Hebrew Heroes: A Tale Founded on Jewish History

Pollux winced on hearing the name, but quickly recovering himself, observed, "The heart of no woman would be thus broken. She would feel a pang less keen at your falling away for a time, than that which would wring her soul should you die by the executioner's hand."

"You have never seen Hadassah; you do not know her!" exclaimed Zarah with spirit; "she has told me herself that she would rather lose seven children by death than one by apostasy from God!"

Pollux bit his nether lip till the blood came. When he resumed speaking, his voice sounded hoarse and strange.

"If you care not for your own danger, maiden, think of my peril; my head is staked upon your submission," he said.

Zarah looked distressed and perplexed for a moment, then her fair face brightened again. "Even cruel Antiochus," she replied, "would never slay one of his nobles because he failed in persuading a Hebrew girl to violate conscience. You are not – cannot be in peril through me."

"I am, whether you believe it or not," said the courtier. "But methinks, when speaking to a girl like yourself in the morning of life, with so much that might make existence delightful" – Pollux glanced at the luxurious decorations of the apartment – "one might be supposed to need small power of persuasion to convince her that music, dance, and feasting are better than torture; life than death; nature's sunshine and earth's love than a nameless grave. The king is munificent to those who oppose not his will; his hand is bounteous and open. Listen to me, fair maiden. Antiochus has promised, if you yield to his commands, to give you in marriage; it shall be my care that his choice for you shall fall upon one gentle and noble, one who will not deal harshly with you if you choose to follow your own religion, but who will accord to you in the privacy of your home all the freedom of worship which you could desire." Pollux paused, turning over in his mind who would be the noble most likely to fulfil these conditions; and thinking aloud, he uttered the words, "such a one as Lycidas the Athenian."

How the heart of Zarah bounded at the name! The temptation was fearfully strong. She beheld life and Lycidas on the one hand; on the other the cold steel and the glowing flame, and those black fearful ministers of death, the remembrance of whom made her shudder.

Pollux, skilful in the courtier's art of reading the thoughts of men, saw symptoms of yielding in the face of his prisoner, and pushed his advantage. He had appealed to Zarah's instincts, now he attempted to dazzle and pervert her reason. With subtle sophistry he brought forward arguments with which his mind was but too familiar. Pollux spoke of necessity, that artful plea of the tempter, who would try to make the Deity Himself answerable for the sin of His creatures, as having placed them under circumstances where such sin could not be avoided; as if strength of temptation were excuse sufficient for yielding to the temptation! Then the courtier spoke of the difference between spiritual worship, the assent of the soul to a lofty creed, and the mere outward posture of the body. The latter might bow down in the house of Rimmon, Pollux argued, while the spirit retained its allegiance to the only true God. Nay, the tempter quoted Scripture (as the devil himself can quote it) to show that what God demands is the heart, and that therefore He cares little for the homage of the knee. The courtier tried to involve the artless girl in the meshes of his false philosophy, but a woman's simple faith and love burst through them all.

"Leave me – leave me!" cried Zarah passionately, at the first pause made by Pollux; "it is sinful, cruel, to tempt me thus! You would have tried to persuade the three children in Babylon to bow down to the image of gold! I cannot argue, I cannot reason with one so learned as you are, but I know that it is written in God's Law, Thou shalt not bow down nor worship, and that is enough for me."

"But you never can endure the agonies which await you if you madly hold out in your obstinate resistance!" cried Pollux.

"I know that I have no strength of my own; I know that I am a trembling, feeble, cowardly girl, weak as water!" exclaimed Zarah, bursting into tears; "but God – my God – once made a firm wall of water, and He who sends the trial will send the strength to endure it!"

"Zarah, you will drive me to madness!" exclaimed Pollux, alarmed at the constancy shown by so timid and fragile a being; "nay, turn not away, I will be heard! I command you to yield obedience to the king, and I have a right to command; Zarah, he who speaks to you is – your father!"

Had not instinct suggested that before, had there not been something in the voice, the face of the courtier of Epiphanes which had reminded Zarah of Hadassah, and had strangely drawn the maiden's heart towards him? Up sprang Abner's daughter with a cry, her arms were around his neck, her head was pillowed on his bosom, his vest was wet with her tears; she sobbed forth, "My father! my father!" forgetting for the moment everything else in the delight of having found the lost one at last, and of being locked in the embrace of a parent.

And Pollux, for a brief space, could think of nothing but the fact that his child was clasped in his arms. He drew her close to his heart, then held her back that he might gaze upon her face, and press kiss after kiss on the lips of her whom he called his darling, his pride, his beautiful child! But when the first burst of natural emotion was over, Pollux made his daughter sit close beside him, and with his arm round her slight form, resumed the conversation which had been interrupted by his revealing the intimate relationship in which they stood to each other.

"You see, my child," said the courtier, "that you may now yield with an easy conscience. A parent's commands are law to a Hebrew maiden; if there be any sin in what you do, it lies upon me alone."

"And think you that I would bring sin upon your head?" said Zarah. "Oh no, that would be to wrong a parent indeed!"

"I have such a burden of my own to carry," observed Pollux, bitterly, "that I shall scarcely be sensible of so small an addition to its weight. Zarah, it is clearly your duty to submit, for my safety is involved in your submission. If you refuse to obey Antiochus, you seal the doom of your father."

In anguish Zarah clasped her throbbing temples with both her hands; even the path of duty itself seemed dark and uncertain before her. Then a thought, sudden and bright, as if it were an inspiration, came into the young girl's mind.

"Oh no, I will save my father!" she exclaimed; "save him from worse than death! Let us fly together at once," she continued; "no, not together, I would cumber your flight; but make your escape, O my father, from this wicked court, this barbarous king, this life which, to a son of Hadassah, must be misery and bondage indeed! Oh, fly, fly; be safe, be free; be again what you were once! it is not too late! it is not too late!" There was intense delight to Zarah in the new-born hope that she might draw her wretched parent from this den of infamy, this pit of destruction.

Pollux was startled by the sudden suggestion. "Whither could I fly?" asked the renegade gloomily.

"To Judas Maccabeus, our hero," cried Zarah; "his camp is the rallying-place for all fugitives from oppression."

"Maccabeus!" exclaimed Pollux; "he would loathe – would spurn an apostate!"

"Oh no, he would never spurn the father of Zarah," cried the maiden, for once realizing and exulting in the secret power which she exercised over the leader of the Hebrews; "Judas would welcome you, his brave companions would welcome, coming as you would come to redeem the past by devoting your sword to your country! God would receive you; and Hadassah," continued Zarah, her enthusiasm kindling into rapture as she went on, "Hadassah, in her joy, her ecstasy, would forget all her grief – the thought of her long-lost son being with Maccabeus would enable her almost to rejoice at her Zarah being – with God."

"Impossible, impossible," muttered Pollux, rising from his seat as if to depart; but Zarah detected indecision in his tone. She threw herself at his feet, she clasped his knees, she pleaded with passionate fervour, for she deemed that a parent's life and soul were at stake.

"Oh, father, if you would but consent to leave for ever this horrible, horrible place, to return to your people, your mother, your God, I feel as if I could die happy, so happy; we should then meet again in a brighter world, all, all re-united, and for ever!"

It was as the voice of his guardian angel – as if his once fondly-loved wife had been suffered to visit Abner in mortal form, to counsel, warn, entreat; to tell him that there yet might be mercy for him if he would but turn and repent! There was a terrific struggle in the renegade's mind. He could not at once decide on taking so bold and sudden a leap as that to which he was urged, though conscious of the peril as well as misery of his present position at the court. As the deer, driven by wolves to the precipice's brink, hesitates on making the plunge down – though it give him the only chance of escape from the ravening jaws of his fierce pursuers – so hesitated the wretched Pollux.

He would have felt no indecision had he known that, at the very time when Zarah was pleading in tears at his feet, Antiochus was signing, in the presence of the exulting Lysimachus, a warrant for the execution of Pollux on the morrow. His rival had succeeded in working his ruin; the only door of safety yet open to the apostate was that towards which his child, with fervent entreaties, was trying to draw him; shortly – little dreamed Pollux how shortly – that door of safety would be closed. Unable to form a sudden resolution, to come to a prompt decision, seeing difficulties and dangers on every side, fearing to remain where he was, yet afraid to fly, Pollux wasted the precious time yet given him, he let the golden moments escape. In a state of strong excitement, he at length quitted his daughter's presence, to seek that solitude in which his perturbed mind might become sufficiently calm to form a judgment which must be as the pivot upon which his whole future life would turn. Pollux left Zarah still on her knees, nor did she rise when he had torn himself from her clinging arms and left the apartment. When the daughter could no longer plead with, she pleaded for, her father – she implored that grace and wisdom might be given to him at this momentous crisis. There was no more sleep for Zarah on that eventful night.

CHAPTER XXIV.

DECISION

Tossed backwards and forwards on a wild sea of doubt – a vessel without ballast, compass, or rudder – was the mind of the miserable Pollux. The courtier paced for hours up and down a verandah where the cool breeze of heaven could fan him, and where he would be secure from interruption. Ever and anon Pollux tore his beard, or smote his breast; unconsciously giving expression by outward gesture to the inward torture which he felt. Was he to give up all at once – all for which he had bartered his soul, rank, wealth, position – to begin life again on the lowest round of the ladder, with the brand of disgrace, the burden of shame upon him? Could he endure to appear in the presence of Maccabeus, to sue from him the place of hewer of wood and drawer of water; to exchange the pride of power and pomp of wealth for hardship and want, poverty and peril? Pollux felt that he could not bring his pride to submit to the degradation, or his worldliness to the loss. The leap to be taken was from such a height, and into such an abyss, that it seemed as if he must be dashed in pieces by the fall.

But what was the alternative, if the dreaded leap were not taken? If Zarah remained firm in the faith, she must die; – could the father endure to witness the martyrdom of his beautiful child? And his own life – was it not in danger? Was not instant flight from court the only means of affording a chance of safety either to parent or daughter? was it not the only means of delivering an apostate from the execrations of his countrymen, the curse of his mother, the impending vengeance of the Most High! Conscience would no longer be silenced – Zarah had aroused the sleeper; beside the faith and purity of his own child, Pollux had regarded himself almost as a demon!

And Zarah had awakened not only conscience, but hope. She had clung to the apostate with tenderness, not shrunk back from him with horror. She had not, then, been taught to regard her parent as one who had forfeited all claim to her affection. Zarah had spoken of the possibility of his yet giving joy to the lofty-souled mother whom Pollux, in the midst of his guilt, had not ceased to reverence and love. For many years the apostate had tried to drive from his mind all thought of Hadassah; now her image came vividly before him, not in the attitude of uttering a malediction, but as holding out her arms to receive back her prodigal son.

While Pollux was deliberating, and Zarah praying, Lysimachus was carousing amidst boon companions in the city. The ruin and approaching execution of his rival gave unwonted zest to the revels of the profligate Syrian.

"Here's to our friend the magnificent Pollux!" exclaimed Lysimachus, raising on high a huge goblet of wine. "He is going on a long journey to-morrow; here's to his quick passage over Styx, and welcome at the shadowy court of King Pluto!"

And those who listened were not ashamed to laugh at the jest, or to drink the toast, though they had mixed in familiar intercourse with Pollux, flattered and followed him, when he had basked in the sunshine of royal favour. One of the guests was calculating how he should now get possession of some coveted gem which he had seen sparkling on the girdle of the man to whom he had once sworn unalterable friendship; another fixed on the Arab steed of the ruined courtier as his share of the spoils. There was not one of the sycophants met together at that night-revel who had a word of warning or a thought of pity to give to him who had been the most admired, envied, and flattered of all the nobles who composed the brilliant court of Antiochus Epiphanes!

Stars were paling, the night was waning, the door of safety was slowly, imperceptibly closing – soon, soon the decision of Pollux, if made, would be made too late! When once the course of duty is clear to the mind, perilous is every minute of delay: while we hesitate, the enemy steals on; while we doubt, we may find ourselves under his fangs!

"Zarah shall decide for me!" exclaimed the unhappy waverer at last. "If I find her resolution immovable, come what may, I will give my child one chance of escape from the horrible fate with which she is threatened."

In a few minutes, pale and haggard from his contending emotions, Pollux re-entered the apartment in which he had left his daughter.

"Zarah!" he cried, in a hollow tone, as he grasped the maiden by the wrist, and scanned her countenance with an almost despairing gaze, "I come to ask what is your final decision. Are you still insane enough to choose tortures and death?"

Zarah looked her father full in the face; she pale, but she blenched not. In a calm, unhesitating voice she replied, "I will never deny my faith."

"Then the die is cast!" exclaimed Pollux, almost relieved by being at least freed from the misery of indecision. "We live or perish together! – we will make our escape before daybreak."

There was little time left for words – none to express the thankful joy which swelled the heart of Zarah. She was rescuing her father from dishonour and guilt; she was giving him back to his country.

"Put on this dress of a Syrian slave-girl, which I have brought for you," said Pollux. "Take up yon empty water-jar; it must appear as if you went to fill it at the tank. We cannot keep close together; that would awaken suspicion. We shall have guards to pass, and possibly other persons besides, though at this very early hour even slaves will scarcely have commenced their morning toils."

"How shall I find my way, father?" inquired Zarah; "this vast palace is as a labyrinth to me."

"You must never quite lose sight of me," Pollux replied; "though following at a sufficient distance to prevent its appearing that your movements are guided by mine. But no, that plan will not answer," he continued, pressing his forehead with his hand; "I should not then have you in view, and, should you be challenged, I should be unable to come to your help. You, my child, must go first."

"Oh, my father, my presence will fearfully increase your danger!" cried Zarah. "Leave me here, I implore, and make your escape alone. No one will challenge you."

Pollux silenced his daughter's expostulation with an impatient gesture of the hand. "Attend to my directions," he said; "we have wasted too much time already. You will follow me through the first court, and then you will precede me. Keep to the right till you pass the first sentries; then you will find yourself in a garden, in the centre of which is a tank. Fill, or make show of filling, your jar. Then the long dark passage which, you will see on the left will conduct you to a postern gate of the palace; there will be a guard at that also."

"How shall I pass them?" asked Zarah, who began to realize the difficulties and perils of the undertaking before her.

"I know not; but God, whom you serve, will help you, my brave and innocent child! I will be following at no great distance – every soldier or slave will know me – call me, and I will come to your aid."

"Father, give me your blessing," faltered Zarah.

"My blessing!" ejaculated Pollux, drawing back; "does any one ask a blessing from a wretch from whom it would sear and blast more than a curse from the lips of another!"

"Oh, never say so!" cried Zarah. "You doing now what is generous – noble – right! You are casting in your lot with the people of God; like Lot, you are turning your back upon Sodom."

"And you are the angel leading me thence," exclaimed Pollux. "Oh, Zarah, Zarah, sainted child of a sainted woman, you who have been the first to cast a gleam of hope on the darkness of guilt and despair, if ever I find mercy from man or from God, if ever I look again on the face of my mother, if ever I escape the righteous doom of an apostate, it is owing to you! Whatever be the result of our perilous enterprise to-night, remember that I thank you, I bless you – and you shall be blessed, O my daughter!" Pollux laid both his trembling hands on the head of his kneeling child, and uttered for her the first prayer to the true God which the apostate had dared to utter for many guilty, miserable years.

CHAPTER XXV.

A RETROSPECT

Hadassah had, in the meantime, been enduring the martyrdom of the heart.

When Zarah, under the escort of Abishai, left her home to attend the celebration of the holy feast, Hadassah sent her soul with her, though failing health chained back the aged lady's feeble body. In thought, Hadassah shared the memorial feast; in thought, partook of the sacrifice and joined in the hymns of praise. Her mind dwelt on the circumstances attending the celebration of the first Passover, when, with loins girded and staff in hand, the fathers of Israel had taken their last meal in Egypt, before starting for the Promised Land.

"Is not this the Promised Land still?" thought Hadassah; "though those who are as the Canaanites of old now hold it – though unhallowed worship be offered on Mount Zion, and images be set up within the walls of Jerusalem. Yea, it is to Israel the Promised Land, till every prophecy be fulfilled; till the King come to Zion, lowly and riding on an ass (Zech. ix. 9); till – oh, most mysterious word! – the thirty pieces of silver be weighed out as the price of the Lord and cast to the potter (Zech. xi. 12, 18); till He shall speak peace to the heathen, and His dominion be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth (Zech. ix. 10). Faith looks backward on fulfilled prophecy with gratitude, on yet unfulfilled prophecy with hope. Zion's brightest days are to come. Her Lord crowned her with glory in the days of old; but in the days which will rise on her yet, He shall Himself be to her as a diadem of beauty!" (Isa. xxviii. 5.)

Absorbed in such high contemplations, with hopes intensified by the victories of Maccabeus – which seemed to her types and pledges of greater triumphs to come – time did not pass wearily with Hadassah until the hour arrived for Zarah's expected return. Even the delay of that return did not at first seriously alarm Hadassah; circumstances might render it safer for the maiden to linger at Salathiel's house; she might even be pressed to remain there during the night, should Syrians be lurking about in the paths amidst the hills. Hadassah had so often attended meetings in the elder's dwelling, with or without her grand-daughter, that habit had made her regard such attendance as less perilous than it was now to be proved to have been.

But Hadassah on this night could not retire to rest. She could not close her eyes in sleep until they had again looked upon her whom the Hebrew lady fondly called her "white dove."

Midnight stole on, and Hadassah's heart, notwithstanding her courage and faith, became burdened with heavy anxiety. She made Anna lie down and rest; while she herself, notwithstanding her state of indisposition, kept watch by the door.

Presently her ear caught the sound of footsteps, hurried yet stealthy. Hadassah heard danger in that sound, and opened the door without waiting to know who came, or whether the steps would be arrested at her threshold. The light which the widow held in her hand fell on a countenance ghastly with fear; she recognized the face of Salathiel, and knew before he uttered a word that he had come as the messenger of disaster.

"The enemy came – we fled over the roofs – Abishai is slain – Zarah in the hands of the Syrians!"

Such were the tidings which fell like a sentence of death on the ear of Hadassah! Salathiel could not wait to tell more; he must overtake his family and with them flee for his life; and he passed away again into darkness, almost as swiftly as the lightning passes, but, like the lightning, leaving behind a token of where it has been in the tree which it has blasted!

Hadassah did not shriek, nor sink, nor swoon, but she felt as one who has received a death-blow. She stood repeating over and over to herself the latter part of Salathiel's brief but fearful announcement, as if it were too terrible to be true. Had Zarah been taken from her by natural cause, the Hebrew lady would have bowed her head like Job, and have blessed the name of the Lord in mournful submission; but the thought of Zarah in the hands of the Syrians caused an agony of grief more like that of Jacob, when he gazed on the blood-stained garment of his son and refused to be comforted.

For Hadassah loved the young maiden whom she had reared with the intensity of which a strong and fervent nature like hers perhaps alone is capable. Zarah was all that was left to her grandmother in the world, the sole relic remaining of the treasures which she once had possessed. It may be permitted to me here, as a digression, to give a brief account of Hadassah's former life, that the reader may better understand her position at the point reached in my story.

Few women had appeared to enjoy a brighter lot than Hadassah, when beautiful, gifted, and beloved, a happy wife, a rejoicing mother, she had dwelt near Bethsura in Idumea, the possessor of more than competence, and the dispenser of benefits to many around her. Hadassah had in her youthful days an ambitious spirit, a somewhat haughty temper, and a love of command, which had to a certain degree marred the beauty of a character which was essentially noble.

Grief soon came, however, to humble the spirit and to soften the temper. Hadassah was early left a widow, and heavily the grief of bereavement fell upon one whose love had been passionate and deep. Two children, however – a daughter and son – remained to console her. Around these, and especially her boy, the affections of Hadassah clung but too closely. Abner was almost idolized by his mother. If ambition remained in her heart, it was ambition for him. He was her pride, her delight, the object of her fondest hopes; Abner's very faults seemed almost to become graces, viewed through the medium of Hadassah's intense love.