The latter proceeding engrossed the Briton’s whole attention. It was with the utmost carelessness that he replied to the question, by relating his interview, that very morning, with the tribune at Valeria’s door. He scarcely marked how precisely the father noted down the name in his tablets, for the daughter’s white arm was reaching over his shoulder, so close that it almost touched his cheek.
It was indeed well worth Eleazar’s while to obtain information, from whatever source, of any influence that might affect those in authority with whom he was in daily contact at Rome. His position was one which called for courage, tact, skill, and even cunning, to a great extent. Charged by the Supreme Council at Jerusalem, then in the last stage of perplexity and sorely beset by Vespasian and his legions, with a private mission to Vitellius, who much mistrusted the successful general, he represented the hopes and fears, the temporal and political prosperity, nay, the very existence of the Chosen People. Nor to all appearance could a better instrument have been selected for the purpose. Eleazar, though a bigoted and fanatical Jew of the strictest sect, was a man of keen and powerful intellect, whose obstinacy was open to no conviction, whose perseverance was to be deterred by no obstacle. A distinguished and fearless soldier, he possessed the confidence of the large and fighting portion of the nation, who looked on Roman supremacy with abhorrence, and who clung dearly to the notion of earthly dominion, wrested from the heathen with the sword. His rigid observance of its fasts, its duties, and its ceremonials, had gained him the affections of the priesthood, and the more enthusiastic followers of that religion in which outward forms were so strictly enjoined and so faithfully observed; while a certain fierce, defiant, and unbending demeanour towards all classes of men, had won for him a character of frankness which did him good service in the schemes of intrigue and dissimulation with which he was continually engaged.
Yet perhaps the man was honest too, as far as his own convictions went. He esteemed all means lawful for the furtherance of a lawful object. He was one of those who deem it the most contemptible of weakness to shrink from doing evil that good may come. Like Jephthah he would have sacrificed his daughter unflinchingly in performance of a vow; nay, had Mariamne stood between him and the attainment of his ambition, or even the accomplishment of his revenge, he would have walked ruthlessly over the body of his child. Versed in the traditions of his family and the history of his nation, he was steeped to the lips in that pride of pedigree which was so essential a feature of the Jewish character: he was convinced that the eventual destiny of his people was to lord it over the whole earth. He possessed more than his share of that haughty self‐sufficiency which bade the Pharisee hold aloof from those of lower pretensions and humbler demeanour than himself; while he had all the fierce courage and energy of the Lion of Judah, so terrible when roused, so difficult to be appeased when victorious. In his secret heart he anticipated the time when Jerusalem should again become a sovereign city, when the Roman eagles should be scared away from Syria, and a hierarchy established once more as the government of the people chosen by Heaven. That he should be a second Judas Maccabæus, a chief commander of the armies of the faithful in the new order of things, was an ambition naturally enough entertained by the bold and skilful soldier; but, to do Eleazar justice, individual aggrandisement had but little share in his schemes, and personal interest never crossed those visions for the future, on which his dark and dangerous enthusiasm so loved to dwell.