“The archer dropped dead, with the arrow still on his bow,” 64
“‘Read the Scriptures. I have prayed for you. Read—’” 104
“I heard the gnashing of his white fangs above me,” 168
“The lions, made more furious by wounds, sprang upon the powerful horses,” 208
“I gave the word—fell upon the guard at the gate, and cast it open!” 240
“The solitary voyager of the burning trireme,” 318
“The Roman rushed at him with his drawn falchion,” 396
“‘Now, my beloved brothers, beloved in the Lord, go forth,’ said Eleazar,” 452
“Titus rode at the head of his stately company, himself the most stately of them all,” 488
“I heard the shouts of the conquerors, and the fall of the pillars of the Temple,” 532
The superior numbers appearing throughout the text refer to “Explanatory Notes” in the first pages of the Appendix.
“Tarry thou till I come.”[1] The words shot through me—I felt them like an arrow in my heart—my brain whirled—my eyes grew dim. The troops, the priests, the populace, the world, passed away from before my senses like phantoms.
But my mind had a horrible clearness. As if the veil that separates the visible and invisible worlds had been rent in sunder, I saw shapes and signs for which mortal language has no name. The whole expanse of the future spread under my mental gaze. A preternatural light, a new power of mind, seemed to have been poured into my being; I saw at once the full guilt of my crime—the fierce folly—the mad ingratitude—the desperate profanation. I lived over again in frightful distinctness every act and instant of the night of my unspeakable sacrilege. I saw, as if written with a sunbeam, the countless injuries that in the rage of bigotry I had accumulated upon the victim; the bitter mockeries that I had devised; the cruel tauntings that my lips had taught the rabble; the pitiless malignity that had forbidden them to discover a trace of virtue where all virtue was. The blows of the scourge still sounded in my ears. Every drop of the innocent blood rose up in judgment against me.
Accursed be the night in which I fell before the tempter! Blotted out from time and eternity be the hour in which I took part with the torturers! Every fiber of my frame quivers, every drop of my blood curdles, as I still hear the echo of the anathema, that on the night of wo sprang first from my lips, “HIS BLOOD BE UPON US, AND UPON OUR CHILDREN!”