Judas, who stood in the doorway, rubbed his hands with insulting glee and said:
"Your uncle Magistus pays me handsomely for this."
"If Jesus is ever murdered," said I, with indignant scorn, "you will be the murderer."
He sneered and went out. I saw him no more. Alas! I never saw the natural form of Jesus again. He who betrayed the disciple, was already bargaining for the thirty pieces of silver at which he estimated the life of his Lord.
The cause of my imprisonment was not doubtful. I had become obnoxious to the Sanhedrim from the mere fact of my resurrection. The attention it attracted, the prestige it conferred on Jesus, the increasing crowd that followed him, all annoyed and vexed them. I was a living proof of the power and glory of the new religion, a standing protest and menace against the old. It was necessary that I should be put out of the way.
I was shut out from the world; a pallet of straw for my bed; a rough table and a stool my only furniture. A fierce, silent guard brought me a daily supply of water and coa.r.s.e food. I saw and heard nothing of the great sea of human life which was surging outside of my stone walls.
Several days and nights pa.s.sed in this manner. What had become of my sisters? What had become of Jesus? If I had been made the first victim, surely these others would fall shortly beneath the malice and cruelty of such unscrupulous enemies. These thoughts, attended with gloomy forebodings, pressed with painful reiteration upon my mind. I could not eat. I could not sleep. I was all eye, all ear.
I was startled one night by a strange uproar in the street. I was so watchful, so quick of hearing, that I detected it a great way off. It gradually came nearer and nearer. It was a riot or street-fight or battle creeping in the direction of my prison. There were at last plainly heard shouts, groans, curses, the hurrying of feet, the clash of arms, and all the exciting accompaniments of a b.l.o.o.d.y contest between two enraged factions. From the triumphant cries and the great flare of torches which came in at my window, I perceived that one party had driven the other before it, and now occupied the ground in front of the building in which I was imprisoned.
I put the table against the wall and the stool on the table. Mounting thus to one of the windows, I could see partially what was going on in the street.
What a crowd of ruffians of all nations and colors, fantastically dressed and variously armed!
While I was gazing on this hideous rabble, a man of huge proportions rode up on a horse finely caparisoned, which had evidently been the late property of some dashing Roman officer. This man had a horribly bruised and swollen face, and an immense, dingy, yellow beard. I recognized Barabbas the robber.
"Break open the doors and release the prisoners!" he cried in a terrible voice.
Beams used like battering-rams were soon brought to bear upon the iron-barred and bolted doors, until the whole building resounded with the tremendous strokes. How my heart leaped at the thought of a speedy deliverance! I determined in the confusion to elude both parties and escape to Bethany.
At this moment a great outcry arose: "The Romans! The Romans!" and the swift clatter of horses" feet and the renewal of all the sounds of a fierce fight, a.s.sured me that the rioters had been attacked by a squadron of Roman cavalry.
Suddenly I heard a loud, clear, sweet voice shouting with wild enthusiasm:
"Death to the Romans!"
"Freedom to Judea!"
I recognized the familiar tones before I discovered the tall figure of the Son of the Desert.
He was bare-headed, and his fine bronzed face, his scimitar and his crimson scarf gleamed in the torchlight as he rushed bravely forward.
Anthony, my old servant, was at his side, watching his movements with admiration and echoing his words. The Son of the Desert was bringing up a large party of stalwart fellows, armed with pikes and scimitars, to meet the advancing column of horse.
I called to him loudly, waving my arms eagerly between the bars. At that moment a strong pressure backward from the front, held the party stationary for a second. My old friend looked up at my window surprised, and smiled his recognition. He kissed his hand to me and pointed to the ring on his finger which Martha had given him. Anthony also recognized me, and saluted me with frantic gestures and every demonstration of childish joy.
The party suddenly surged forward, and the Son of the Desert raised his battle-cry:
"Death to the Romans!"
"Freedom to Judea!"
Just then my guard, who had entered the room, commanded me to come down from the window, threatening to transfix me with his javelin if I did not obey. I descended and seated myself quietly on the stool, listening in silence to the progress of the fight. Knowing the irresistible power of the Roman arms, and wondering why the Son of the Desert had been led into such a hopeless enterprise, I was grieved, although not disappointed, when I distinguished by the varying sounds of the conflict, that the disciplined cavalry of Pilate"s legion were masters of the field.
The torchlight faded away; the tumult ceased. Nothing was heard but a solitary horseman patrolling the deserted streets. The enterprise, whatever it was, had failed. I was not to be rescued. I was not to rejoin my sisters. I was to know nothing that was going on in the busy world around me. I sank upon my straw, dispirited, despairing. Toward daylight I slept; and I dreamed of that terrible night by the Dead Sea and of the words of my uncle Beltrezzor.
It seems that the riot made my jailers suspect that my prison was insecure. A few nights after this grand excitement, I was startled by several men in masks entering my room. I was bound, muzzled and blindfolded again. I was placed in some kind of a vehicle. We traversed the city; we pa.s.sed the gate; we descended a slope. The fresh air of the country broke sweetly and soothingly upon me. We ascended a long hill, as I knew by the motion to which I was subjected. No one spoke.
At last the vehicle stopped. I was led between two men into a house. We walked through a very narrow pa.s.sage where only two could pa.s.s at a time.
Suddenly I was stopped, seized by the arms, and let down into a kind of vault. Previous to this I was stripped of my bandages; but it was so dark that I could distinguish nothing.
It was not deliverance. It was not death, that happiest deliverance of all! It was a change of prisons-from dark to darker. My heart sank within me. I trembled.
Strange sounds above me at the point of my entrance now attracted my attention! I listened with the utmost tension of ear, endeavoring to conjecture what my jailers were doing. At last I comprehended it! They were bringing brick and mortar, and all in the dark! They were walling up the s.p.a.ce by which I had been lowered into the vault.
Horrible idea! My former prison was a dungeon; this was a grave! I was to be buried alive!
The thought overpowered me and I swooned.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Ornament]
XXIV.
_BURIED ALIVE._
[Ill.u.s.tration: Initial]
When I recovered my senses I examined as well as I could the strange place into which I had been plunged. It must have been broad daylight out of doors, for there was a kind of twilight about me that revealed plainly the contour of my dungeon. When evening came on I was shrouded in impenetrable darkness. Such was the only difference between my day and my night.
The chamber was about ten feet square, and its walls rose to a considerable height. It was evidently an old secret dungeon partly underground, damp and mouldy, the scene perhaps of many sufferings and many crimes. There was an opening into this vault, so that I was not literally buried alive. The workmen who had sealed up the s.p.a.ce by which I had entered, had left a little square hole like a window about ten feet above the flooring. I could see a brick wall beyond it, so that there was evidently a narrow pa.s.sage by which some rays of light came to me. When a door, opening into this pa.s.sage, was left open, the light was considerable.
If I could have reached that window I could have escaped; for it was large enough to admit the head and shoulders of a man, as I soon had occasion to know. I made many frantic efforts to do so, but could barely touch the edge of it with the tips of my fingers. There was not an object in the room to a.s.sist me in reaching it. My chamber was perfectly bare-not a stool, not a pallet of straw.
While I was contemplating sadly the frightful fate which was in store for me, a little lid or trap-door in the ceiling about a foot square was opened, and a basket was lowered by a cord. This basket contained a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. I took out the bread and water; the basket rose again by the cord, and the lid was closed. This was the routine, day after day, without variation. Not even an arm or a hand could be detected when the lid was raised. Nothing could be seen or heard.
There was one thing that varied the monotony, and only one. Every day, about noon, the door in the pa.s.sage was opened, the light admitted, and the ugly face and head of Magistus were protruded through the little window. There he stood gazing at me for some minutes, sometimes for half an hour, on several occasions for one or two hours. He did not speak. He glared at me with a stony malignity which is indescribable. When he had satiated his cruel appet.i.te with a sight of my sufferings, he retired.
Thus pa.s.sed away week after week, month after month. My sufferings were horrible. I wasted and weakened day by day both in mind and body. The air of the dungeon had become foul and sickening. The bread and water had become tasteless and repulsive. The silence, the solitude, the darkness, were fearful.
Magistus came every day to enjoy with secret satisfaction the cruel death he was inflicting on me. I regarded him with such repugnance and scorn, that I did not speak to him or even look at him. This no doubt inflamed his hatred. I walked about my narrow prison, whistling or talking to myself until he went away. My insulting indifference did not seem to disturb him in the least. He did nothing to attract my attention. He only looked.
And now a strange and almost incredible thing occurred. I do not believe any one can comprehend what I have to say, unless he has been shut up alone in the dark for weeks and months; with the mind preying morbidly on itself for want of external objects to give it healthful activity; wasted by low diet and a mephitic atmosphere, by silence whose terror is indescribable, and by solitude which of itself can drive to madness.
I did not look at the stony, cruel face of Magistus; but the idea that he was looking at me began to take a singular and painful possession of my mind. I could not get rid of it. I walked, whistled, talked, sang to myself, all in vain. The idea that a hideous face was in the window; that the black, fierce eyes were fixed upon me; that I could not prevent it; hung over my mind like the vultures gnawing at the heart of the chained Prometheus. It became a positive torture.