It was dusk, and I was still devouring with my eyes this chart of prophecy when Constantius entered.
“I have come,” said he gravely, “to bid you farewell for the night. In two days I hope we shall all meet again.”
“No, my brave son,” I interrupted, “we do not leave each other to-night.”
He looked surprised. “I must be gone this instant. Eleazar has done his part with the activity of his honest and manly mind. Two miles off, in the valley under the date-grove, I have left five hundred of the finest fellows that ever sat a charger. In half an hour Sirius rises; then we go, and let the governor of Masada look to it! Farewell, and wish me good fortune.”
“May every angel that protects the righteous cause hover above your head!” I exclaimed; “but no farewell, for we go together.”
“Do you doubt my conduct of the enterprise?” asked he strongly. “’Tis true I have been in the Roman service, but that service I hated from the bottom of my soul. I was a Greek and bound to Rome no longer than she could hold me in her chain. If I could have found men to follow me, I should have done in Cyprus what I now do in Judea. The countryman of Leonidas, Cimon, and Timeleon was not born to hug his slavery. I am now a son of Judea; to her my affections have been transplanted, and to her, if she does not reject me, shall my means and my life be given.”
He relaxed the belt from his waist and dropped it with his simitar on the ground. I lifted it and placed it again in his hand.
“No, Constantius,” I replied, “I honor your zeal, and would confide in you if the world hung upon the balance. But I can not bear the thought of lingering here while you are in the field. My mind, within these few hours, has been on the rack. I must take the chances with you.”
“It is utterly impossible,” was his firm answer; “your absence would excite instant suspicion. The Roman spies are everywhere. The natural result follows, that our march would be intercepted, and I am not sure but that even now we may be too late. That inconceivable sagacity by which the Romans seem to be masters of every man’s secret has been already at work; troops were seen on the route to Masada this very day. Let it be known that the prince of Naphtali has left his palace, and the dozen squadrons of Thracian horse which I saw within those four days at Tiberias will be riding through your domains before the next sunset.”