CHAPTER XVIII
THE COST OF CONQUEST
Mariamne turned from the still insensible form of Calchas to the beautifulface, that even now, though pale from exhaustion and warped with agony, itpained her to see so fair. Gently and tenderly she lifted the goldenhelmet from Valeria's brows; gently and tenderly she smoothed the richbrown hair, and wiped away the dews of coming death. Compassion,gratitude, and an ardent desire to soothe and tend the sufferer left noroom for bitterness or unworthy feeling in Mariamne's breast. Valeria hadredeemed her promise with her life--had ransomed the man whom they bothloved so dearly, at that fatal price, for _her_! and the Jewess could onlythink of all she owed the Roman lady in return; could only strive to tendand comfort her, and minister to her wants, and support her in the awfulmoment she did not fail to see was fast approaching. The dying woman'sface was turned on her with a sweet sad smile; but when Mariamne's touchsoftly approached the head of her father's javelin, still protruding fromthe wound, Valeria stayed her hand.
"Not yet," she whispered with a noble effort that steadied voice and lips,and kept down mortal agony; "not yet; for I know too well I am stricken tothe death. While the steel is there it serves to stanch the life-blood.When I draw it out, then scatter a handful of dust over my forehead, andlay the death-penny on my tongue. I would fain last a few moments longer,Esca, were it but to look on thy dear face! Raise me, both of you. I havesomewhat to say, and my time is short."
The Briton propped her in his strong arms, and she leaned her head againsthis shoulder with a gesture of contentment and relief. The winning eyeshad lost none of their witchery yet, though soon to be closed in death.Perhaps they never shone with so soft and sweet a lustre as now, whilethey looked upon the object of a wild, foolish, and impossible love. Whileone white hand was laid upon the javelin's head, and held it in its place,the other wandered over Esca's features in a fond caress, to be wettedwith his tears. Her voice was failing, her strength was ebbing fast, butthe brave spirit of the Mutian line held out, tameless and unshaken still.
"I have conquered," gasped the Roman lady, in broken accents and withquick-coming breath. "I have conquered, though at the cost of life. Whatthen? Victory can never be bought too dear. Esca, I swore to rescue thee.I swore thou shouldst be mine. Now have I kept my oath. I have bought theewith my blood, and I give thee--_give_ thee, my own, to this brave girl,who risked her life to save thee too, and who loves thee well; but not sowell, not half so well, as I have done. Esca, my noble one, come closer,closer yet." She drew his face down nearer and nearer to her own while sheguided his hand to the javelin's head, still fast in her side. "I can bearthis agony no longer," she gasped, "but it is not hard to die in thinearms, and by thy dear hand!"
Thus speaking, she closed his grasp within her own, round the steel, anddrew it gently from the wound. The blood welled up in dark-red jets topour forth, as it cleared its channel, in one continuous stream that soondrained life away. With a quiver of her dainty limbs, with a smiledeepening in her fair face, with her fond eyes fixed on the man she loved,and her lips pressed against his hand, the spirit of that beautiful,imperious, and wilful woman passed away into eternity.
Blinded by their tears, neither Esca nor Mariamne were, for the moment,conscious of aught but the sad fate of her who had twice saved the onefrom death, and to whom the other had so lately appealed as the onlysource of aid in her great need. Dearly as he loved the living woman byhis side, the Briton could not refrain from a burst of bitter sorrow whilehe looked on the noble form of Valeria lying dead at his feet; andMariamne forgot her own griefs, her own injuries, in holy pity for her whohad sacrificed virtue, happiness, wealth, life itself in his behalf, whomshe, too, loved more dearly than it behoves human weakness to loveanything this side the grave.
But the living now claimed that attention which it availed no longer tobestow upon the dead. Calchas, though sadly bruised and mangled, began toshow signs of restored life. The stone that stretched him on the pavementhad, indeed, dealt a fatal injury; but though it stunned him for a time,had failed to inflict instantaneous death. The colour was now returning tohis cheek, his breath came in long deep sighs, and he raised his hand tohis head with a gesture of renewed consciousness, denoted by a sense ofpain. Esca, careless and almost unaware of the conflict raging around,bent sorrowfully over his old friend, and devoted all his faculties to thetask of aiding Mariamne in her efforts to alleviate his sufferings.
In the meantime, the tide of battle surged to and fro, with increasingvolume and unmitigated fury. The Legion of the Lost, flushed with success,and secure of support from the whole Roman army in their rear, pressed theJews, with the exulting and unremitting energy of the hunter closing in onhis prey. These, like the wild beasts driven to the toils, turned to baywith the dreadful courage of despair. Led by Eleazar, who was ever presentwhere most needed, they made repeated sallies from the body of the Temple,endeavouring to regain the ground they had lost, at least as far as theentrance to the Court of the Gentiles. This became, therefore, an arena inwhich many a mortal combat was fought out hand to hand, and was severaltimes taken and retaken with alternate success.
Hippias, according to his wont, was conspicuous in the fray. It was hisambition to lead his gladiators into the Holy Place itself, before Titusshould come up, and with such an object he seemed to outdo to-day thedaring feats of valour for which he had previously been celebrated.Hirpinus, who had no sooner regained his feet than he went to work againas though, like the fabled Titan, he derived renewed energy from thekisses of mother Earth, expostulated more than once with his leader on thedangers he affronted, and the numerical odds he did not hesitate toengage, but received to each warning the same reply. Pointing withdripping sword at the golden roof of the Temple flashing conspicuouslyover their heads, "Yonder," said the fencing-master, "is the ransom of akingdom. I will win it with my own hand for the legion, and share itamongst you equally, man by man." Such a prospect inspired the gladiatorswith even more than their usual daring; and though many a stout swordsmanwent down with his face to the enemy, and many a bold eye looked its laston the coveted spoil, ere it grew dark for ever, the survivors did butclose in the fiercer, to fight on, step by step, and stroke by stroke,till the court was strewed with corpses, and its pavement slippery withblood.
During a pause in the reeling strife, and while marshalling his men, whohad again driven the Jews into the Temple, for a fresh and decisiveattack, Hippias found himself in that corner of the court where Esca andMariamne were still bending over the prostrate form of Calchas. Without asymptom of astonishment or jealousy, but with his careless half-contemptuous laugh, the fencing-master recognised his former pupil, andthe girl whom he had once before seen in the porch of the tribune'smansion at Rome. Taking off his heavy helmet, he wiped his brows, andleaned for a space on his shield.
"Go to the rear," said he, "and take the lass with thee, man, since sheseems to hang like a clog round thy neck, wherever there is fighting to bedone. Give yourselves up to the Tenth Legion, and tell Licinius, whocommands it, you are my prisoners. 'Tis your only chance of safety, mypretty damsel, and none of your sex ever yet had cause to rue her trust inHippias. You may tell him also, Esca, that if he make not the more haste,I shall have taken the Temple, and all belonging to it, without his help.Off with thee, lad! this is no place for a woman. Get her out of it asquick as thou canst."
But the Briton pointed downward to Calchas, who had again becomeunconscious, and whose head was resting on Mariamne's knees. His gesturedrew the attention of Hippias to the ground, cumbered as it was withslain. He had begun with a brutal laugh to bid his pupil "leave thecarrion for the vultures," but the sentence died out on his lips, whichturned deadly white, while his eyes stared vacantly, and the shield onwhich he had been leaning fell with a clang to the stones.
There at his very feet over the golden breastplate was the dead face ofValeria; and the heart of the brave, reckless, and unprincipled soldiersm
ote him with a cruel pang, for something told him that his own wilfulpride and selfishness had begun that work, which was completed, to hiseternal self-reproach, down there.
He never thought he loved her so dearly. He recalled, as if it were butyesterday, the first time he ever saw her, beautiful and sumptuous andhaughty, looking down from her cushioned chair by the equestrian row, withthe well-known scornful glance that possessed for him so keen a charm. Heremembered how it kindled into approval as it met his own, and how hisheart thrilled under his buckler, though he stood face to face with amortal foe. He remembered how fondly he clung to that mutual glance ofrecognition, the only link between them, renewed more frankly and morekindly at every succeeding show, till, raising his eyes to meet it oncetoo often in the critical moment of encounter, he went down badly woundedunder the blow he had thus failed to guard. Nevertheless, how richly washe rewarded when fighting stubbornly on his knee, and from thatdisadvantageous attitude vanquishing his antagonist at last, hedistinguished amidst the cheers of thousands her marked and musical_Euge!_ syllabled so clearly though so softly, for his special ear, by thelips of the proud lady, whom from that moment he dared to love!Afterwards, when admitted periodically to her house, how delightful werethe alternations of hope and fear with which he saw himself treated; nowas an honoured guest, now as a mere inferior, at another time with mingledkindness and restraint, that, impassible as he thought himself, woke suchwild wishes in his heart! How sweet it was to be sure of seeing her atcertain stated hours, the recollection of one meeting bridging over theintervening period so pleasantly, till it was time to look forward toanother! She was to him like the beautiful rose blooming in his garden, ofwhich a man is content at first only to admire the form ere he learns tolong for its fragrance, and at last desires to pluck it ruthlessly fromthe stem that he may wear it on his breast. How soon it withers there anddies, and then how bitterly, how sadly, he wishes he had left it blushingwhere it grew! There are plenty more flowers in the garden, but none ofthem are quite equal to the rose.
It was strange how little Hippias dwelt on the immediate past--how it wasthe Valeria of Rome, not the Valeria of Judaea, for whom his heart wasaching now. He scarcely reverted even to the delirious happiness of thefirst few days when she accompanied him to the East; he did not dwell onhis own mad joy, nor the foolish triumph that lasted so short a time. Heforgot, as though they had never been, her caprice, her wilfulness, hergrowing weariness of his society, and the scorn she scarcely took thetrouble to conceal. It was all past and gone now, that constraint andrepugnance in the tent, that impatience of each other's presence, thoseangry recriminations, those heartless biting taunts and the final rupturethat could never be pardoned nor atoned for now. She was again Valeria ofthe olden time, of the haughty bearing, and the winning eyes, and thefresh glad voice that sprang from a heart which had never known a strugglenor a fall--the Valeria whose every mood and gesture were gifted with adangerous witchery, a subtle essence that seems to pervade the verypresence of such women--a priceless charm, indeed, and yet a fatal, luringthe possessor to the destruction of others and her own.
Oh, that she could but speak to him once more! Only once, though it werein words of keen reproach or bitter scorn! It seemed like a dream that heshould never hear her voice again; and yet his senses vouched that it waswaking cold reality, for was she not lying there before him, surrounded bythe slain of his devoted legion? The foremost, the fairest, and theearliest lost, amongst them all!
He took no further note of Calchas nor of Esca. He turned not to mark therenewed charge of his comrades, nor the increased turmoil of the fight,but he stooped down over the body of the dead woman, and laid his lipsreverently to her pale cold brow. Then he lifted one of her long browntresses, dabbled as they were in blood, to sever it gently and carefullywith his sword, and unbuckling his corselet, hid it beneath the steel uponhis heart. After this, he turned and took leave of Esca. The Britonscarcely knew him, his voice and mien were so altered. But watching hisfigure as he disappeared, waving his sword, amidst the press of battle, heknew instinctively that he had bidden Hippias the gladiator a long andlast farewell.