only for an instant; his interest in her was evidently too sincere for
her to resent. Jew and Greek, of races divided by eternal hatred, yet,
as beneath the deepest sea the land connects the shores, they were two
human creatures. Need and helpfulness--they are the two lobes of one
heart, and beat from common impulses. She allowed him to take her hand
in his, as even her blind brother would have done.
She said nothing of Apollonius' insolence. Had she told that, our
story would have been different, for Dion's hot blood would surely have
anticipated the great Avenger who was to come.
As they walked toward her home, the Greek studied furtively the face
of his companion. How changed! He assigned for it but one occasion,
her loving anxiety for her father and brother. He had known but little
of such emotions, for his own life had been from childhood among the
friends whom rank or chance had brought him; love was to him only a
closer good comradeship. But now, through Deborah's eyes he seemed to
be looking into unknown depths, fathomless places of the soul, while
heretofore in his intercourse with women and men, he had sounded only
the shallows.
As they neared the house of Elkiah, Deborah with the frankness of a
child said:
"The Lord reward you, sir, for your kindness to me and to my father's
house!"
"Will not your God reward me by letting me serve still further one
whom, before all the gods, I have learned to love?"
She surely heard his words, but did not take in their meaning. Love?
Yes, for her brother Benjamin; the love which a valiant soul has for
doing any chivalric deed; the love which is respect and sympathy for
one in distress--this was all she took from his words. How could a
Greek mean more when speaking of love to a daughter of the race he was
commissioned to destroy?
With these thoughts--or was it with lack of real thought about the
significance of Dion's words?--she entered her house, and the Greek
went slowly back to his camp.
IX
THE NASI'S TRIUMPH
It was the twenty-fifth day of the month Chisleu, which answers to
the Roman December. Ten days before, Apollonius, by order of King
Antiochus, had erected in the Temple court an altar to Jupiter Olympus.
This day the crowning of the blasphemy was to be perpetrated by the
destruction of the ancient altar of the Jews, and the pollution of the
great rock where it stood--the rock sacred in the reverence of the
nation since Abraham had there bound his son Isaac for the sacrifice;
the loadstone of the people during the years of captivity, toward which
they prayed when they hung their harps upon the willows by the rivers
of Babylon.
Apollonius' invitation to the revellers of the previous night to be
present in the Temple court, was honored by the attendance of all that
company with the exception of Captain Dion. These, the Governor's
guests of honor, occupied a platform near to the gate of the Holy
Place, while the soldiers from barracks in the city and camps in the
fields swarmed like bees, and settled in disorderly masses everywhere
about the Temple mount. The overlooking walls were topped with a dense
array of conical felt hats and bronze helmets, while thousands of legs,
ending in the heavy cothurn--the buskin worn with gruesome propriety by
both tragedians and soldiers--depended from the coping, and dangled
above the heads of the crowd that stood below. Warriors from the
mountains of Bithynia chaffed in unintelligible speech with those from
the Euphrates, as together they clung to cornices and capitals like
chattering bats. Wherever an elevation or projection offered a glimpse
of the Temple plaza there was a mouth full of derision for the religion
of a people that had not so much as a statue or idol to worship.
At Apollonius' nod an enormous trumpet brayed forth the signal. Men
took down the bar that blocked the gateway, where once hung the
splendid doors--those which Kallisthenes had burned. A procession, such
as might appropriately have had its rehearsal in Pandemonium, entered
the sacred precincts. It was headed by a huge Syrian who personated
the Jewish High Priest. His gigantic proportions were magnified by
an enormous tub, which he wore on his head to burlesque the genuine
Pontiff with his flower-shaped mitre inscribed "Holiness to the Lord."
On the breast of this buffoon was a clumsy shield, painted coarsely in
panels of twelve different colors, to represent the Urim and Thummim,
from whose twelve mysterious jewels once flashed the will of the Lord.
The pomegranates, wrought in silk upon the vestments of the real
priest, and the tiny bells which interspersed them, were imitated by a
string of dried gourd shells which clattered against one another as the
mountebank strode along.
Behind him came a herd of swine, prodded by soldiers clad as common
priests. The mock Pontiff shouted a lewd prayer to Jehovah, and drove
his short sword into the throat of a huge black boar, the signal for
the slaughter of the herd. Obscene songs and shouts mingled with
the death squeals of the victims, while the blasphemers, stripping
bare their lower limbs, danced in the blood which drenched the sacred
pavement.
One huge sow was covered with a white blanket on which was inscribed
the four letters indicating the name of the God of Israel. This beast
was led to what remained of the foundation of the old altar, and there
disemboweled. Her broth was scattered about the Holy of Holies, and her
offal flung by the hilarious crowd into one another's faces.
Piles of the sacred Rolls, containing the Law collected by the great
scribe Ezra, were brought from their cabinets in the Temple. These were
sprinkled with swine's filth and burned.
There was then led in a band of captive Jews, mostly of the servant
class, since their masters had already been disposed of. These were
stripped naked amid hilarious taunts for the sign of their race.
Each was forced to hold a piece of the sow's flesh in his teeth. If
one allowed it to fall, he was stabbed to death and cast among the
carcasses of the beasts.
The crowd grew demented with their blasphemous sport. They demanded
more and more human victims. Every Jew found in the streets was haled
with insult of tongue and the prick of spear-points to the scene
of butchery. The decree of the King granting immunity to certain
households was of little moment. While the demonized multitude did not
dare to altogether ignore the certificate of royal clemency which was
affixed to the gates and lintels of a favored few, private soldiers
themselves assumed to test the loyalty of the inmates.
Elkiah's household was thus challenged. The old man was dragged to his
doorway and given the alternative of worshipping Jupiter or being put
to death. He took the spices which they thrust into his shaking hand,
as if he purposed to drop them upon the Greek altar at the gate. A howl
of disappointment rose from the crowd, who imagined that their victim
was thus escaping them; but it soon changed to a wild cry of cruel
gratification, for Elkiah only looked a moment upon the grains, while
his lips moved in some inaudible prayer; then he flung them into the
faces of his challengers:
"The curse of Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire upon the altar,
be upon the son of Israel who this day denies his God! The worms of
hell consume you all!"
Before he could be hindered Elkiah threw himself against the little
heathen altar. It fell crashing beneath him. The next instant he was
seized and thrown like the carcass of a beast across the shoulders of a
gigantic Greek, who carried him to the Temple. Here he was cast into a
pile of patriots, some still breathing, the most dead.
"The old bigot is gone at last," said his bearer.
"Then I will grease him for better frying over in Gehenna," said
another, as he forced a piece of swine's fat into Elkiah's mouth.
The insult revived the patriot. He spat out the uncleanness. Then a
strange strength came into the venerable man. Before hands could grasp
him he had risen to his feet. His bent form became suddenly erect with
the inspiration of his passion. The crowd drew back a little as if the
dead had come to life. Elkiah's voice rose to a shrill outcry, and rang
above the howling of the multitude:
"Say the heathen, 'The sacrifice shall cease on the altar of Jewry'? It
shall not cease. I myself will be a sacrifice. God receive my offering!"
He raised his clenched hands above his head and stood an instant,
glaring upon the bystanders like the incarnation of a curse. Then he
strode with shaking steps to the side of the old altar, and before any
one could stop him threw himself upon the stones. His frame quivered
an instant as if a priest's knife were indeed turning in his heart.
Soldiers lifted him, and flung him back upon the pavement.
The Jew had conquered. He had made his sacrifice to his God. Elkiah,
the Nasi, the last of the Sanhedrin, was dead.
* * * * *
Deborah had essayed to follow her father when his captors took him from
his house. A Greek officer seized her and forced her back.
"By all the gods of Greek and Jew, you shall not go!"
The speaker was Dion.
For a little her resolution seemed to yield before the imperiousness
of her friend. But her spirit was as a Damascus blade which, suddenly
bent, springs back into shape. With a wild cry, "I will go to my
father; they shall not harm him!" she broke from Dion. His stronger
arms regained her.
"You will not be harmed if you stay here," Dion said; "but both you and
your father will perish if you go. None but I can save you, Deborah. By
my love I entreat."
"Your love! your love!" There was utter contempt in her tone. "You, a
hired slaughterer of our people!"
"Nay, then by my strength you shall not go."
He grasped her wrists. The might of her soul was imparted to her arms,
and she had nearly freed herself. It required a rough grip of even the
athlete's strong hands to detain her. His hard fingers deeply indented
her softer flesh. Her face was contorted with pain. Dion relaxed his
hold, but not enough to allow her to escape.
So close they stood that their breaths mingled. If soul were breath, as
the one Hebrew word for both signifies, it might be that their spirits
touched and mingled also; for the fire slowly died from her eyes.
"You are stronger than I," she said, with panting breath.
"Forgive my use of force," replied Dion; "but I had to choose between
offending and saving you. I have seen too many cruelties to dare to let
you go from the door."
Deborah's look searched Dion to the heart. She spoke with slow accents,
as if uncertain whether to venture the words:
"I will trust you, though a Greek. Let no harm come to my father."
"If man can save him, I will. But do you pledge me, Deborah, that you
will not go to the streets. A flower would be safer thrown there under
the feet of the mob than you among the soldiers. Pledge me, I beg you;
pledge me."
"Then I will wait. But fly! oh, Dion, fly! Your word! Your sword if
need be! My father! Oh, my father!"
Dion was gone.
As the Greek hurried away only the arm of the old servant Huldah
prevented Deborah falling to the pavement. She moved close to the
street door, but did not open it. There she stood, not unlike the
statue of a runner whose whole attitude shows flight while the feet are
motionless. She had almost broken her pledge and gone after Dion, but
something held her back. Was it her word? She did not think of that. It
was rather the word of the Greek; for had he not said, "If man can save
him, I will"? She saw that in this man of hated race was the only hope.
If he should fail, then God had willed the worst, and she would submit.
Submit? To what? To grief? To bereavement? Yes. To insult? Perhaps to
death, for the assailants of her father would not spare his child.
But there was another submission she deliberately contemplated. It
was submission to the overmastering passion which had been born last
night amid the ruins of the house of Ben Isaac--to become a minister of
vengeance for her people. She seemed to hear her father's voice above
the din of the street calling her to avenge his name. The shades of the
martyrs of Israel in her excited imagination trooped from Sheol, and
stood around her as if to lay their hands upon her in ordination to a
life entirely devoted to patriotism and religion; devoted, whether with
her hands red in the blood of Israel's enemies, or white with nursing
service of Israel's distressed people, she knew not, she cared not.
She was aroused from her reverie by the voice of Caleb.
"Sister, shall we not flee? Death is over the house. They have slain
our father. I but now heard the passers-by say, 'Elkiah is dead.'"
"Flee, child? Whither can we flee? The angel of destruction hovers
over us, his wings black, oh, so black! and over all the city, and over
all the land. We are safe for the moment only here. We must wait on the
Lord, and--on the Greek!"
"Has fear driven away your memory, sister dear?" said Caleb. "There are
passages from our home into the great quarry which underlies the city."
"True, child, but we have never learned them."
"But I have. I go where those who can see find no way. From the cellar
of our house a way opens into the cellar of our neighbor Moses, and
from that into the cellar of Omri. They both fled that way. I heard
them beg father to escape with them, but he would not. He declared that
he would die in Jerusalem rather than flee so long as the altar of the
Lord stood on Moriah. But the altar has fallen, sister; the people in
the streets just now said that not a stone of it stood any longer. Were
our father here, he would now flee. Come! Benjamin will be safe, since
he has become as one of the Greeks, and Dion will care for him. Come! I
can guide you, and God will guide me as He always has done. Come!"
"Nay, child, the daughter of Elkiah cannot leave her house while her
father lives. He will return--or Dion."
"But our father will not come again," urged the child. "Did I not hear
them say, 'The Jew is dead'? Come!"
"I will not believe it until Dion returns and tells me with his own
lips. They will not, they dare not kill my father. Besides, I have
given the Greek my word."
"Your word to a Greek! What is there in that?"
"True, only my word to a Greek! To a Greek! Then let us go for your
sake, child."
She followed the blind boy as he darted across the court to the door
which opened into the servants' apartment, and thence into the cellar.
At the entrance she stopped.
"Nay, child, I cannot go. I have given him my word."
"Trust not the Greek," cried Caleb. "He will not come back. He dare not
if he would. They would kill him if he befriended us or our father. But
hark!"
The blind boy stood in an attitude of listening. Then he cried
excitedly, "Aye! He comes. I hear Captain Dion's voice in the street.
He has turned the corner--now he is at the door."
Dion stood before them.
For a little he was speechless, as if the words he would speak were too
cruel to utter. He did not even lift his eyes to the young woman's face.
"Do not speak, sir!" said Deborah. "I know it all. My father has been
slain by your people."
"Nay, not slain," replied the Greek. "Your father's God has taken him.
As Zeus lives--as Jehovah lives--Elkiah died as only the greatest and
best of men can die; no hand struck the blow. On the steps of the altar
of his God he himself gave up his life. The gods take the breath of
such men with a kiss."
Deborah bowed herself upon the pavement.
"Aye, he was a sacrifice. Oh, my father!" Then she rose. Her eyes
seemed to see the ascended spirit as she said slowly:
"Now I swear by thy white locks--by the altar of thy broken heart! I,
too, will be a sacrifice!"
The Greek was paralyzed by the sense of his helplessness to say or do
anything to mitigate the woman's woe. Though he knew not what it meant,
he knew that there was a tragedy in her heart as real as the one that
had just occurred at the Temple.
Dion lingered to offer--what? Comfort? Help? Perhaps he acted simply
from the instinct by which noble natures wait to give themselves to
others for whatever may be needed. One thing he could do.
"Your father shall have honorable interment. I have secured from
Apollonius the order that he be buried in the sepulchre of his fathers.
With your brother's sickness and the hazard to your life and that of
Caleb, I ask your permission that I may be his mourner."
"My thanks, good sir. And my father's God will bless you."
Still Dion lingered, until Deborah herself said:
"Captain Dion, you must go away. This house is no place for a Greek."
"Nay, it is the place for such a Greek as I. Let me help you. Tell me
your desire, and it shall be done."
Deborah did not look at her companion. Advancing to the centre of the
court where the sun gleamed fairly upon her, she raised her hand.
It was not now the attitude of defense from danger such as Dion had
seen before. It was not that of daring which had cowed the besotted
Apollonius. It was that of supreme spiritual exaltation. It seemed to
enlarge her physical form and to transfigure her countenance with the
strong glow of inner light. Dion had seen the priestesses of almost
every shrine among his own and foreign peoples, but nothing so august
as this self-ordination of the Jewish maiden to her mysterious service,
as she said in suppressed tones:
"Now, O God of my father, I will fulfill my vow! Lead Thou whither Thou
wilt. Guide me as Thou hast all true sons and daughters of Israel.
Amen!"
Then her eyes rested a moment upon Dion's. A faint smile, or rather the
slightest yielding of the rigidness of her alabaster features, denoted
a not unkind recognition. If her voice was softened, it lost no tone of
determination as she repeated:
"You must go away. I shall need no further help."
"You know not what you say," replied Dion eagerly. "You are utterly
helpless here. Your brother's name will not save you one moment from
the danger which I know will follow you. You must flee. Can you conceal
yourself for a little while? I will return with the dress of a Greek
woman, and in that disguise I can take you to a place of safety."
"Nay, go you and bury my father," said she.
"Promise me that you will not pass into the street."
"I will not go--into the street."
"The gods be praised!" cried Dion. He seized her hand, and before she
could withdraw it had pressed it to his lips. Then he hastened away.
Caleb had been a silent auditor of all this. Now he ran to his sister's
side.
"Not with the Greek, Deborah, with me. You said, only, 'Not into the
street'."
"Yes, I will go with you, child. And may your blind eyes see the way of
the Lord!"
She passed into the chamber where Benjamin lay. The leech had
pronounced his healing sure, though he was not yet recovered from his
stupor. Deborah softly imprinted a kiss upon her brother's forehead.
She glanced at the familiar objects in the apartment, most of which
were sacred with memories. At length her eyes rested upon a little
ivory shrine of the Greek Aphrodite, a token of the new religion her
brother had embraced. Then she fled from the desecrated chamber.
X
JUDAS MACCABÆUS
Jerusalem crowns a massive ridge of rock. To the eye of the inhabitant
this was a projecting portion of the very foundation of the earth; to
his faith it was the symbol of the eternity of the Jewish religion. The
rock is not, however, as solid as it seems. For ages it has served as
the quarry from which the builders of walls and fortresses, pavements
and palaces, have taken their material, leaving little more than the
shell of the dome which first attracted the worshipful gaze of Abraham
as he journeyed up from the south country. The rock of Moriah may then
be taken as a symbol of the hollow formality into which the religion of
Israel has at times degenerated. In the time of our story there were,
beneath the streets and houses of the city, long labyrinthine passages
that were unlighted except by the occasional lantern of an explorer
or prowler, and vast chambers where no sound, save of some cautious
footstep, had echoed since the click of the hammer of the Phœnician
stone-cutter in the days of Hiram, the royal friend of Solomon, whose
Tyrian artisans built the Temple.
In the flight of Deborah and Caleb, the lad led the way first to the
upper cellar of the house of Elkiah. The floor of this was laid in
well-squared blocks of white marble, cornered with smaller blocks in
black, making an artistic pattern which could be discerned in the dim
light that now fell upon it. In ancient times this cellar floor had
been the pavement of an upper court, and opened to the full daylight;
for Jerusalem had been again and again destroyed and rebuilt upon its
own ruins.
Passing through this cellar the fugitives struck a series of winding
stone steps which brought them to a sub-cellar. Here the darkness was
dense. Caleb stood a moment with his hands extended, as if possessing
eyes in his finger-tips.
"I have it. The air comes this way. I can feel it as it oozes up from
the cracks about the loose trap-door, as easily as you, Deborah, could
see the light around window shutters. Here is the trap. The stone
tilts. It is hung on an iron bar. The big end of the stone rests on a
rim, and is enough heavier to prevent the other end from sinking when
one steps on it, but not heavier than you and I can lift. Uriah and I
have often opened it, and he is no stronger than I am. Your fingers
here, Deborah."
As the stone was tilted there came up a stream of damp, chilly air,
which, Caleb said, was "the breath of the thousand toads and bats that
live in the crannies below."
The blind boy leaped unhesitatingly into the black depths.
"It's smooth here, sister. The old Phœnicians swept up all their stone
chips before they went home. I could run barefoot here without stubbing
my toe."
Deborah let herself cautiously down into the darkness.
"Ah," said she, as she felt the solid level beneath her feet, "if we
could only trust God as easily as I can trust my child!"
"But why shouldn't we, dear heart?" replied the boy. "God says, 'I will
guide thee with mine eye.' Hasn't He done so with me?"
He took his sister's hand and led on boldly for a few paces.
"Wait. Yes, we turn this way, for the air comes from this direction.
Stoop, sister! Uriah once bumped his head here. Now we are past it.
Uriah said the roof here was twenty cubits high, and was held up by
big pillars of the rock which hadn't been cut away. One day he lit
a lamp in here, and the bats flew about like black shooting-stars.
Listen! That's the water that comes from Solomon's Pools, down by
Bethlehem; the same that spouts up in our fountain. And that drip,
drip, drip--Uriah said it was the dying heart-beats of our nation. God
make him mistaken for once! It's nothing but leaks. And----"
Caleb did not finish his sentence. Even Deborah exclaimed in alarm. A
sharp cry rang through the cavernous passage. At the next instant Caleb
was thrown from his feet. Something large, yet soft, brushed him. He
heard the quick snapping of teeth, then a rustling beyond them, which
suddenly ceased.
"It's only a fox. Uriah said that one day he chased one into the big
crack in the north wall. Lots of them must live in here, or else foxes
haven't got the wit they are thought to have."
A little further on the fugitives felt the air to be fresher and
warmer. A light flickered in the distance. It seemed to Deborah to come
through a window with shifting lattice-work.
"That's the opening through the city wall, not far from the north
gate," said Caleb. "It is covered up with bushes on the outside. That's
the reason the soldiers haven't found it yet. The wind blows the bushes
like a curtain, Uriah says, and it makes the light blink."
The exit from the cavern through the city wall was very narrow, a mere
crevice between the great stones which some earthquake, or possibly the
stroke of some battering-ram, had dislodged.
"Let me look out, sister. I can see with my ears without pushing the
bushes."
Caleb lifted himself to the aperture, and crawled into it, where he lay
for a moment as still as a lizard. He suddenly slipped down again to
his sister's side.
"A sentinel is passing. He is a big, awkward fellow, for I hear his
feet roll on the little stones. Now he has gone. The soldiers are
afraid to come among the bushes or close to the walls, because the
cracks in the stones are full of little adders. But they never harm me."
"The Psalm reads," said Deborah, "'Thou shalt tread upon the lion and
adder.'"
"But," rejoined the lad, "I don't even tread on them. One day, though,
I put my hand on one, and he didn't bite me. Maybe that is what the
Lord means, too."