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............