Part 14 (1/2)
Pollux bit his nether lip till the blood came. When he resumed speaking, his voice sounded hoa.r.s.e 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 n.o.bles 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 n.o.ble, 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 wors.h.i.+p which you could desire.” Pollux paused, turning over in his mind who would be the n.o.ble 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 circ.u.mstances 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 wors.h.i.+p, the a.s.sent 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 G.o.d. Nay, the tempter quoted Scripture (as the devil himself can quote it) to show that what G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionately, 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 G.o.d's Law, _Thou shalt not bow down nor wors.h.i.+p_, 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 G.o.d--my G.o.d--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 Hada.s.sah, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 relations.h.i.+p 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 c.u.mber your flight; but make your escape, O my father, from this wicked court, this barbarous king, this life which, to a son of Hada.s.sah, 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! G.o.d would receive you; and Hada.s.sah,” continued Zarah, her enthusiasm kindling into rapture as she went on, ”Hada.s.sah, 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 G.o.d.”
”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 pa.s.sionate 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 G.o.d, 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.