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CHAPTER XII.
TRIALS OF THE HEART

For the first time in the course of her life, Zarah dreaded a meeting with Hadassah. Though the season was now so far advanced that the heat of the sun was great, the maiden lingered on the shadeless housetop, leaning her brow against the parapet, listlessly gazing towards Jerusalem, but with her mind scarcely taking in the objects upon which her eyes were fixed. Was it a foreboding of coming sorrow, or a feeling of self-reproach, that brooded over the maiden's soul? Zarah was afraid to analyze her own feelings: she only knew that her heart was very heavy.

Nearly two hours thus passed. The sun had now approached the horizon, and the heat was less oppressive. Zarah heard the slow step of Hadassah ascending the stair, and rose to meet her, but with a sensation of fear. The remembrance of that look of sad displeasure, such as had never been turned upon her before, had haunted the mind of the conscious girl. Was Hadassah angry with her daughter? Would she come to probe a heart which had never from childhood kept a secret from one so tenderly loved? Zarah was afraid to raise her eyes to Hadassah's when they met, lest she should encounter that stern look again; but never had the aged lady's face worn an expression of greater tenderness than it did when, on the housetop, she rejoined the child of her love.

"Have you been here in the heat of the sun, my dove, letting the fierce rays beat on your unveiled face?" said Hadassah, after printing a kiss on the maiden's brow. "Nay, I must chide you, my Zarah. Seat yourself where yon tall palm now throws its shadow, and I will sit beside you. We will talk of the glorious tidings which Abishai brought to us to-day."

It was a great relief to Zarah to hear that such was to be the subject of the coming conversation. She glanced timidly up into the face of Hadassah; and, quite reassured by what she saw there, took her favourite place at her grandmother's feet.

"Is it not evident," pursued Hadassah, "that the arm of the Lord is stretched out to fight for Judah – that His blessing goes with Judas Maccabeus? Do you not rejoice, Zarah, in the victory which has been won by our Hebrew heroes?"

"I do rejoice; I thank God for it," replied the maiden. "I hope that a time is coming when we shall go forth, like the women of Israel in olden time, who went singing and dancing to meet Saul and David, after the triumph over the Philistines."

"David, when he slew Goliath and won the hand of a king's daughter, deserved not more of his country than does Maccabeus," observed Hadassah. "Are you not proud of your kinsman, my child?"

"All Judaea is proud of her hero," said Zarah.

"Happy the woman whom he shall choose as his bride!" cried Hadassah.

The maiden gave no reply.

"Zarah, why should I longer conceal from you what has so long been in my thoughts?" said the aged lady, after a pause of some minutes' duration. "Why should you not know of the high honour awaiting my daughter? From your early childhood both Mattathias, our revered kinsman – on whose grave be peace! – and myself have looked forward to the future espousals of my loved Zarah and Judas."

"Judas! Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Zarah, suddenly withdrawing her trembling hand from that of her grandmother, in which it had been clasped. "He is wedded to his country; he will never think of taking a wife." She spoke rapidly, and with some emotion.

"His toils and triumphs may, and I trust will, lead to future peace," said Hadassah. "Then may he enjoy the happiness which he has earned so well. Will you not give it to him, Zarah – you, whose very name signifies 'brightness'?"

"I honour Maccabeus as a hero; I could reverence him as my prince; I would kneel and wash the dust from his feet, or cut off my long hair to string his bow; but I cannot be his bride," exclaimed Zarah. "I am so weak, so unworthy! It would be like mating the eagle with the sparrow that sits on the housetops. Maccabeus is the noblest of men."

"Blessed the wife who can so honour her lord!" said Hadassah.

"I do honour Maccabeus from the depths of my soul; but – but I fear him," faltered Zarah.

"Were you a Syrian you might say so," observed Hadassah, with a faint approach to a smile; "but not as a daughter of Judah. Terrible as he is to his country's foes, to armed oppressors, no maiden had ever cause to dread Maccabeus. The sharp thorns of the cactus make it an impenetrable fence which the strongest intruder cannot break through; yet bears it brilliant flowers and refreshing fruit. The strong war-horse tramples down the enemy in battle; but in peace the little child unharmed may play with his mane. The bravest are the most gentle. Judas is no exception to this rule. Pure-hearted and true, he is one to make a woman happy."

Zarah sighed, and drooped her head.

"Was it not a proud moment for Achsah, when Othniel, after the conquest of Kirjathsepher, claimed her hand as the victor's prize?" asked Hadassah.

"But Achsah was the daughter of a Caleb," said Zarah. Then, raising her head, she suddenly inquired – "Did my father also destine me to be the bride of my kinsman?"

Hadassah winced at the question, as if a painful wound had been touched.

"Oh, my child, have pity on me," she faintly murmured, "and speak not of him!"

Zarah had for long known that there was one subject which she dared never approach. Her grandmother had, as it were, one locked chamber in her heart, which no one might venture to open. Whether Zarah's father were dead or not, the maiden knew not. She faintly remembered a tall, handsome man, who had played with her tresses and danced her in his arms when she was a child, in her early home at Bethsura; but since she had left that home in company with her grandmother, she had never seen him nor heard his name. The slightest allusion to her father by Zarah had caused such distress to Hadassah, that the child had soon learned to be silent, though not to forget. Hadassah often spoke of Miriam, her only daughter, and of Zarah's own gentle mother – twin-roses, as she would call them, both early gathered for heaven in the first year of their wedded lives – but of her son she never would speak. A mystery hung round the fate of Abner – such was his name – which his daughter vainly longed to penetrate. Her heart reproached her now for the unguarded question into which she had been surprised.

"Oh, forgive me, mother," said Zarah, kissing the hand of Hadassah, which was tremulous and cold; "your word, your will, shall be enough for me in all things, except – oh, ask me not to wed my kinsman."

"Is it, can it be because another has a nearer place in your heart?" said Hadassah. The fair countenance of Zarah became suddenly rosy as the sunlit cloud, then pale as Lebanon snow, at the question.

"Oh, then, my fears are too true!" exclaimed Hadassah, in a tone not of wrath but of anguish. "Must the sins of the father be visited upon the innocent child! A Gentile – a heathen – an idolater! Would I had died ere this day!"

"Be not angry with me, mother," faltered Zarah, wetting Hadassah's hand with her tears.

"I am not angry, my poor dove," cried the widow. "Woe is me that I have been, as it were, constrained to expose you to this cruel snare. But you will break through it," she added, with more animation, "my bird will rise above earth with her silver wings unsullied and bright! Various are the temptations which the soul's enemy employs to draw away God's servants from their allegiance; some he would sway through their fears; others he would win by the love of the world, its wealth and its pleasures; others he would chain by their hearts' strong affections. But the Lord gives strength to his people, to resist and to conquer, whether the temptation be from fear or from love. You are the worthy kinsman of Solomona, who gave life itself for the faith."

"Perhaps the sacrifice of life is not the hardest to make," Zarah dreamily replied.

"Solomona gave her seven sons," said Hadassah.

"Oh, what a mercy-stroke to her was that which let her follow them!" exclaimed Zarah. "Had she been left to survive all whom she loved, Solomona had been the most wretched woman on earth!"

"No; not the most wretched," said Hadassah, with deep feeling, "for they all died in the faith. Better, all, far better to lose seven by death, than one by – by treason against God!" And in an almost inaudible voice the aged lady added, closing her eyes, "Must I know that misery twice?"

"No, mother, mine own dear mother, you shall never know that misery through me!" exclaimed Zarah with animation. "I will pray, I will strive, I will try to put away, even from my thoughts, all that would come between me and the faith of a daughter of Abraham, only guide me, help me, tell your child what she should do," and the maiden passionately kissed again and again the hand of Hadassah, and then pillowed her aching head on her parent's bosom. Hadassah folded her there in a long and tender embrace.

"I would send you to Bethsura, to my aged cousin, Rachel," said the widow, "only" —

"Oh, send me not away; let me stay beside you; your health is failing; I should never know peace afar from you!" sobbed Zarah, in a tone of entreaty.

"I dare not send my child to Idumea, with no safe escort, and the Syrians, men of Belial, holding the land," said Hadassah. "Better keep her here under my wing, in the quiet seclusion of my home. But, oh, my child, attend to the voice of your mother; you must avoid meeting the Gentile stranger; you must be little in the lower apartments, Zarah, and never save when I am there also. Your trial will not last long; the Athenian's wounds are healing; after the Passover-feast, Abishai will leave Jerusalem to join the patriot band. When he is once safe beyond reach of the enemy, I will no longer for one hour harbour Lycidas under my roof; he has been here far too long already. Your painful struggle will now last but a short time, my Zarah."

Zarah thought, though she did not say so, that the heart struggle would last as long as her earthly existence.

"You will obey me, my daughter?" asked the widow; "you will shun the too attractive society of the stranger?"

The maiden bowed her head in assent, and murmured, "Pray for me, mother; I am so weak."

"My life shall be one prayer," said Hadassah.

"Mine – one sacrifice," thought the poor maiden. "Oh, may that sacrifice be accepted!"

CHAPTER XIII.
SILENT CONFLICT

The maiden kept her silent promise; faithfully she obeyed the hest of Hadassah. Seldom as possible did she enter the room which communicated with the hiding-place of Lycidas, and never save in the company of her aged relative. Zarah's wheel was carried to her sleeping apartment; heat and discomfort were made no excuse for leaving the more secluded portions of the small and inconvenient dwelling. Zarah, a voluntary prisoner, avoiding seeing him who appeared to her to be an embodiment of all that was beautiful in form, and brilliant in mind, one whose society resembled the light which glorifies every object on which it may fall.

And Zarah did not, as many maidens in her place might have done, punish Hadassah for throwing her influence into the scale of duty, by showing her the extent of the sacrifice which she had required. The young girl, while her heart was bleeding, struggled to maintain a serene and placid mien. Hadassah never heard Zarah sigh, never surprised her in tears. No duty was neglected, no work left undone; nay, Zarah spun more busily than ever, for the support of the stranger was a drain on the scanty resources of Hadassah, and to work for him and pray for him was the sole indulgence which Zarah could allow herself without self-reproach. She tried – how arduous was the effort! – even to turn her thoughts from the subject which was to her as the forbidden fruit was to Eve. The chasm which divided Abraham's daughter from the heathen was one over which, as Zarah knew, it would be sinful to throw even the rainbow bridge of imagination. She must force her mind from approaching the dangerous brink. How many of the Psalms of David, always those most mournful in their tone, Zarah repeated to herself, to bring solace to her spirit by day, or sleep to her eyelids by night. While Judas Maccabeus was maintaining a gallant struggle against the enemies of his country, conquering, but through much stern endurance, Zarah, with the same faith and obedience as animated the warrior, was keeping up a more painful fight against the heathen in her own gentle heart.

There was one subject of thought, and that a distressing one, to which Zarah's mind most readily reverted when she would turn it from the channel into which it was ever naturally flowing. This was the mystery connected with the fate of Abner her father. The few words which had escaped Hadassah in an unguarded moment, were as the dull red light which a torch might throw on the sides of some yawning pit, whose depths are left in profound darkness. Often had Zarah yearned to know more of her father, how he had died, for she had once deemed him dead, where his dear remains had been laid, – all that concerned him was of deep interest to his only child. But any attempt to break through the reserve which sealed the lips of Hadassah had evidently occasioned such acute distress that Zarah had long since given up the hope of gaining information from her. Anna had entered the service of Hadassah, since the Hebrew lady had quitted Bethsura; the attendant knew nothing, and therefore could tell nothing, of what had previously occurred in the family. Solomona, when she had paid occasional visits to her kinswomen, had never given Zarah an opportunity of speaking on so delicate a subject. Once when Zarah had ventured to ask the question, "Did you know my father?" Solomona had appeared not to hear it, and had instantly started some quite irrelevant topic of conversation. Abishai doubtless knew much about the brother of his wife, but Zarah shrank from questioning him; from his fierce impetuosity of character, he was not one to draw out the confidence of a gentle and timid girl. Zarah almost felt as if her uncle disliked, and for some reason which she understood not, regarded her with mingled pity and contempt. Thus the daughter of Abner, cut off from all means of gaining reliable information, was thrown back on her own conjectures. A vague doubt which had lately arisen in Zarah's mind, but which had always heretofore been repelled as treason to a parent's memory, was given form and substance by the faint exclamation which grief had wrung from Hadassah, "Must I know that misery twice." Many slight circumstances then recurred to Zarah's memory to confirm her suspicions, especially the anguish which Hadassah had betrayed at the burial of Solomona, when a strange pang of envy had seemed to intensify that of bereavement. Zarah was as one bending lower and lower over that pit of which she longed, yet dreaded, to sound the depths, straining her eyes to penetrate the darkness, while trembling to think what horrors that darkness might hide.

"Is it possible that my father may yet be breathing on earth, living – the life of an apostate!" The idea haunted Zarah like a spectre. There was only one hope which had power to lay it: "If living, he may be spared for repentance. God is merciful; He judgeth not severely; He delighteth in receiving His wanderers back. Did not Nathan say to penitent David, 'Thou shalt not surely die;' was not even the guilty Manasseh restored to his throne? Oh, the son of the pious Hadassah, a woman of such faith and prayer, can never be lost!" After such meditations, the burdened heart of Zarah would find relief in fervent supplications for her father. Her filial affection came to the aid of her religious obedience. "God will not hear prayers," thought Zarah, "from one in whose heart an idol is enshrined. For my father's sake, as well as my own, let me strive to give unreserved obedience to my Lord."

So, endeavouring to overcome one grief by the help of another, and to cast a veil over both, Zarah passed weary day after day, letting no murmur mar her offering of meek submission. She would even speak cheerfully to Hadassah, and sing to her songs of Zion, which the aged lady delighted to hear. There was one song especially dear, in which Hadassah had herself woven prophetic promises into verse. The rhymes might be rude, and altogether unworthy of their theme; but when softly warbled by Zarah's melodious voice, they appeared to the aged listener like the very breathing of hope.

LAY OF ZION

 
"Jerusalem, thou sittest in the dust,
God's heavy judgment on thy children lies;
But He in whom their fathers put their trust
Shall bid thee yet, as from the grave, arise.⁴
Oh, Zion, discrowned Queen!
A throne awaits for thee;⁵
For glorious thou hast been,
All glorious shalt thou be.⁶
 
 
"Behold the white-winged ships from Tarshish strand,⁷
Shall bear thy sons and daughters o'er the wave;
All nations call thee blessed, delightsome land,⁸
Which God of old to faithful Abraham gave.⁹
Oh, Zion, &c.
 
 
"Ephraim with Judah God shall then restore,¹⁰
The Hand that severed, now uniteth them;
Ephraim shall envy, Judah, vex no more,¹¹
All shall rejoice in thee, Jerusalem.
Oh, Zion, &c.
 
 
"Assyria, Egypt, shall with Israel join,¹²
(The land where Daniel trod the lion's den,
The land where Pharaohs bowed at Apis' shrine),
Oppressors once – but more than sisters then.
Oh, Zion, &c.
"God shall a wall of fire round thee abide,¹³
To guard thee as the apple of the eye;¹⁴
Rejoicing as the bridegroom o'er the bride.¹⁵
For He hath pardoned thine iniquity.¹⁶
Oh, Zion, &c.
 
 
"The mountains may depart, the hills may shake,¹⁷
But nought thy Saviour's love from thee shall sever,
The mother may her sucking child forsake,
God thy Redeemer shall forsake thee never.¹⁸
Oh, Zion, discrowned Queen!
A throne still waits for thee;
For glorious thou hast been,
All glorious shalt thou be."
 

CHAPTER XIV.
A CRISIS

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.