The figure started from me. I gave a blind blow of the ax, and heard it crush through his helmet. The man fell at my feet. I wildly demanded, “How he came there, and how we might make our way into the light?”
“You are undone,” said he faintly. “Your spy was seized by the procurator. Your attack was known, and the door of the subterranean left unguarded to entrap you. This passage was the entrance to a former mine, and in the mine is your grave.”
The voice sank; he groaned, and was no more.
His words were soon confirmed by the hurried return of my men. They had found the passage obstructed by a portcullis, dropped since their entrance. Torches were seen through the fissures above, and the sound of arms rattled round us. The ambush was complete.
“Now,” said I, “we have but one thing for it—the sword, first for our enemy, last for ourselves. If we must die, let us not die by Roman halters.”
One and all, we rushed back into the mine. But we had now no leisure to look upon the beauty of those spars and crystals which under the light of the altar glittered and blushed with such gem-like radiance. From that altar now rose a pyramid of fire; piles of faggots, continually poured from a grating above, fed the blaze to intolerable fierceness. Smoke filled the mine. To escape was beyond hope. The single orifice had been already tried. Around us was a solid wall as old as the world. It was already heating with the blaze; our feet shrank from the floor. The flame, shooting in a thousand spires, coiled and sprang against the roof, the walls, and the ground. To remain where we were, was to be burned to cinders. The catastrophe was inevitable.
In the madness of pain, I made a furious bound into the column of fire. All followed, for death was certain, and the sooner it came the better. With unspeakable feelings I saw, at the back of the mound of stone on which the faggots burned, an opening, hitherto concealed by the huge figure of the idol. We crowded into it; here we were at least out of reach of the flame. But what was our chance save that of a more lingering death? We hurried in; another portcullis stood across the passage! What was to be our fate but famine? We must perish in a lingering misery—of all miseries the most appalling, and with the bitter aggravation of perishing unknown, worthless, useless, stigmatized for slaves or dastards! What man of Israel would ever hear of our deaths? What chronicler of Rome would deign to vindicate our absence from the combat?