Part 32 (1/2)
She shook her head. ”I will not go, who am weary of flights and hidings.
Let G.o.d deal with me and Marcus and you as He pleases. Yet I thank you, and am sorry for the unkind words I spoke. Oh! Caleb, cannot you put me out of your mind? Are there not many fairer women who would be glad to love you? Why do you waste your life upon me? Take your path and suffer me to take mine. Yet all this talk is foolishness, for both are likely to be short.”
”Yours, and that of Marcus the Roman, and my own are all one path, Miriam, and I seek no other. As a lad, I swore that I would never take you, except by your own wish, and to that oath I hold. Also, I swore that if I could I would kill my rival, and to that oath I hold. If he kills me, you may wed him. If I kill him, you need not wed me unless you so desire. But this fight is to the death, yes, whether you live or die, it is still to the death as between me and him. Do you understand?”
”Your words are very plain, Caleb, but this is a strange hour to choose to speak them, seeing that, for aught I know, Marcus is already dead, and that within some short time I shall be dead, and that death threatens you and all within this Temple.”
”Yet we live, Miriam, and I believe that for none of the three of us is the end at hand. Well, you will not fly, either with me or without me?”
”No, I will not fly.”
”Then the time is here, and, having no choice, I must do my duty, leaving the rest to fate. If, perchance, I can rescue you afterwards, I will, but do not hope for such a thing.”
”Caleb, I neither hope nor fear. Henceforth I struggle no more. I am in other hands than yours, or those of the Jews, and as They fas.h.i.+on the clay so shall it be shaped. Now, will you bind me?”
”I have no such command. Come forth if it pleases you, the officers wait without. Had you wished to be rescued, I should have taken the path on which my friends await us. Now we must go another.”
”So be it,” said Miriam, ”but first give me that jar of water, for my throat is parched.”
He lifted it to her lips and she drank deeply. Then they went. Outside the cloister four men were waiting, two of them those doorkeepers who had searched her in the morning, the others soldiers.
”You have been a long while with the pretty maid, master,” said one of them to Caleb. ”Have you been receiving confession of her sins?”
”I have been trying to receive confession of the hiding-place of the Roman, but the witch is obstinate,” he answered, glaring angrily at Miriam.
”She will soon change her tune on the gateway, master, where the nights are cold and the day is hot for those who have neither cloaks for their backs nor water for their stomachs. Come on, Blue Eyes, but first give me that necklet of pearls, which may serve to buy a bit of bread or a drink of wine,” and he thrust his filthy hand into her breast.
Next instant a sword flashed in the red light of the evening to fall full on the ruffian's skull, and down he went dead or dying.
”Brute,” said Caleb with an angry snarl, ”go to seek bread and wine in Gehenna. The maid is doomed to death, not to be plundered by such as you. Come forward.”
The companions of the fallen man stared at him. Then one laughed, for death was too common a sight to excite pity or surprise, and said:
”He was ever a greedy fellow. Let us hope that he has gone where there is more to eat.”
Then, preceded by Caleb, they marched through the long cloisters, pa.s.sed an inner door, turned down more cloisters on the right, and, following the base of the great wall, came to its beautiful centre gate, Nicanor, that was adorned with gold and silver, and stood between the Court of Women and the Court of Israel. Over this gateway was a square building, fifty feet or more in height, containing store chambers and places where the priests kept their instruments of music. On its roof, which was flat, were three columns of marble, terminated by gilded spikes. By the gate one of the Sanhedrim was waiting for them, that same relentless judge, Simeon, who had ordered Miriam to be searched.
”Has the woman confessed where she hid the Roman?” he asked of Caleb.
”No,” he answered, ”she says that she knows nothing of any Roman.”
”Is it so, woman?”
”It is so, Rabbi.”
”Bring her up,” he went on sternly, and they pa.s.sed through some stone chambers to a place where there was a staircase with a door of cedar-wood. The judge unlocked it, locking it again behind them, and they climbed the stairs till they came to another little door of stone, which, being opened, Miriam found herself on the roof of the gateway.
They led her to the centre pillar, to which was fastened an iron chain about ten feet in length. Here Simeon commanded that her hands should be bound behind her, which was done. Then he brought out of his robe a scroll written in large letters, and tied it on to her breast. This was the writing on the scroll:
”Miriam, Nazarene and Traitress, is doomed here to die as G.o.d shall appoint, before the face of her friends, the Romans.”
Then followed several signatures of members of the Sanhedrim, including that of her grandfather, Benoni, who had thus been forced to show the triumph of patriotism over kins.h.i.+p.
This done the end of the chain was made fast round her middle and riveted with a hammer in such fas.h.i.+on that she could not possibly escape its grip. Then all being finished the men prepared to leave. First, however, Simeon addressed her: