“The noble Arrius forgets that the spirit hath much to do with endurance.
By its help the weak sometimes thrive, when the strong perish.”
“From thy speech, thou art a Jew.”
“My ancestors further back than the first Roman were Hebrews.”
“The stubborn pride of thy race is not lost in thee,” said Arrius, observing a flush upon the rower’s face.
“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”
“What cause hast thou for pride?”
“That I am a Jew.”
Arrius smiled.
“I have not been to Jerusalem,” he said; “but I have heard of its princes.
I knew one of them.
He was a merchant, and sailed the seas.
He was fit to have been a king.
Of what degree art thou?”
“I must answer thee from the bench of a galley.
I am of the degree of slaves.
My father was a prince of Jerusalem, and, as a merchant, he sailed the seas.
He was known and honored in the guest-chamber of the great Augustus.”
“His name?”
“Ithamar, of the house of Hur.”
The tribune raised his hand in astonishment.
“A son of Hur— thou?” After a silence, he asked, “What brought thee here?”
Judah lowered his head, and his breast labored hard.
When his feelings were sufficiently mastered, he looked the tribune in the face, and answered,
“I was accused of attempting to assassinate Valerius Gratus, the procurator.”
“Thou!” cried Arrius, yet more amazed, and retreating a step. “Thou that assassin!
All Rome rang with the story.
It came to my ship in the river by Lodinum.”
The two regarded each other silently.
“I thought the family of Hur blotted from the earth,” said Arrius, speaking first.
A flood of tender recollections carried the young man’s pride away; tears shone upon his cheeks.
“Mother— mother!
And my little Tirzah!
Where are they?
O tribune, noble tribune, if thou knowest anything of them”— he clasped his hands in appeal— “tell me all thou knowest.
Tell me if they are living— if living, where are they? and in what condition?
Oh, I pray thee, tell me!”
He drew nearer Arrius, so near that his hands touched the cloak where it dropped from the latter’s folded arms.
“The horrible day is three years gone,” he continued— “three years, O tribune, and every hour a whole lifetime of misery— a lifetime in a bottomless pit with death, and no relief but in labor— and in all that time not a word from any one, not a whisper.
Oh, if, in being forgotten, we could only forget!
If only I could hide from that scene— my sister torn from me, my mother’s last look!
I have felt the plague’s breath, and the shock of ships in battle; I have heard the tempest lashing the sea, and laughed, though others prayed: death would have been a riddance.
Bend the oar— yes, in the strain of mighty effort trying to escape the haunting of what that day occurred.
Think what little will help me.
Tell me they are dead, if no more, for happy they cannot be while I am lost.
I have heard them call me in the night; I have seen them on the water walking.
Oh, never anything so true as my mother’s love!
And Tirzah— her breath was as the breath of white lilies. She was the youngest branch of the palm— so fresh, so tender, so graceful, so beautiful!
She made my day all morning.
She came and went in music. And mine was the hand that laid them low!