ld their swords, on their
left arms were hung massive golden bracelets, such as Tarpeia had never
beheld before. One day, leaning over the precipice, she managed to
whisper into the ear of a Sabine soldier her treacherous plan. She was
willing in the dead of night to unlock the gate of the fortress, and to
admit the Sabines, provided that they promised on their part to give her
what they carried on their left arms. Tarpeia's proposition was agreed
to, and that night the governor's daughter stole the keys of the
fortress from her father's room, and admitted the enemy.

But the Sabines had too much right feeling to let her treachery go
unpunished. She stood by the gate, hoping to receive the bracelets, but
each Sabine soldier, as he entered, threw at her head his massive iron
shield, which he also carried on his left arm, until she was crushed to
the ground, and buried beneath a mass of metal. They had fulfilled their
promise, but in a way the treacherous Tarpeia did not expect. When she
was quite dead, they took up her body, and threw it over the rock which
ever after bore her name, as a warning to traitors.

Treachery within the camp, those in league with the enemy in the very
midst of the citadel, those who whilst pretending to be friends are
secretly conspiring to hinder and annoy. Surely such a state of things
is enough to move any man's heart. Who could help feeling it bitterly?

David could not. Listen to his heartrending cry--

'For it is not an open enemy, that hath done me this dishonour; for then
I could have borne it. Neither was it mine adversary that did magnify
himself against me; for then I would have hid myself from him. But it
was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend.'

Nehemiah could not help feeling it. He had borne patiently ridicule,
force, deceit from without; whatever of harm or mischief Sanballat did,
he could not help, nor was he surprised at it. But when the trouble came
nearer home, when he found that in Jerusalem itself, amongst those whom
he had loved and for whom he had sacrificed so much, there were actually
to be found traitors, then indeed Nehemiah's soul was stirred to its
very depths.

He discovered to his horror that letters, secret, treacherous letters,
were constantly passing from Tobiah the secretary to some of his
so-called friends in Jerusalem. Nay more, he discovered that these
letters were diligently answered, and that a quick correspondence was