ear that the assassins, ancient as
they were, had a race of predecessors in the very same country. All over
Syria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the Emperor
Nero, there was a band of murderers, who prosecuted their studies in a very
novel manner. They did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places;
but justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort of
darkness by means of the dense pressure and the impossibility of finding
out who it was that gave the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere;
particularly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem; where they actually
had the audacity, as Josephus assures us, to press into the temple,--and
whom should they choose for operating upon but Jonathan himself, the
Pontifex Maximus? They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they
had had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it was
asked, who was the murderer, and where he was"--

"Why, then, it was answered," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, "_Non est
inventus_." And then, in spite of all I could do or say, the
orchestra opened, and the whole company began--"Et interrogatum est a
Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille Sicarius? Et responsum est ab omnibus--_Non
est inventus_."

When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began again:--"Gentlemen, you
will find a very circumstantial account of the Sicarii in at least three
different parts of Josephus; once in Book XX. sect. v. c. 8, of his
_Antiquities_; once in Book I. of his _Wars_: but in sect. 10 of the
chapter first cited you will find a particular description of their
tooling. This is what he says--'They tooled with small scymetars not much
different from the Persian _acinacae_, but more curved, and for all the
world most like the Roman sickles or _sicae_.' It is perfectly magnificent,
gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps the only case
on record where a regular army of murderers was assembled, a _justus
exercitus_, was in the case of these _Sicarii_. They mustered in such
strength in the wilderness, that Festus himself was obliged to march
against them with the Roman legionary force."

Upon which Toad-in-the-hole, that cursed interrupter, broke out
a-singing--"Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille exercitus?
Et responsum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus."

"No, no, Toad--you are wrong for once: that army _was_ found, and was all
cut to pieces in the desert. Heavens, gentlemen