My guide hurried forward through the winding way to the door. He stopped; I heard him utter a groan, strike fiercely against the bars, and fall. I found him lying at the threshold without speech or motion; carried him back, and, by the help of the cruse of water left to moisten my solitary meal, restored him to his senses. “The wind,” said he, “must have closed the door, and we are destined to die together. So be it; with neither of us can the struggle be long. Farewell!” He flung himself upon his face. A noise of some heavy instrument roused us both. He listened, and said: “There is hope still. The slave who let me in is forcing the door.” We rushed to assist him, and tugged and tore at the massive stones in which the hinges were fixed, but found our utmost strength as ineffectual as an infant’s. The slave now cried out that he must give up the attempt, that day was breaking and the guard was at hand. We implored him to try once more. By a violent effort he drove his crowbar through one of the panels; the gleam of light gave us courage, and with our united strength we heaved at the joints, which were evidently loosening. In the midst of our work the slave fled, and I heard a plunge into the pool beneath. “He has perished,” said my companion. “The door is on the face of a precipice. He has fallen, in the attempt to escape, and we are now finally undone.” The guard, disturbed by the noise, arrived, and in the depths of our cell we heard the day spent in making the impassable barrier firmer than ever. For some hours my companion lay in that state of exhaustion which I could not distinguish from uneasy slumber, and which I attributed to the fatigue of our common labors. But his groans became so deep that I ventured to rouse him, and even to cheer him with the chances of escape. [Sidenote: Salathiel Recognizes Jubal] “I have not slept,” said he; “I shall never sleep again, until the grave gives me that slumber in which the wretched can alone find rest. Escape! No—for months, for years, I have had but one object. I have traversed mountain and sea for it; I have given to it day and night, all that I possessed in the world; I could give no more but my life, and that too I was to give. I stood within sight of that object. But it is snatched from me, and now the sooner I perish the better.” He writhed with mental pain. “But what cause can you have for being here? You have not fought our tyrants. Who are you?” “One whom you can never know—a being born to honor and happiness, but who perverted them by pride and revenge, and whose last miserable hope is, that he may die unknown, and without the curses that fall on the traitor and the murderer. Prince of Naphtali, farewell!” I knew the speaker in those words of wo. I cried out: “Jubal, my friend, my kinsman, my hero! Is it you, then, who have risked your life to save me?” I threw myself beside him. He crept from me. I caught his meager hand; I adjured him to live and hope.