Lycidas, in the meantime, was chafing in wild impatience under the trial of Zarah's almost perpetual absence. He could no longer watch her, no longer listen to her, except when his straining ear caught the faint sound of her music floating down from an upper apartment. Why was she away? why should she shun him? she whose presence alone had rendered not only tolerable but delightful the kind of mild captivity in which he was retained, while the state of his wounds rendered the Greek unable, without assistance, to leave the dwelling of Hadassah. Lycidas had none of the scruples of Zarah regarding union with one of a different race and religion. The Greek had resolved on winning the fair Hebrew maid as his bride; he was conscious of possessing the gift of attractions such as few young hearts could resist, and asked fortune only for an opportunity of exerting all his powers to the utmost to secure the most precious prize for which mortal had ever contended.
Lycidas beguiled many tedious hours by the composition of a poem, of singular beauty, in honour of Zarah. Most melodious was the flow of the verse, most delicate the fragrance of the incense of praise. The realms of nature, the kingdom of art, were ransacked for images of beauty. But Lycidas felt disgusted with his own work before he had completed it. He seemed to himself like one decorating with gems and hanging rich garments on an exquisite statue, in the attempt to do it honour only marring the perfection of its symmetry, and the grace of its marble drapery. A few words which the Greek had heard Hadassah read from her sacred parchment, appeared to him to include more than all his most laboured descriptions could convoy. Lycidas had thought of Zarah when he had listened to the expression, the beauty of holiness.
"I will not stay a prisoner here, if I am to be shut out in this stifling little den not only from the world, but from her who is more than the world to me," thought the Greek. After months of suffering and weakness, strength, though but slowly, was returning to the frame of Lycidas; and when no one was near to watch him, when the door to the west was closed, and the curtain to the east was drawn, he would occasionally try how far that strength would enable him to go. He would raise himself on his feet, though not without a pang from his wounded side. Then the Greek would take a few steps, from one end of his prison to the other, leaning for support against the wall. This was something for a beginning; youth and love would soon enable him to do more. But Lycidas carefully concealed from Hadassah and Anna that he could do as much. They never saw him but reclining on the floor. He feared that measures might be taken to clip the wings of the bird if it were once guessed how nearly those wings were fledged.
The day before the celebration of the great feast of the Passover, Hadassah was far from well. Whether her illness arose from the state of the weather, for the month of Nisan was this year more than usually hot, or the effect of long fastings and prayer upon a frame enfeebled by age, or whether from secret grief preying on her health, Zarah knew not,--perhaps from all these causes combined. The maiden grew uneasy about her grandmother, and redoubled her tender ministrations to her comfort.
On the day mentioned, Anna had gone into Jerusalem to dispose of flax spun by the Hebrew ladies, and procure a few necessary articles of food. Hadassah never suffered her beautiful girl to enter to walls of the city, nor, indeed, ever to quit the precincts of her home, save when on Sabbath-days and feast-days she went, closely veiled, to the dwelling of the elder Salathiel, about half a mile distant from that of Hadassah, to join in social worship. Hadassah with jealous care shrouded her white dove from the gaze of Syrian eyes.
The aged lady had passed a very restless night. With thrilling interest Zarah had heard her moaning in her sleep, "Abner! my son! my poor lost son!" The sealed lips were opened, when the mind had no longer power to control their utterance. Hadassah awoke in the morning feverish and ill. She made a vain attempt to rise and pursue her usual avocations. Zarah entreated her to lie still. For hours the widow lay stretched on a mat with her eyes half closed, while Zarah watched beside her, fanning her feverish brow.
"Let me prepare for you a cooling drink, dear mother," said the maiden at last, rising and going to the water-jar, which stood in a corner of the apartment. "Alas! it is empty. Anna forgot to replenish it from the spring ere she set out for the city. I will go and fill it myself."
Zarah lifted up the jar, and poising it on her head, lightly descended the rough steps of the outer stair, and proceeded to the spring at the back of the house. The spring was surrounded by oleanders, which at this time of the year in Palestine are robed in their richest bloom. But the season had been singularly hot and dry, the latter rains had not yet fallen, and the spring was beginning to fail. Zarah placed her jar beneath the opening from which, pure and bright, the water trickled, but the supply was so scanty that she could almost count the drops as they fell. It would take a considerable time for the jar to be filled by these drops.
"Ah! methinks my earthly joys are even as this failing spring!" thought the maiden, sadly, as she watched the slow drip of the water. "All will be dried up soon. My loved grandmother's strength is sinking; she will be unable to-morrow to keep the holy feast in Salathiel's house, though her heart will be with the worshippers there. How different, oh! how different is this Passover from that which we celebrated last year! Then, indeed, there was an idol in the Temple of the Lord, and holy sacrifice could not be offered in the appointed place, but the fierce storm of persecution had not arisen in all its terrors. Then around the table of Salathiel how many gathered whom I never again shall behold upon earth! Solomona, my kinswoman, and her seven sons all met in that solemn assembly; the bright-eyed Asahel, the fearless Mahali, young Joseph, who was my merry playmate when ten years ago we came from Bethsura hither! I remember that when Hadassah looked on that cluster of brothers, she said that they were like the Pleiades--they are more like those star-gems now, for they shine not on earth but in heaven! And Solomona looked proudly on her boys--her noble sons, and said that not one of them had ever raised a blush on the cheek of their mother; and then, methinks, she regretted having uttered the boast, and I fancied that I heard a stifled sigh from Hadassah. Was it that the spirit of prophecy came upon her then, that she foresaw the terrible future, or was it--alas! alas! I dare not think wherefore she sighed! And old Mattathias, he who now sleeps in the sepulchre of his fathers, he and his sons kept that Passover feast with Salathiel, having come up to Jerusalem to worship, according to the law of Moses. How venerable looked the old man with his long snowy beard! it seemed to me that so Abraham must have looked, when his earthly pilgrimage was well-nigh ended. Mattathias laid his hand on my head and blessed me, and called me daughter. Ah! can it be that he thought of me then as his daughter indeed! The princely Judas stood near, and when I raised my head I met the gaze of his eyes, and I thought--no, I never then fully grasped the meaning expressed in that gaze, it was to me as the tender glance of a brother. Mattathias is gone; Solomona and her children are all gone; Judas, with his gallant band, is like a lion at bay with the hunters closing in an ever-narrowing circle around him. Apollonius has been vanquished, Seron defeated by our hero; but now Nicanor and Giorgias, with the forces of Ptolemy, upwards of forty thousand men, are combining to crush him by their overwhelming numbers! What can the devotion of our patriots avail but to swell the band of martyrs who have already laid down their lives in defence of our faith and our laws! Alas! theirs will be a stern keeping of the holy feast; other blood will flow besides that of the Paschal lamb! And a sad keeping of the feast will be mine; I shall see scarce a familiar face, that of no relative save Abishai; and I owe him but little affection. And oh! worst of all, I fear me that I have an unholy leaven in my heart, which I in vain seek to put entirely away. I am secretly cherishing the forbidden thing, though not wilfully, not wilfully, as He knows to whom I constantly pray for strength to give up all that is displeasing in His sight!"
The jar was now full; Zarah turned to raise it as the last thought passed through her mind, and started as she did so! Lycidas, with all his soul beaming in his eyes, was close beside her! The maiden uttered a faint exclamation, and endeavoured to pass him, and return to the house.
"Stay, Zarah, idol of my soul!" exclaimed the Athenian, seizing her hand; "you must not fly me, you shall listen to me once--only once!" and with a passionate gush of eloquence the young Greek laid his hopes, his fortunes, his heart at her feet.
Zarah turned deadly pale; her frame trembled. "Oh, Lycidas, have mercy upon me!" she gasped. "It is sin in me even to listen; it were cruelty to suffer you to hope. Our law forbids a daughter of Abraham to wed a Gentile; to return your love would be rebellion against my God, apostasy from the faith of my fathers; better to suffer--better to die!"--and with an effort releasing her icy-cold hand from the clasp of the man whom she loved, Zarah sprang hurriedly past him, and with the speed of a frightened gazelle fled up the staircase, and back into the chamber in which she had left Hadassah.
Lycidas stood bewildered by the maiden's sudden retreat. He felt as if the gate of a paradise had been suddenly closed against him.
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