Zenobia; or, the Fall of Palmyra by William Ware (mind reading books .TXT) 📕

'Quickly,' said I, interrupting the voluble Greek, 'as you love the gods, deliver to me the letter! By and by we will discourse of these things'--and seizing the epistle, I ran with it to another apartment, first to devour it myself.

I cannot tell you, dear friends, with what eagerness I drank in the contents of the letter, and with what ecstasy of joy I leaped and shouted at the news it brought. In one word, my brother lives, and it is possible that before this epistle to you shall be finished, he himself will sit at my side. But to put you in possession of the whole case, I shall transcribe for you the chief parts of Isaac's careful and minute account, preserving for your amusement much of what in no way whatever relates to the affair in hand, and is useful only as it will present a sort of picture of one of this strange tribe. As soon as I had filled myself with its transporting contents, I hastened to the hall where I had left Fausta and Gracchus, to whom--Demetrius having in the mean time taken his departure--I quickly communicated its intelligence, and received their hearty congratulations, and then read it to them very much as I now transcribe it for you. You will now acknowledge my obligations to this kind-hearted Jew, and will devoutly bless the gods for my accidental encounter with him on board the Mediterranean trader. Here now is the letter itself.

ISAAC, the Son of Isaac of Rome, to the most noble L. MANLIUS Piso, at Palmyra:

That I am alive, Roman, after the perils of my journey, and the worse perils of this Pagan city, can be ascribed to nothing else than the protecting arm of the God of our nation. It is new evidence to me, that somewhat is yet to be achieved by my ministry, for the good of my country. That I am here in this remote and benighted region, that I should have adventured hither in the service of a Roman to save one Roman life, when, were the power mine, I would cut off every Roman life, from the babe at the breast to the silver head, and lay waste the kingdom of the great Mother of Iniquity with fire and sword, is to me a thing so wonderful, that I refer it all to the pleasure of that Power, who orders events according to a plan and wisdom impenetrable by us. Think not, Roman, that I have journeyed so far for the sake of thy two talents of gold--though that is considerable. And the mention of this draws my mind to a matter, overlooked in the stipulations entered into between thee and me, at my dwelling in Palmyra. Singular, that so weighty a part of that transaction should have been taken no note of! Now I must trust it wholly to thee, Piso, and feel that I may safely do so. In case of my death, the double of the recompense agreed upon was to be paid, in accordance with directions left. But what was to be done in case of thy death? Why, most thoughtful Isaac--most prudent of men--for this thou didst make no provision! And yet may not Piso die; as well as Isaac? Has a Roman more lives than a Jew? Nay, how know I but thou art now dead, and no one living to do me justice? See to this, excellent Roman. Thou wouldst not have me go unrequited for all this hazard and toil. Let thy heirs be bound, by sure and legal instruments, to make good to me all thou hast bound thyself to pay. Do this, and thy gods and my God prosper thee! Forget it not. Let it be done as soon as these words are read. Demetrius will show thee one who will draw up a writing in agreement with both the Palmyrene and Roman Law. Unheard of heedlessness! But this I thought not about till I took my pen to write.

What was I saying?--that I came not for thy gold--that is, not for that solely or chiefly. For what, and why, then? Because, as I have hinted, I felt myself driven by an invisible power to this enterprise. I wait with, patience to know what its issue is to be.

Now let me inform thee of my journey and my doings. But first, in one brief word, let me relieve thy impatience by saying, I think thy brother is to be rescued! No more of this at present, but all in order. When I parted from thee that night, I had hardly formed my plan, though my mind, quick in all its workings, did suddenly conceive one way in which it appeared possible to me to compass the desired object. Perhaps you will deem it a piece of rashness rather than of courage so quickly to undertake your affair, I should call it so too, did I not also catch dimly in the depth of the Heavens the form of the finger of God. This thou wilt not and canst not understand. It is beyond thee. Is it not so? But, Roman, I trust the day is to come when by my mouth, if not by another's, thou shalt hear enough to understand that truth is to be found no where but in Moses. Avoid Probus. I fear me he is already in Palmyra. There is more cunning in him than is good. With that deep face and serene air he deceives many. All I say is, shun him. To be a Roman unbeliever is better than to be a Christian heretic. But to my journey.

The morning after I parted from thee saw me issuing at an early hour from the Persian Gate, and with my single Ethiopian slave bearing toward the desert, I took with me but a light bale of merchandise, that I might not burden my good dromedary. Than mine, there is not a fleeter in the whole East. One nearly as good, and at a huge price, did I purchase for my slave. 'T was too suddenly bought to be cheaply bought. But I was not cozened. It proved a rare animal. I think there lives not the man in Palmyra or Damascus who could blind Isaac. I determined to travel at the greatest speed we and our beasts could bear, so we avoided as far as we could the heats of day, and rode by night. The first day being through the peopled regions of the Queen's dominions, and through a cultivated country, we travelled at our ease; and not unfrequently at such places as I saw promised well, did we stop, and while our good beasts regaled themselves upon the rich herbage or richer grain, trafficked. In this surely I erred not. For losing, as I have done by this distant and unwonted route, the trade of Ctesiphon, 't was just, was it not, that to the extent possible, without great obstruction thrown in the way of your affairs, I should repair the evil of that loss? Truth to speak, it was only because my eye foresaw some such profitings on the way, that I made myself contented with but two gold talents of Jerusalem. Two days were passed thus, and on the third we entered upon a barren region--barren as where the prophet found no food but such as birds from Heaven brought him. But why speak of this to thee? O, that thou wouldst but once only once, sit at the feet of that man of God, Simon Ben Gorah! Solomon was not more wise. His words are arrows with two heads from a golden bow. His reasons weigh as the mountains of Lebanon. They break and crush all on whom they fall. Would, Roman, they might sometime fall on thee! The third day we were on this barren region, and the next fairly upon the desert. Now did we reap the benefit of our good beasts. The heat was like that of the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar, out of which the three children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came, through the power of God, unscorched. And moreover, they were soon put to an unwonted and unlooked for burden, and in such a manner as, to thy wonder, I shall relate.

It was a day the air of which was like the air of that furnace--burning--burning hot. Death was written upon the whole face of the visible earth. Where leaves had been, there were none now, or they crumbled into ashes as the hand touched them. The atmosphere, when moved by the wind, brought not, as it is used to do, a greater coolness, but a fiercer heat. It was full of flickering waves that danced up and down with a quivering motion, and dazzled and blinded the eye that looked upon them. And the sand was not like that which for the most part is met with on that desert stretching from the Mediterranean to Palmyra, and of which thou hast had some experience--heavy, and hard, and seamed with cracks--but fine, and light, and raised into clouds by every breath of wind, and driven into the skin like points of needles. When the wind, as frequently it did, blew with violence, we could only stop and bury our faces in our garments, our poor beasts crying out with pain. It was on such a day, having, because there was no place of rest, been obliged to endure all the noonday heat, that, when the sun was at the highest and we looked eagerly every way for even a dry and leafless bush that we might crouch down beneath its shade, we saw at a distance before us the tall trunk of a cedar, bleached to ivory, and twinkling like a pharos under the hot rays. We slowly approached it, Hadad, my Ethiopian, knowing it as one of the pillars of the desert.

'There it has stood and shone a thousand years,' said he; 'and but for such marks, who could cross these seas of sand, where your foot-mark is lost, as soon as made?' After a few moments' pause, he again exclaimed: 'And by the beard of holy Abraham! a living human being sits at the root--or else mayhap my eyes deceive me, and I see only the twisted roots of the tree.'

''T is too far for my eyes to discern aught but the blasted trunk. No living creature can dwell here. 'T is the region of death only.'

A blast of the desert struck us at the moment, and well nigh buried us in its rushing whirlwind of sand. We stood still, closed our eyes, and buried our faces in the folds of our garments.

'Horrible and out of nature!' I cried--'the sun blazing without a cloud as big as a locust to dim his ray, and yet these gusts, like the raging of a tempest. The winds surely rise. Providence be our guide out of this valley of fire and death!'

'There is no providence here,' said the slave, 'nor any where; else why these savage and dreary deserts, which must be crossed, and yet we die in doing it.'

'Hold thy peace, blasphemer!' I could not but rejoin, 'and take heed lest thy impious tongue draw down a whirlwind of God to the destruction of us both.'

'The curse of Arimanes'--began the irritated slave--when suddenly he paused, and cried out in another tone: 'Look! look! Isaac, and see now for thyself: I am no Jew, if there sit not a woman at the root of yonder tree,'

I looked, and now that we had drawn nearer, and the wind had subsided for an instant, I plainly beheld the form of a woman, bent over as if in the act of holding and defending an infant. I believed it a delusion of Satan.

'It is awful,' said I; 'but let us hasten; if it be a reality, our coming must be as the descent of angels.'

I pressed on my weary animal, and in a few moments we stood before what seemed indeed a human being, of flesh and bone--and what was more wonderful still, a woman. Yet she stirred not, nor gave other sign of life.

'Is the breath of life yet in you?' I cried out--not doubting, however, that whoever it was, death had already released her from her misery--and at the same time laid my hand upon her shoulder. At which she started, and lifting up her head, the very ghastliness of death stamped upon every feature, she shrieked: 'I drown! I drown! Hassan, save me!' and her head fell again upon her knees.

'Poor fool,' said I, 'thou art upon the sands of the desert, and thou dreamest: awake!--awake!--and here is water for thee--real water.'

At which she waked indeed, with a convulsive start, and while with one hand she held