s. Some repose beneath the marble
pillars; some, seated 'mid the flowers, gather sweets, and twine them
into garlands; and that wild girl, now that the order is broken, touches
with light fingers her moist vase, and showers startling drops of
glittering light on her serener sisters. Hark! again they sing.'

'_O VINE OF SIBMAH! UPON THY SUMMER FRUITS, AND UPON THY VINTAGE, A
SPOILER HATH FALLEN!_'

A scream, a shriek, a long wild shriek, confusion, flight, despair!
Behold! from out the woods a tur-baned man rushes, and seizes the leader
of the chorus. Her companions fly on all sides, Miriam alone is left in
the arms of Alschiroch.

The water column wildly rising from the breast of summer ocean, in some
warm tropic clime, when the sudden clouds too well discover that the
holiday of heaven is over, and the shrieking sea-birds tell a time of
fierce commotion, the column rising from the sea, it was not so wild as
he, the young Alroy.

Pallid and mad, he swift upsprang, and he tore up a tree by its lusty
roots, and down the declivity, dashing with rapid leaps, panting
and wild, he struck the ravisher on the temple with the mighty pine.
Alschiroch fell lifeless on the sod, and Miriam fainting into her
brother's arms.

And there he stood, fixed and immovable, gazing upon his sister's
deathly face, and himself exhausted by passion and his exploit,
supporting her cherished but senseless body.

One of the fugitive maidens appeared reconnoitring in the distance.
When she observed her mistress in the arms of one of her own people, her
courage revived, and, desirous of rallying her scattered companions, she
raised her voice, and sang:

_'HASTE, DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM; O! HASTE, FOR THE LORD HAS AVENGED US,
AND THE SPOILER IS SPOILED._'

And soon the verse was responded to from various quarters of the woods,
and soon the virgins reassembled, singing,

'_WE COME, O DAUGHTER OF JERUSALEM! WE COME; FOR THE LORD HAS AVENGED
US, AND THE SPOILER IS SPOILED_.'

They gathered round their mistress, and one loosened her veil, and
another brought water from the fountain, and sprinkled her reviving
countenance. And Miriam opened her eyes, and said, 'My brother!' And he
answered, 'I am here.' And she replied in a low voice, 'Fly, David, fly;
for the man you have stricken is a prince among the people.'

'He will be merciful, my sister; and, doubtless, since he first erred,
by this time he has forgotten my offence.'

'Justice and mer