He heard no more, but, bending his turban to the saddle-bow, struck the spur into his horse, and with a cry of madness plunged into the center of the nearest column. The stroke came upon it like a thunderbolt; the phalanx wavered for the first time; an opening was made into its ranks. The chasm was filled up by a charge of my hunters. To save or die with Jubal was the impulse! That charge was never recovered; the column loosened, the multitude pressed in upon it, and Constantius arrived, only in time to see the remnant of the Roman army flying to the disastrous shelter of the hills. [Sidenote: Salathiel the Conqueror] The day was won—I was a conqueror! The invincible legions were invincible no more. I had conquered under the gaze of Jerusalem! Where was the enmity that would dare to murmur against me now? What calumny would not be crushed by the force of national gratitude? A flood of absorbing sensations filled my soul. No eloquence of man could express the glowing and superb consciousness that swelled my heart, in the moment when I saw the Romans shake, and heard the shouts of my army proclaiming me victor. After that day, I can forgive the boldest extravagance of the boldest passion for war. That passion may not be cruelty, nor the thirst of possession, nor the longing for supremacy; but something made up of them all, and yet superior to all—the essential spirit of the stirring motives of the human mind—ambition, kindled by the loftiest objects and ennobled by them—a game where the stake is an endless inheritance of renown, a sudden lifting of the man into the rank of those on whose names time can make no impression—immortals, without undergoing the penalty of the grave! CHAPTER XXXIV _The Pursuit of an Enemy_ [Sidenote: The Field of Battle] I determined to give the enemy no respite, and ordered the ravines to be attacked by fresh troops. While they were advancing, I galloped in search of Jubal over the ground of the last charge. He was not to be seen among the living or the dead. The look of the field, when the first glow of battle had passed, was enough to shake a sterner spirit than mine. Our advance to the gorges of the mountain had left the plain naked. The sea of turbans and lances was gone, rolling, like the swell of an angry ocean, against the foot of the hills. All before us was the cliff or the rocky pass, thronged with helmets and spears. But all behind was death or misery worse than death; hundreds and thousands groaning in agony, crying out for water to cool their burning lips, or imploring the sword to put them out of pain. The legionaries lay in their ranks as they had fought; solid piles of men, horses, and arms, the true monuments of soldiership. The veterans of Rome had sustained the honors of her name.