore with him into the battle the last caress he was everdestined to receive from his child.