I looked with involuntary wonder at the change wrought in him by those proud recollections. The rude and jovial hunter was no more; the Jewish warrior stood before me, filled with the double impulse of generous scorn of the oppression and of high dependence on the fate of his nation. His countenance was ennobled, his form seemed to dilate, his voice grew sonorous as a trumpet. A sudden burst of the declining sun broke upon his figure, and threw a sheet of splendor across the scarlet turban, the glittering tunic, the spear-point lifted in the strenuous hand, the richly caparisoned front and sanguine nostrils of his impatient charger. A Gentile would have worshiped him as the tutelar genius of war. I saw in him but the man that our history and our law were ordained beyond all others to have made—the native strength of character raised into heroism by the conviction of a guiding and protecting Providence. The conversation was not forgotten on either side; and it bore fruit, fearful fruit, in time. [Sidenote: Salathiel’s Plunge Down the Precipice] We had reached on our return a commanding point, from which we looked into the depths already filling with twilight, and through whose blue vapors the caravan toiled slowly along, like a wearied fleet in some billowy sea. Suddenly a tumult was perceived below; shouts of confusion and terror rose, and the whole caravan was seen scattering in all directions through the passes. For the first moment we thought that it had been attacked by the mountain robbers. We grasped our lances, and galloped down the side of the hill to charge them, when we were stopped at once by a cry from the ridge which we had just left. It struck through my heart—the voice was Miriam’s. To my unspeakable horror, I saw her dromedary, mad with fear and pouring blood, rush along the edge of the precipice. I saw the figure clinging to his neck. The light forsook my eyes, and but for the grasp of Jubal, I must have fallen to the ground. His voice aroused me. When I looked round again, the shouts had died, the troop had disappeared—it seemed all a dream!