And, — as he kissed her she stirred, — her body quivered in his hold, — consciousness returned, and in a moment or two she lifted herself upright. Sighing heavily, she murmured like one in a dream, —
“Is it thou, Caiaphas?”
A fierce pang contracted the heart of the unhappy man who loved her, — he staggered, and almost let her fall from his embrace. Then, controlling his voice with an effort, he answered hoarsely, —
“Nay, — it is I, — Barabbas.”
“Thou!” and she flung one arm about his neck and held him thus entwined—” Thou wert ever brave and manful! — save me, my love, save me! Take me out of this darkness, — there must be light in the city, — and thou art fearless and skilful enough to find a way down this accursed hill.”
“I cannot, Judith!” he answered, his whole frame trembling at the touch of her soft caressing arm, — The world is plunged in an impenetrable night, — storm and upheaval threaten the land, — the city itself is blotted out from view. The people are at prayer; none dare move without danger, — there is no help for it but to wait, here where we are, till the light cometh.”
“What, thou art coward after all!” exclaimed Judith, shaking herself free from his clasp — Thou fool! In the city lamps can be lit and fires kindled, and we be spared some measure of this gloom. If thou wert brave, — and more than all, if thou didst love me, — thou wouldst arouse thy will, thy strength, thy courage, — thou wouldst lead me safely through this darkness as only love can lead, — but thou art like all men, selfish and afraid!”
“Afraid! Judith!” His chest heaved, — his limbs quivered. Thou dost wrong me! — full well thou knowest thou dost wrong me!”
“Prove it then!” said Judith eagerly, flinging herself against him and putting both arms round his neck confidingly—” Lo, I trust thee more than any man! Lead me from hence, we will move slowly and with care, — thou shalt hold me near thy heart, — the path is straight adown the hill, — the crosses of the criminals are at the summit, as thou knowest, and if we trace the homeward track from hence surely it will be easy to feel the way.”
“What of the multitude?” said Barabbas— “Thou knowest not, Judith, how wildly they are scattered, — how in their straying numbers they do obstruct the ground at every turn, — and it is as though one walked at the bottom of the sea at midnight, without the shine of moon or stars.”
“Nevertheless, if thou lovest me, thou wilt lead me,” repeated Judith imperatively. “But thou dost not love me!”
“I do not love thee! I!” Barabbas paused, — then caught the twining arms from about his neck and held them hard. “So well do I love thee, Judith, that, if thou playest me false, I can hate thee. ’Tis thou that art of dubious mind in love. I have loved only thee; but thou, perchance, since I was chained in prison, hast loved others. Is it not so? Speak!”
For all answer she clung about his neck again and began to weep complainingly.
“Ah, cruel Barabbas!” she wailed to him between her sobs, “ Thou standest here in this darkness, prating of love while death doth threaten us. Lead me away I tell thee, — take me homeward, — and thou shalt have thy reward. Thou wilt not move from this accursed place which hath been darkened and confused by the evil spells of the Nazarene, — thou wilt let me perish here, because thou dost prize thine own life more than mine!”
“Judith! Judith!” cried Barabbas in agony—” Thou dost break my heart, — thou dost torture my soul! Beware how thou speakest of the dying Prophet of Galilee, — for thou didst taunt Him in His pain, — and this darkness fell upon us when thy cruel words were spoken. Come, — if thou must come; but remember there is neither sight nor sense nor order in the scattered multitude through which we must fight our passage, ‘twere safer to remain here, — together, — and pray.”
“I will not pray to God so long as He doth wantonly afflict us!” cried Judith loudly and imperiously—” Let Him strike slaves with fear, — I am not one to be so commanded! An’ thou wilt not help me I will help myself; I will stay no longer here to be slain by the tempest, when with courage I might reach a place of safety.”
She moved a step away, — Barabbas caught her mantle.
“Be it as thou wilt!” he said, driven to desperation by her words, “ Only let me hold thee thus,” — and he placed one arm firmly round her,— “Now measure each pace heedfully, — walk warily lest thou stumble over some swooning human creature, — and with thy hands feel the air as thou goest, for there are many dangers.” As he thus yielded to her persuasions, she nestled against him caressingly, and lifted her face to his. In the gloom their lips met, and Barabbas, thrilled through every pulse of his being by that voluntary kiss of love, forgot his doubts, his suspicions, his sorrows, his supernatural forebodings and fears, and moved on with her through the darkness as a lost and doomed lover might move with his soul’s ruin through the black depths of hell. —
CHAPTER XIX.
SLOWLY and cautiously they groped their way along and for two or three yards met with no obstacle. Judith was triumphant, and with every advancing step she took, began to feel more and more secure.
“Did I not tell thee how it would be?” she said exultantly, as she clung close to Barabbas, “Danger flies from the brave-hearted, and ere we know it we shall find ourselves at the foot of the hill.”
“And then?” — murmured Barabbas dubiously.
“Then, doubt not but that we shall discover light and guidance. And I will take thee to my father’s house, and tell him thou hast aided in my rescue, and he will remember that thou hast been freed from prison by the people’s vote, and he will overlook thy past, and receive thee with honour. Will that not satisfy thee and make thee proud?”
He shuddered and sighed heavily.
“Alas, Judith, honour and I are for ever parted, and I shall never be proud of aught in this world again! There is a sorrow on my heart too heavy for me to lift, — perchance ’tis my love for thee, — perchance ’tis the weight of mine own folly and wickedness, but be the burden what it may, I am stricken by a grief that will not vent itself in words. For ’tis I, Judith, I who should have died to-day, instead of the holy ‘ Nazarene’!”
She gave an exclamation of contempt and laughed.
“Callest thou him holy?” she cried derisively — Then thou art mad! — or thou hast a devil! A malefactor, a deceiver, a trickster, a blasphemer, — and holy!”
Another light laugh rippled from her lips, but was quickly muffled, for Barabbas laid his hand upon her mouth.
“Hush, — hush!” he muttered, “ Be pitiful! Some one is weeping,... out there in the gloom! Hush!”
She struggled with him angrily, and twisted herself out of his hold.
“What do I care who weeps or laughs?” she exclaimed, “ Why dost thou pause? Art stricken motionless?”
But Barabbas replied not. He was listening to a melancholy sobbing sound that trembled through the darkness, — the sorrowing clamour of a woman’s breaking heart, — and a strange anguish oppressed him.
“Come!” cried Judith.
He roused himself with an effort.
“I can go no further with thee, Judith,” — he said sadly, “ Something, — I know not what, — drags me back. I am giddy, — faint, — I cannot move!”
“Coward!” she exclaimed—” Farewell then! I go on without thee.”
She sprang forward — but he caught her robe and detained her.
“Nay, — have patience, — wait but a moment” — he implored in tones that were hoarse and unsteady—” I will force my steps on with thee, even if I die. I have sinned for thy sake in the past — it matters little if I sin again. But from my soul I do beseech thee that thou say no more evil of the ‘Nazarene’!”
“What art thou, that thou shouldst so command me?” she demanded contemptuously, “And what has the ‘Nazarene’ to do with thee, save that he was sentenced to death instead of thou? Thou weak slave! Thou, who didst steal pearls only because I sa
id I loved such trinkets! — oh, worthy Barabbas, to perjure thyself for a woman’s whim! — thou, who didst slay Gabrias because he loved me!” —
“Judith!” A sudden access of fury heated his blood, — and seizing her in both arms roughly he held her as in a vice. “This is no time for folly, — and whether this darkness be of heaven or hell, thou darest not swear falsely with death so close about us! Take heed of me! for if thou liest I will slay thee! Callest thou me weak? Nay, I am strong, — strong to love and strong to hate, and as evil in mind and passion as any man! I will know the truth of thee, Judith, before I move, or let thee move another inch from hence! Gabrias loved thee, thou savest, — come, confess, — didst thou in thy turn love Gabrias?” —
She writhed herself to and fro in his grasp rebelliously.
“I love no man!” she cried in defiance and anger. “All men love me! Am I not the fairest woman in Judæa? — and thou speakest to me of one lover — one! And thou wouldst be that one thyself? O fool! What aileth thee? Lo, thou hast me here in thine arms, — thou canst take thy fill of kisses an’ thou wilt, — I care naught so long as thou dost not linger on this midnight way. I offer thee my lips, — I am thy sole companion for a little space, — be grateful and content that thou hast so much. Gabrias loved me, I tell thee, — with passion, yet guardedly, — but now there are many greater than he who love me, and who have not his skill to hide their thought” —
“Such as the high-priest Caiaphas!” interrupted Barabbas in choked fierce, accents.
She gave a little low laugh of triumph and malice commingled.
Come!” she said, disdaining to refute his suggestion, “ Come, and trouble not thyself concerning others, when for this hour at least I am all thine. Rejoice in the advantage this darkness gives thee, — lo, I repel thee not! — only come, and waste no more precious time in foolish questioning.”
He loosened his arms abruptly from about her, and stood motionless.
“Come!” she cried again.
He gave her no response.
She rushed at him and clutched him by his mantle, putting up her soft face to his, and showering-light kisses on his lips and throat.
“Barabbas, come!” she clamoured in his ears—” Lead me onward! — thou shalt have love enough for many days!”
He thrust her away from him loathingly.
“Get thee hence!” he cried, “ Fairest woman of Judæa, as thou callest thyself and as thou art, tempt me no more lest in these hellish vapours I murder thee! Yea, even as I murdered Gabrias! Had I thought his boast of thee was true, he should have lived, and thou shouldst have been slain! Get thee hence, thou ruin of men! — get thee hence, — alone! I will not go with thee! — I tear the love of thee from out my heart, and if I ever suffer thy fair false face to haunt my memory, may Heaven curse my soul! I take shame upon myself that I did ever love thee, thou evil snare! — deceive others as thou wilt, thou shalt deceive Barabbas no more!”
Again she laughed, a silvery mocking laugh, and like some soft lithe snake, twined herself fawningly about him.
“No more?” she queried in dulcet whispers—” Thou wilt not be deceived, thou poor Barabbas? — thou wilt not be caressed? — thou wilt no longer be my slave? Alas, thou canst not help thyself, good fool! — I feel thee tremble, — I hear thee sigh! — come, — come!” and she pulled him persuasively by the arm, “ Come! — and perchance thou shalt have a victory thou dreamest not of!”
For one dizzy moment he half yielded, and suffered himself to be dragged forward a few paces like a man in a dull stupor of fever or delirium, — then, the overpowering emotion he had felt before, came upon him with tenfold force, and again he stopped.
“No!” he exclaimed— “No, I will not! I cannot! No more, no more! I will go no further!”
“Die then, fool, in thy folly!” she cried, and bounded away from him into the gloom. Hardly had she disappeared, when a monster clap of thunder burst the sky, and a ball of fire fell to earth, hissing its way through the darkness like a breaking bomb. At the same instant with subterranean swirl and rumble the ground yawned asunder in a wide chasm from which arose serpentine twists of fiery vapour and forked tongues of flame. Paralysed with horror, Barabbas stared distractedly at this terrific phenomenon, and as he looked, saw the lately vanished Judith made suddenly visible in a glory of volcanic splendour. Her figure, brilliantly lighted up by the fierce red glow, was on the very edge of the hideous chasm, and appeared to blaze there like a spirit of fire. Had she gone one step further, she would have been engulfed within its depths, — as it was she had escaped by a miracle. For one moment Barabbas beheld her thus, a glittering phantom as she seemed, surrounded by dense pyramids of smoke and jets of flame, — then, with another underground roar and trembling the ghastly light was quenched and blackness closed in again, — impenetrable blackness in which nothing could be seen, and nothing heard save the shrieks and groans of the people.
CHAPTER XX.
THE panic was now universal and uncontrollable. Crowds of frantic creatures, struggling, screaming, weeping, and fighting invisibly with one another, rushed madly up and down in the darkness, flinging themselves forward and backward like the swirling waves of a sea. The murky air resounded with yells and curses, — now and then a peal of hideous laughter rang out, and sometimes a piercing scream of pain or terror, while under all these louder and more desperate noises ran the monotonous murmuring of prayer. The impression and expectation of renewed disaster burdened the minds of all; the shuddering trouble of the earth had terrified the boldest, and many were in momentary dread that the whole hill of Calvary would crumble beneath them and swallow them up in an abyss of fire. Barabbas stood still where Judith had left him, — his limbs quivering, and a cold sweat breaking out over all his body, — yet he was not so much conscious of fear as of horror, — horror and shame of himself and of the whole world. An ineffaceable guilt seemed branded on mankind, — though how this conviction was borne in upon him he could not tell. Presently, determining to move, he began to retrace his steps cautiously backward, wondering, with a sinking heart, whether Judith had still gone on. She must have realised her danger; she would never have proceeded further, knowing of that frightful rent in the ground, into which, in her wilful recklessness she had so nearly plunged. Once he called “Judith!” loudly, but there was no response.
Stumbling along in doubt and dread, his foot suddenly came in contact with a figure lying prone, and stooping to trace its outline, he touched cold steel.
“Take heed, whosoe’er thou art,” said a smothered voice, “and wound not thyself against my sword-edge. I am Petronius.”
“Dost thou find safety here, soldier?” inquired Barabbas tremulously—” Knowest thou where thou art in this darkness?”
“I have not moved from hence” — replied Petronius; “I was struck as by a shock from heaven, and I have stayed as I fell. What would it avail me to wander up and down? Moreover, such as I am, die at their post if die they must, — and my post is here, close by the Cross of the ‘Nazarene.’”
Barabbas shuddered, and his blood grew cold in his veins.
“Is He dead?” he asked in hushed, awed accents.
“Nay, He breathes yet” — replied the centurion with equal emotion—” And — He suffers!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 299