Pearl-Maiden

Pearl-Maiden, by H. Rider
Haggard

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Title: Pearl-Maiden
Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5175] [Yes, we are more than
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PEARL-MAIDEN ***

PEARL-MAIDEN By H. Rider Haggard
First Published 1901.
Etext prepared by John Bickers, [email protected] and Dagny,
[email protected]

PEARL-MAIDEN
A Tale Of The Fall of Jerusalem
BY
H. RIDER HAGGARD

TO
GLADYS CHRISTIAN
A DWELLER IN THE EAST THIS EASTERN TALE IS
DEDICATED BY HER OWN AND HER FATHER'S FRIEND

THE AUTHOR
Ditchingham: September 14, 1902.

PEARL-MAIDEN
CHAPTER I
THE PRISON AT CÆSAREA
It was but two hours after midnight, yet many were wakeful in Cæsarea
on the Syrian coast. Herod Agrippa, King of all Palestine--by grace of
the Romans--now at the very apex of his power, celebrated a festival in
honour of the Emperor Claudius, to which had flocked all the mightiest
in the land and tens of thousands of the people. The city was full of
them, their camps were set upon the sea-beach and for miles around;
there was no room at the inns or in the private houses, where guests
slept upon the roofs, the couches, the floors, and in the gardens. The
great town hummed like a hive of bees disturbed after sunset, and
though the louder sounds of revelling had died away, parties of feasters,
many of them still crowned with fading roses, passed along the streets
shouting and singing to their lodgings. As they went, they
discussed--those of them who were sufficiently sober-- the incidents of
that day's games in the great circus, and offered or accepted odds upon
the more exciting events of the morrow.
The captives in the prison that was set upon a little hill, a frowning
building of brown stone, divided into courts and surrounded by a high
wall and a ditch, could hear the workmen at their labours in the
amphitheatre below. These sounds interested them, since many of those
who listened were doomed to take a leading part in the spectacle of this
new day. In the outer court, for instance, were a hundred men called
malefactors, for the most part Jews convicted of various political
offences. These were to fight against twice their number of savage
Arabs of the desert taken in a frontier raid, people whom to-day we
should know as Bedouins, mounted and armed with swords and lances,

but wearing no mail. The malefactor Jews, by way of compensation,
were to be protected with heavy armour and ample shields. Their
combat was to last for twenty minutes by the sand- glass, when, unless
they had shown cowardice, those who were left alive of either party
were to receive their freedom. Indeed, by a kindly decree the King
Agrippa, a man who did not seek unnecessary bloodshed, contrary to
custom, even the wounded were to be spared, that is, if any would
undertake the care of them. Under these circumstances, since life is
sweet, all had determined to fight their best.
In another division of the great hall was collected a very different
company. There were not more than fifty or sixty of these, so the wide
arches of the surrounding cloisters gave them sufficient shelter and
even privacy. With the exception of eight or ten men, all of them old,
or well on in middle age, since the younger and more vigorous males
had been carefully drafted to serve as gladiators, this little band was
made of women and a few children. They belonged to the new sect
called Christians, the followers of one Jesus, who, according to report,
was crucified as a troublesome person by the governor, Pontius Pilate,
a Roman official, who in due course had been