The procession proceeded forward along the Via Sacra till it reached the Capitol, where, according to the barbarous ancient usage, Simon Gioras, the captive leader of the Jews, was to be put to death. A ferocious joy then sat on every face as the lictors flung the rope round the neck of the guilty wretch and dragged him to the edge of the Tarpæian rock, over which they hurled him trembling and shrinking from the death his crimes deserved. The imprecations the captive Jews heaped upon the mangled victim were mingled with the triumphant yells with which the Romans greeted his fall and stifled his expiring cries. Thus died Simon the Assassin, whose end was as dastardly as his life was cruel. The day of triumph drew near to its close, but the distant shouts of the mad multitude still at intervals met the throbbing ears of Adonijah as he lay fettered on the flinty floor of the dungeon, listening to every sound with the intense attention of one who expects every instant to receive the sentence of death. Between him and the fathomless gulf of eternity only a brief space apparently intervened. The harrowing excitement that had shaken his reason only a few hours ago subsided into a melancholy consciousness of the reality of those events that had jarred every fibre of his brain. He wished to lift the dim veil that overshadowed his own destiny and that of his outcast people. Where was that mighty arm that had “divided the waves of the Red Sea for His ransomed to pass through,” and then commanded the exulting billows to return to their appointed place, overwhelming the impious Pharaoh and his warlike host? Where was the promised Messiah, where the hope of Israel? Who now should recall the scattered tribes, and bind up the incurable wounds of the daughter of Zion? What hand could heal the broken-hearted captive of Judah, condemned to become a curse to the whole earth? Then from contemplating his country’s woes his thoughts turned to her—so long numbered in his memory with the dead, so vainly found, only to die within his arms. How sadly seemed her image to rise before his mental vision, not fair and bright as in those happier days when the brother and sister were all the world to each other, when Tamar appeared a creature of happiness and smiles, full of song and sunshine! Tamar, the dishonoured desolate captive, Tamar become the emblem of her nation’s humiliation and despair—alone met his view. Again he seemed to hear her thrilling cry of recognition; again her dark, troubled eye flashed across his sight; again he felt the last wild throb of her breaking heart beat against his bosom.