“Rocked in the cradle of the deep, I lay me down in peace to sleep,
Secure, I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, oh Lord, hast power to save.
I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall,
And calm and peaceful be my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And such the faith that still were mine
Tho’ stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
Or tho’ the tempest’s fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death;
In ocean’s caves still safe with Thee,
Those gems of immortality,
And calm and peaceful be my sleep
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.”
 
Like the morning dawn on a calm sea, after a night of fierce storm, so came now great peace to Miriamne. The heaviest sorrow of her life was lifting. Her father was recovering; his mind becoming rational; and chief of Miriamne’s joys, was the fact that his convalescence was accompanied by the appearance of a deep trusting love for herself. He seemed to lean on his daughter for help; cling to her for hope and aim, by every way, not only to express his sense of dependence on but his deep and abiding gratitude toward the patient, chief[398] minister, in the mission of his recovery. He seemed for a long time to be haunted by a fear of relapse into some great misery that he but dimly remembered and could not define, beyond a shudder. He dreaded to be alone, and often clung to his daughter with furtive glances of fear, even as a terrified child clings to its mother. One day, months after he had begun to be rational, he addressed Miriamne: “We must soon seek another abiding place, daughter. Our Grand Master has discharged with overflowing payment, every debt of hospitality.”
 
“True, father, and I’m glad; the thought for weeks in my mind, is now in yours. But where shall we go?”
 
“I think, to France, and immediately.”
 
“France?”
 
“Yes, there I’ll seek out some of the De Griffins. They may be able to mend my shattered fortunes, and if I find none of my kin, I shall not be lacking in any thing, for there are many of our Teutonic knights. While they prosper, no want shall harass me or mine.”
 
“Father, I do not want to go to France.”
 
“Why, this is strange?”
 
“It seems far away, very far, to me.”
 
“Art thou dreaming, my Syrian Oriole?”
 
“No, awake! And very earnest.”
 
“Why, we could walk thither, were it not for the water.”
 
“But I can not go that way!”
 
“Well, we can not stay here, so where?”
 
“Eastward; Bozrah!”
 
“Wouldst thou ask a spirit, by mercy permitted escape from Tophet to return?”
 
[399]
 
“Yes, even that, if the spirit had a mission and a safe conduct.”
 
“Thou art nobler, braver than I. I can’t trust the land of giants and vultures.”
 
“The giants and vultures we must meet are in human forms, and such are everywhere.”
 
“There are over many for the population, in Syria and beyond it.”
 
“But there have been many changes since you left that country, especially, in our city,” persisted the maiden.
 
“Nothing changes in Palestine or Bozrah, daughter, except wives, and they only one way; from bad to worse.”
 
The young chaplain seconded Miriamne’s efforts.
 
Sir Charleroy was spasmodically the stronger, but Miriamne by patience and persistence prevailed. In time, she won her cause, and the three took sail for the Holy Land, the knight protesting that he would go as far as Acre and no further. The journey was slow but not monotonous, for the English trader on which they journeyed stopped at various ports. Cornelius on his part was enjoying a serene delight that had no shadow except when he remembered that voyaging with Miriamne was to have an end; Miriamne on her part had three-fold pleasure; delight in her companionship with the young missionary, delight in the continued improvement of her father’s health, and greater delight still in the glowing hope of the success of her mission of peace to her home-circle. As for Sir Charleroy it suited him well to be sailing. He was ever exhilarated by change; each day brought it. He was in theory a fatalist, and the staunch ship pushing[400] onward day and night to its destination, carrying all along, was an expression of the inexorable. Then the conditions about him rested him, for he was freed from any need of bracing of his will to choose or execute any thing. He went forward because the ship went. That was all and enough. Only once during the voyage did he assert himself or express a desire to change his course. That was when passing Cyprus.
 
“Here,” he cried, “let me disembark!”
 
Persuasively, Miriamne protested.
 
“But I must! I’ve a mission. I want to curse the memory of the recreant Lusignan, the coward ‘King of Jerusalem;’ he that clandestinely stole away from Acre on the eve of those last days!”
 
“But, father, Cyprus is called the ‘horned island.’ I do not like the name!”
 
“I’ve heard it better named, ‘the blessed isle.’ There the hospitable knights had a refuge for pilgrims, and it still abides.”
 
Just then some of the sailors cried, “Olympus!” They had caught sight of that ancient mountain, the fabled home of the gods.
 
Miriamne adroitly used the cry to divert her father’s mind, saying:
 
“Let those admire Olympus who will; as for me, I prefer holy, fragrant Lebanon.”
 
She pointed eastward, and they saw the dim outlines of Palestine’s famous range. The knight’s attention was fixed on Lebanon, and they sailed past Cyprus quietly without further objection on his part.
 
Miriamne and Cornelius, as the night began to settle down, stood together by the ship’s side, feasting on glimpses of the distant shore. There were signs of a[401] coming storm, perceived intuitively by those accustomed to the sea, by the young watchers best discerned in the anxious looks of the seamen.
 
“The captain says the sky and sea are preparing for a duel. You noticed how the blue changed to dark brown in the water this afternoon? He says that, and the muddy appearance of the sky, betoken a tempest.”
 
“How like polished silver the wings of those gulls glisten as they career!” was the maiden’s ecstatic reply.
 
“The wings are as they always are. They glisten now because they flash against a murky background.”
 
“An omen, Cornelius, for good! I’ll call the sea-birds hope’s carrier-pigeons with messages for us.”
 
“I would we had their wondrous power of outriding all storms. It is said they can sleep on the waves, even during a tempest.”
 
“I’ve the heart of a sea-gull, to-night.”
 
“And not a dread or pang within?”
 
“No, no! Oh, come, any power, to hurry us to Acre! I’d give way to the merriment of the becalmed sailors, who whistle for the wind, if I only knew the notes of their call.”
 
“But the old sea-captain is very grave. See how the men at his command are lashing up almost every stitch of our ship’s dress.”
 
“Oh, well, I’ll be grave, too, to please you; and yet I pray that Old Boreas, and all the Boreadal, come in racing hurricanes, if need be, that we may be sent gallantly into longed-for Acre!”
 
“A storm at sea is grand in a picture or in imagination; sometimes, though rarely, in experience. To be enjoyed it must be terrible; there’s the rub; it may come with overmastering fury.”
 
[402]
 
“Bird of ill omen! Why cry as in requiems? As for me, while you are fearing going down, I’ll be thinking of going forward!”
 
“And be disappointed, certainly, on your part, as I hope I may be mistaken on mine. We may not go down; we shall certainly not go forward!”
 
“Now, how like a wayward man! Since you can not have your way, cross me by predicting my frustration!”
 
“Oh, do not lay the blame on me! there are broader shoulders to bear it. Lay the blame on the Taurus and Lebanon ranges!”
 
“Well, this is an odd saying, surely!”
 
“Wait awhile, and you will find it very true, as well. We are to meet to-night, most likely, the Levanter or off-shore gale, Paul’s Euroclydon, charging down from its mountain castles. Taurus and Lebanon together form a cave of the winds!”
 
“And you seem glad that they are coming to battle us back?” spake the maiden, rebukingly.
 
“Yes, if they prolong our companionship. I can not rejoice in a speed that hastens our parting.”
 
The last sentence died on the chaplain’s paling lips with a sigh.
 
The maiden turned her eyes full on the speaker, then slowly, meditatively answered:
 
“I shall be sorry, too, at our parting!”
 
“‘Sorry!’ Ah! that’s no word for me, this time; agonized is better!” was the young missioner’s quick rejoinder.
 
The maiden was pained, but she mastered her feelings and pleaded:
 
“The parting must come some time; do not let[403] such repinings make it harder for both. It is wiser, when confronting what one does not desire, but can not help, to court the balm of forgetfulness. So do I ever, especially now.”
 
“And like all attempted silencings of the heart, by cold philosophy, mocked at last by failure!”
 
“My philosophy can not mock me, since it accords with the stern facts which confront us. I’ll be as frank now as a sister, Cornelius. Our diverging missions part us. You go to Jerusalem to preach the cross; I, to a narrower field, at Bozrah, to attempt the rekindling of love on one lone altar of wedlock. God orders it thus, and I submit unquestioningly; for it is not for one who can scarcely touch the hem of His garment to challenge His wisdom by a murmur.”
 
“But time, Miriamne, may leave you free, your work being completed in the Giant City?”
 
“Even so. There is a gulf between us; we may love across it but not pass it, in body, in this life.”
 
“And I can not see the gulf?”
 
“I am in faith, after all, an Israelite; enlightened to be sure, but not likely to renounce the ancient beliefs. You are a Christian; nor would I wish you otherwise. Now, amid the miseries I’ve witnessed in my own home, I can not but be admonished against any attempt at fusing, by the fire of adolescent, transitory loving, two lives guided by faiths so constantly in antagonisms.”
 
“The faith of Jesus and Mary, truly lived, never failed to fuse hearts sincerely loving. You may call yourself what you like; in substance of faith we are in accord.”
 
“The chaplain reasons well; better than I can, and[404] yet he does not convince me! I can only plead that he do not persist, and so make the parting harder. It must be; though my heart break, I must suffer the immolation. I’ve asked this question in the awful sincerity of a soul as it were at the bar of judgment: ‘What wilt Thou have me to do?’ I know the answer. I must seek to bring father and mother together.”
 
“And then?”
 
“Seek to know if the Messiah has indeed come.”
 
“And then?”
 
“If I find He has, some way tell His people Israel, as only a Jewess can, of the Light Everlasting.”
 
“And then?”
 
“Why, that’s sufficient to measure the lives of generations; but if I survive beyond that work, I have vaguely passing through my mind the coming of a millennial day when all mankind will be akin; all righteous, all just, and the tears of womankind assuaged.”
 
“I pray for that, but how can we hasten joy by breaking our own hearts?”
 
“I do not know what lies beyond; how that day of glory is to come, but this I know, the spirit of Chivalry was from God. It had, and has a deep, impressive meaning. In contact with it at the west, I felt all the time as if it were blind, but a Samson still, feeling for the pillars of some mighty wrong. I wonder if I may not be the giant’s true guide. Or, better still, may I not be, under God, the giantess to do the very work. Perhaps the world awaits a woman Samson!”
 
“What Miriamne says is to me all mysticism! Explain.”
 
“I do not know how, beyond this: I’m God’s bride by consecration, and He will keep me for His work.”
 
[405]
 
“Can’t I share it?” almost piteously, the chaplain asked.
 
“Truly, yes, wherever you may be, with me or not.”
 
“Oh, Miriamne, your passionate enthusiasm entrances me. You are an inspiration to me. I fear I shall languish aside from you.”
 
“I shall love you more, Cornelius, as you are more grandly, heroically self-sacrificing.”
 
“Any thing to win Miriamne’s constant love!”
 
“I shall love you, Cornelius, in a deep, holy way, only and forever. I’d be ashamed to be thus frank, but that I have a love that is as pure as the heaven of its birth. Be true to your God, to your mission; a little while and then at the City of Light, life’s brief dream over, the first, after God, I’ll ask for will be the faithful man whom my heart knows.”
 
“Ah, what can I do? I’m all zeal; willing to go, but the glow of your cheeks, the flash of your eyes, even in the midst of such noble converse, drag me away from my resolves. That that stimulates me, unmans me, or reminds me I am a man and a lover.”
 
“You ought to teach me, not I you; but you remember you told me of the belief of some in ‘penetrative virginity.’ That is the purity of Mary passing somehow into others. Oh, all I am that’s good, be in you, and more, even all that she was whom you so revere; I mean the mother of the Christ.”
 
“In my soul I reverently exclaim ‘amen,’ but then again, how strange the question will not down, ‘must we part?’” And so saying he flung his arm about the woman, passionately embracing her. He thought for a moment he had overcome her, but the kiss on her lips not resisted, was the end; for slowly untwining his[406] arms and holding his hands at arm’s length, she questioned: “Will you promise me one thing?”
 
“Surely, yes, name it.”
 
“That you will think of me as a friend, sister, henceforth, and let me go my way without further misery?”
 
The man struggled with himself for a time; then gazed into her eyes with a most piteously appealing gaze.
 
She was firm.
 
“Yes—I promise, but say affianced, to be wed in heaven?”
 
“God bless you,” was her instant response. Their lips met and the debate was ended.
 
And so for the time they separated, persuading themselves that the whole matter between them had been finally sealed. They had all faith in their pledges mutually given, each to live apart from the other. As yet they had no just conception of the power of a rebel heart constantly uprising. Of course, they both foresaw a measure of wretchedness in the future as a consequence of their decision, but distant pain foreseen by the young, is ever dimmed by hope, and very different from present pain. These twain comforted themselves, at first, by the thought that they were martyrs, and it is always agreeable to feel ourself a martyr, especially when expecting a martyr’s reward; at least it is so until the reality of the martyrdom comes.
 
The sky grew darker, night shut down about the ship, the winds increased, and that sense of awful loneliness, felt on the eve of an impending night-storm at sea, came to all hearts but those of the sailors. The latter were too busy to think of aught but their duties. Then their captain had his reckonings, and assured[407] them by his bearing that he felt confident that he could outride this storm as he had often before similar ones. Miriamne, yielding not more to the captain’s command, than to the entreaties of Woelfkin, went below to her cabin. She soon courted sleep to help her forget the war of the tempest, praying a prayer most fitting, meanwhile. The prayer was a meditation, like unto this: “He that cares for all will care for helpless me, and come what may, keep me until that last great day.” The storm strengthened, and she began to be anxious for her father, and her friend. She had said to herself the latter title should define Cornelius. But her heart forgot its fear a moment in a mysterious, merry peal of laughter; such laughter is very real, but it is never heard by human ears. We know it only in those exalted moments when we try fine introspections; when there seems to be two of us; the one observing and entering into the other. Miriamne heard that laughter when she meditated, “Cornelius is just a friend.” Presently she became more anxious for those aloft. Then a troop of imperious inner questions came to her: “Might I not stand by him, if the danger increases? Would it be wro............