Pearl-Maiden: A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem

  Again Miriam fainted, again to be awakened. The door that led fromthe gate chambers to its roof burst open and through it sped a figurebare-headed and dishevelled, his torn raiment black with blood andsmoke. Staring at him, Miriam knew the man who Simeon--yes, Simeon,her cruel judge, who had doomed her to this dreadful end. After him,gripping his robe indeed, came a Roman officer, a stout man of middleage, with a weather-beaten kindly face, which in some dim way seemed tobe familiar to her, and after him again, six soldiers.

  "Hold him!" he panted. "We must have one of them to show if only thatthe people may know what a live Jew is like," and the officer tugged sofiercely at the robe that in his struggles to be free, for he also hopedto die by casting himself from the gateway tower, Simeon fell down.

  Next instant the soldiers were on him and held him fast. Then it was forthe first time that the captain caught sight of Miriam crouched at thefoot of her pillar.

  "Why," he said, "I had forgotten. That is the girl whom we saw yesterdayfrom the Court of Women and whom we have orders to save. Is the poorthing dead?"

  Miriam lifted her wan face and looked at him.

  "By Bacchus!" he said, "I have seen that face before; it is not one thata man would forget. Ah! I have it now." Then he stooped and eagerly readthe writing that was tied upon her breast:

  "Miriam, Nazarene and traitress, is doomed here to die as God shallappoint before the face of her friends, the Romans."

  "Miriam," he said, then started and checked himself.

  "Look!" cried one of the soldiers, "the girl wears pearls, and goodones. Is it your pleasure that I should cut them off?"

  "Nay, let them be," he answered. "Neither she nor her pearls are for anyof us. Loosen her chain, not her necklet."

  So with much trouble they broke the rivets of the chain.

  "Can you stand, lady?" said the captain to Miriam.

  She shook her head.

  "Then I needs must carry you," and stooping down he lifted her inhis strong arms as though she had been but a child, and, bidding thesoldiers bring the Jew Simeon with them, slowly and with great caredescended the staircase up which Miriam had been taken more than sixtyhours before.

  Passing through the outer doors into the archway where the great gate bywhich the Romans had gained access to the Temple stood wide, the captainturned into the Court of Israel, where some soldiers who were engagedin dividing spoil looked up laughing and asked him whose baby he hadcaptured. Paying no heed to them he walked across the court, picking hisway through the heaps of dead to a range of the southern cloisters whichwere still standing, where officers might be seen coming and going.Under one of these cloisters, seated on a stool and employed inexamining the vessels and other treasures of the Temple, which werebrought before him one by one, was Titus. Looking up he saw this strangeprocession and commanded that they should be brought before him.

  "Who is it that you carry in your arms, captain?" he asked.

  "That girl, Caesar," he answered, "who was bound upon the gateway andwhom you have orders should not be shot at."

  "Does she still live?"

  "She lives--no more. Thirst and heat have withered her."

  "How came she there?"

  "This writing tells you, Caesar."

  Titus read. "Ah!" he said, "Nazarene. An evil sect, worse even thanthese Jews, or so thought the late divine Nero. Traitress also. Why, thegirl must have deserved her fate. But what is this? 'Is doomed to die asGod shall appoint before the face of her friends, the Romans.' How arethe Romans her friends, I wonder? Girl, if you can speak, tell me whocondemned you."

  Miriam lifted her dark head from the shoulder of the captain on which itlay and pointed with her finger at the Jew, Simeon.

  "Is that so, man?" asked Caesar. "Now tell the truth, for I shall learnit, and if you lie you die."

  "She was condemned by the Sanhedrim, among whom was her own grandfather,Benoni; there is his signature with the rest upon the scroll," Simeonanswered sullenly.

  "For what crime?"

  "Because she suffered a Roman prisoner to escape, for which deed," headded furiously, "may her soul burn in Gehenna for ever and aye!"

  "What was the name of the prisoner?" asked Titus.

  "I do not remember," answered Simeon.

  "Well," said Caesar, "it does not greatly matter, for either he is safeor he is dead. Your robes, what are left of them, show that you also areone of the Sanhedrim. Is it not so?"

  "Yes. I am Simeon, a name that you have heard."

  "Ah! Simeon, here it is, written on this scroll first of all. Well,Simeon, you doomed a high-born lady to a cruel death because she saved,or tried to save, a Roman soldier, and it is but just that you shoulddrink of your own wine. Take him and fasten him to the column on thegateway and leave him there to perish. Your Holy House is destroyed,Simeon, and being a faithful priest, you would not wish to survive yourworship."

  "There you are right, Roman," he answered, "though I should have beenbetter pleased with a quicker end, such as I trust may overtake you."

  Then they led him off, and presently Simeon appeared upon the gatewaywith Miriam's chain about his middle and Miriam's rope knotted afreshabout his wrists.

  "Now for this poor girl," went on Titus Caesar. "It seems that she isa Nazarene, a sect of which all men speak ill, for they try to subvertauthority and preach doctrines that would bring the world to ruin. Alsoshe was false to her own people, which is a crime, though one in thisinstance whereof we Romans cannot complain. Therefore, if only for thesake of example it would be wrong to set her free; indeed, to do so,would be to give her to death. My command is, then, that she shall betaken good care of, and if she recovers, be sent to Rome to adorn myTriumph, should the gods grant me such a thing, and afterwards besold as a slave for the benefit of the wounded soldiers and the poor.Meanwhile, who will take charge of her?"

  "I," said that officer who had freed Miriam. "There is an old woman whotends my tent, who can nurse her in her sickness."

  "Understand, friend," answered Titus, "that no harm is to be done tothis girl, who is my property."

  "I understand, O Caesar," said the officer. "She shall be treated asthough she were my daughter."

  "Good. You who are present, remember his words and my decree. In Rome,if we live to reach it, you shall give account to me of the captivelady, Miriam. Now take her away, for there are greater matters to bedealt with than the fortunes of this girl."