From her long swoon Zarah awoke with a sensation of indescribable horror. The cold drops stood on her brow, and there was a painful tightness at her heart. The poor girl could not at once recall what had happened, but knew that it was something dreadful. The first image that rose up in her mind was that of the expiring Abishai: Zarah shuddered, trembled, raised herself by an effort to a sitting posture, and wildly gazing around her, exclaimed, "Where am I? what can have happened?"

The place in which the maiden found herself was almost quite dark, but as she glanced upwards she could see pale stars gleaming in through a small and heavily-barred window. She knew that she must be in a Syrian prison. Pressing both her hands to her forehead, the young captive recalled the terrible scene of which she had been a witness. "Oh, God be praised that beloved Hadassah was not there!"

Zarah repeated again and again to herself, as if to strengthen her grasp on the only consolation which at first offered itself to her soul. "Abishai's fate is awful--awful!" Zarah shuddered with mingled compassion and horror. "But oh, it is better, far better for him--my poor kinsman--that he did not fall into the hands of the enemy alive, as I have done! That would have been more awful still!"

Zarah was no high-spirited heroine, but a timid, gentle, loving girl, subject to fears, shrinking from danger, peculiarly sensitive to pain whether physical or mental. Though related both to Solomona and Hadassah, Zarah had neither the calm fortitude of the one, nor the exalted spirituality of the other; she deemed herself alike incapable of uttering the inspired words of a prophetess, or showing the firm endurance of a martyr.

And it was a martyr's trial that was now looming before the imprisoned maiden: she would, like Solomona and her sons, have to renounce either her faith or her life. To Zarah this was a terrible alternative, for though, but a few hours previously the poor maiden had longed for death to come and release her from sorrow, the idea of its approach, heralded by such tortures as Hebrew captives had had to undergo, was unspeakably dreadful to the tender spirit of Zarah.

"Oh, I fear that I shall never endure to the end; my courage will give way; I shall disgrace myself, my country, my race, and draw on myself the wrath of my God!" exclaimed Zarah, starting up in terror, after rehearsing to herself the ordeal to which her faith was likely to be exposed. "Woe is me!--what shall I do--what shall I do--is there no way of escape?" Those massive stone walls, those thick iron bars were sufficient answer to the question. Zarah leant against the wall, and raised her clasped hands towards the glimpse of sky seen between those dark bars.

"Oh, my God, have mercy upon me!" she cried; "feeble, utterly helpless in myself, I cast myself upon Thee! Thou hast said,............