these, my brothers, will fall. My place is among them. But this blood,
this blood! God, must it be? Yet I, a woman, have helped prepare this
slaughter."
She fell upon her knees. "Lord, spare Thy people. If blood must flow
let it be of those only who have destroyed Thy altars, and blasphemed
Thy Holy Name. Spare Judas and Jonathan, and--all these Thy people!
Avenge Thou our cause! As the sun drinks the water from the pools, so
may Thy vengeance drink the blood of the enemy, and Thy land be purged!"
She rose and walked rapidly, not toward the Fort of the Rocks, but in
the direction of the Greeks.
XVI
THE BATTLEFIELD OF A HEART
Deborah joined a group of Greek women on the edge of the camps. These
were venting their rage upon an officer in command of a contingent sent
from Jerusalem.
"The Captain forbids us to come among his tents; Astarte curse him! Are
his men better than other men, or better than we?"
"They say he was born in Athens; as if Athens were better than
Antioch!" said one.
"The statue of Athena, the prude, in the Parthenon, is so big that it
crowds out all other gods and goddesses; and so this upstart Captain
would crowd us out. And are we not goddesses? My Adonis, the one with a
brass pot for a skull, called me one."
"Yes, they call us heavenly, and help us to Hades."
"Captain Dion would make Aphrodite herself wear long skirts," said
another.
"Dion!" The word rang sharp as a thunder-crash through Deborah's soul.
A glare as of the lightning's bolt seemed to illumine her. In it she
saw herself again a woman. Dion! Was she leading this man to slaughter?
But why not? He, too, was the enemy of her land, of her religion, of
her God. Had she not vowed death to Greeks of every name? Did her oath
spare even Dion?
Yet Dion had saved her. And that, too, in spite of his soldierly duty
to his cause.
Deborah staggered back into the darkness. Her strength until now had
been that of a man; but it was the strength which her soul, with its
tremendous resoluteness, had imparted to nerve and muscle. Now that her
soul was shaken, it sent its quiver through her physical frame, and she
was weak as a child. She sank upon the ground.
Then one by one came memory's pictures of the terrors she had
experienced in Jerusalem. What had sustained her during those awful
days? Her pride as the daughter of the house of Elkiah? The necessity
of guarding her blind brother Caleb? Her faith? All these, doubtless;
yet she confessed to herself that but for the kind words of the Greek
Dion she might have given way. Not his proffered love. No! No! That
alone would have made her hate him; but he had been good to her. And
if--if God had used the Greek's kindness, even his love, to sustain
her, to give her strength for her holy devotion, should she despise
this Greek? Should she lead him into this ambuscade? If he should fall
on the morrow would she not be his murderess? She recoiled from herself
as from some polluted thing.
Then, as a wave receding into the sea comes back, her feeling was
quickly reversed. Had she not taken delight in imagining herself
another Jael, who could drive the nail through the temple of a foeman
of her people, though he were sleeping in her own tent. She tried to
say, "Even Dion to his death!" but the sentence would not frame itself
in her purpose. Her brain seemed to stagnate. She could not think. She
prayed, "Lord, I am but as a mould; fill me with such purpose as Thou
wilt!"
At length she said to herself, "I will seek out Judas, and beg him to
spare the advance of the Greek hosts, for there Dion will be, since his
camp is here foremost."
Scarcely was this project formed when she abandoned it. The contingent
from Jerusalem to which Dion belonged was as numerous as all Judas'
band, and, if not destroyed in the first surprise of the attack, might
turn the tide of battle. Besides, what reason could she give Judas for
this request? Confess her attachment to a Greek? If womanly shame did
not forbid such an acknowledgment to another man, it surely would cost
her the confidence of the Jews. Never again would they believe in the
patriotism or honesty of one whose brother was a traitor, and whose
lover--for such they would regard Dion--was in the hostile camp.
Following her first impulses Deborah had risen from the ground and
walked slowly toward the place where she knew Judas could be reached by
her signals. But she quickly turned back.
"Might I not warn Dion? Not, of course, his fellow-officers. But, if
I did, would not his sense of duty lead him to divulge the plot?" She
prayed again for light, but no light came. The gloom deepened about
her. Two spirits were tearing her soul asunder in their strife for
possession. She thought of her people; of her father dashed to death by
Greek hands beside the altar; then of the brave band of patriots who,
unless they triumphed bloodily at the very dawn, must themselves be
slaughtered before the nightfall. She felt her personality dissolving
into a flame of zeal for her land and her people's God. She cried out
with uplifted arms: "O God, I am no longer a woman. I am Thine; Thy
Avenging Spirit! Use me as Thou dost use the lightning's bolt, the
flood, the plague, that I may bring destruction to all this host!"
Then, even as she stood with outstretched arms in this awful
imprecation, there came the vision of Dion, so noble, though a Greek,
with a man's heart greater than all his racial prejudice; the friend
who had risked life and repute for her father's safety, though it
proved unavailing; the rescuer of blind Caleb; her own friend--who
loved her, she could not doubt it--whose thoughts even now, as he was
moving to his death, were possibly of her.
"O, God!" she exclaimed. "Take away my life. Let me die rather than
make this decision."
She waited, longing that her heart might stop beating through the
violence of its own contentions. But it beat on. She drew a dagger, and
pressed its point gently against her bosom, as she murmured:
"Oh, if it were but right that I should lay down my life, since God
will not take it!"
The crackling of dried leaves caught Deborah's attention. A sentinel
gave challenge.
Deborah instantly responded with the watchword of the Greek camp, "The
sword of Apollonius," which she knew had been given for the night.
"Another woman, by Jove! One would think he had fallen upon the Grove
of Daphne, or the streets of the Piræus, rather than a war camp," said
one walking with the sentry.
"Come, get out of this! To the rear with you, or we will make you march
in front of the first battle."
"I am not within the lines," replied Deborah. "The lines run from the
twisted rock to the cypress yonder. So we were told."
"Are those the lines?" asked the officer. "Then let her stay. We
ourselves have lost our bearing, but daylight is coming up yonder in
the East, and we shall need no longer any lines here, for we move at
dawn."
Deborah could not mistake that voice, nor the form that the dim light
outlined. She thought that she was silent, enacting a tragedy back of
her rigidly compressed lips; yet some word or outcry must have escaped
her, for the officer turned quickly.
"Woman, did you speak?"
Now she was indeed silent, and moveless as the great rock against which
she leaned. The man came nearer and tried to scan her features.
"Woman, I have heard your voice before. Have you followed from
Jerusalem?"
A moment elapsed before she replied, but that moment was like one of
those in which we dream, and live hours and days. She realized that
there had now been forced upon her a quick decision of the question
which the past hour of agonizing debate with herself had not begun
to solve. She had time in that waiting moment to pray for light. She
gathered up many scenes of those terrible days in the city, of her
flight from Dion's help, of her vow, of her life as a spy. To these she
added the imagined scenes of the coming day, the slaughter of Greeks,
perhaps the annihilation of the Jewish band, and extinction of Israel's
hopes. She saw all these things, and central of them all she saw the
form now before her falling beneath some arrow shot from the covert of
the rocks overhanging the valley he was about to enter. And then she
saw herself as the accomplisher of it all.
"And this, this," she said to herself, "is to be a woman's return for a
man's love!"
Deborah had often prayed that God would destroy her sense of
personality, that she might be but an unfeeling agent of His will,
as are the lightning and tempest; but He had not done so. Her human
nature asserted itself over her faith; her individuality refused to
lose itself in her nationality, or shall we say that her womanhood
was stronger than both? This man and herself were for the instant as
essential factors in her problem as were the Greek and Jewish armies.
But she saw no clearer the solution of that problem; only that it
must be solved, right or wrong, and at once. So she replied to her
questioner:
"Yes, I came from Jerusalem."
The officer peered closely into her face.
"You are not Greek nor Syrian."
"God be praised, I am not. I am a daughter of Jerusalem, an outcast
from my father's house, as you would make all the women and children of
Israel to be."
"Deborah! Daughter of Elkiah! Do I dream? Of all the damnable things
that war has brought this is the most fiendish. You, Deborah, in a
soldier's camp! Good gods! Tell me you are not the daughter of Elkiah,
but some black soul from Erebus which has found her dead body and
entered it."
"Dion, I did not die, but it is true that another spirit has entered
mine."
"Better wert thou dead than live such a life as this," cried he. "Why
did you fly without my help? I had arranged for your safety. I would
have given my life for yours--but--but now----"
He grasped her hands, then threw them from him as something that
defiled him. "There is no god of Jew or Greek, or this could not have
been. Tell me, Deborah, that what I see is not true. That you--that you
are not here."
He covered his face with his hands as if to banish the vision of the
reality.
"Dion, what you see is true; but what you think is false--yes, false
and mean as the gods you worship. An outcast I am, as all my people
are; but not an outcast from honour; not from my father's faith; not
from the favour of my father's God. Your soldiers have destroyed our
homes; where can we live but in the fields? How can we subsist except
as the beasts and birds do, by picking up the crumbs which the army of
Antiochus drops along its path of slaughter?"
She laid her hands upon her gaudy garments as if to tear them from her.
A bugle sounded. It was quickly answered from far and near. A rustle
as of a sudden storm among the rocks and bushes told that the host was
waking. Then followed the hum of voices, cut with the sharp words of
command, the click of arms, and clashing of utensils, the neighing of
horses and outcries of grooms and masters.
Dion started a step as if to obey the call.
"Stay, Dion!" she cried, losing for the instant her self-possession as
she realized the fate which hung above her friend.
The Greek turned, and said in quick words: "My command awaits me,
Deborah. Tell me how I may save you."
She let him put his hand upon her. As she felt his touch she saw this
much of her problem solved--he should not return to his command if a
woman's will or a woman's wiles could prevent it. The love he offered
her she would use not for herself, but for his own sake. Surely if it
were right to deceive an enemy for his destruction, it were doubly
right to deceive a friend in order to save him.
She replied, "My friend, my father's friend, you can save me from that
which I dread worse than my own death."
"How? Who threatens you? Let me but hear it, and my sword will follow
him through Jewish or Greek camp, or through hell itself."
"Let us draw a little more aside," said Deborah. "The light is so clear
now that it shows us."
Dion slowly followed her, pausing again and again to look toward his
camp.
A second bugle denoted that the host was to begin its march.
"You must go back to your duty," said she. "Go, I must save myself as I
can. The bugle calls you."
"A more sacred duty calls me here. Deborah, tell me, what threatens
you?"
She gently drew him to a seat beside her upon a shelving rock which
was overcapped by a juniper bush. Did she mean the tenderness her face
expressed, so near to his? She felt that her look was like that of a
serpent enchanting a bird. She despised herself and would fain have
risen and fled away from the spot. But as she noted the man's features,
expressing so well the nobility of character she knew he possessed, and
realized also the unselfishness of his devotion to her, she felt that
she was not altogether practising deceit; that her web, though spun by
her brain, was from substance drawn from her heart.
"My dear Dion," she said, "the greatest terror that possesses me is
that you think me what my presence here might suggest. Save me first of
all from falling in your respect. Believe me, I am still as worthy of
your care as when you saw me, a mere child, in Jerusalem--though these
few months have made me a woman, I fear with a wicked heart."
"I do believe you, Deborah," cried he, grasping both her hands. "Now
that the light shows you, I see the same pure soul I once loved,
and never for an instant have ceased to love. But, my child, you
have suffered. Pain has cut deep lines. This must cease. If there is
anything in my position, my estate, any influence with those in power,
any strength in my arm or sharpness in my sword, let me use it. Only
tell me."
The trumpet call was repeated. Dion rose, and stood for a while looking
in the direction whence it had come.
"I can overtake them," he said, hesitating.
"But how explain your absence? Will not some harm come from your
failing to appear with your command? You should go."
Yet her hands were hard holding his, and her face wore an intensity of
desire which he, not knowing its full meaning, thought to be only the
return of his love.
"I cannot go," said he. "I will not go, my love, until you have told me
how I can save you. By all the gods I swear it."
"Swear not at all," said Deborah, placing her fingers upon his lips,
only to receive the kiss they tempted.
Dion's arm stole about the form of his companion. She did not resist
it. Why not? Only because thus she was detaining him. Let him interpret
it otherwise; it was for his life, and when he was saved they would
part forever.
A distant din caught the ear. A wild scream of a bugle was answered by
the blast of scores of trumpets and the shrieks of a multitude from the
direction of the great Wady.
"An attack!" cried Dion, leaping to his feet.
"Then you must be gone," said Deborah, but still clinging to him as she
pointed. "But see, the Jews are thronging there. They have lined the
hills. An ambuscade for the Greeks! God be with His people! Stay, Dion,
it is useless to seek your command. Your soldiers are in the Wady, and
Judas--the sword of the Lord and of Judas is between them and us!"
Dion's trained eye took in at once the military situation.
Yet under the true soldier's impulse, he would have hastened with
single sword to his post of duty, could he have seen any way thither.
The hills lining the Wady were now black with the Jews; and small bands
were hastening from every direction. He could not rejoin his soldiers
if he would.
Deborah readily drew him back to their covert. Now and again he would
start forth, but as quickly return, seeing no safe exit. Deborah
herself became changed in look and manner. Her lips opened as if giving
command to the distant soldiers, yet her hand on Dion's arm held him
captive by the spell of its touch.
"List! The cry of the sons of Mattathias--Mi-camo-ca-ba! 'who is like
unto thee among the Gods!' Judas is conquering. See! See! Our people
are over the hilltops. They are rushing down into the Wady. God be
praised! The sword of the Lord and of Judas!"
She seemed to forget the presence of her companion, yet at the
slightest movement on his part her hand stayed him.
"I will hasten to the eastward. Surely our troops will cut their way
out there upon the open road," cried Dion.
"Nay, but see! Jonathan and the men from Hebron are there."
"Then I can follow into the ravine and die with my brave soldiers."
"That way is also closed," said Deborah, "for Simon and the tribesmen
from the north are pressing in after the Greeks. Look!"
"How knew you this?" cried Dion, as his trained eye saw that the woman
was correct. "Are you a spirit of battle? Do you hold the armies of
Antiochus as you have held me? Are you witch, or are you woman?"
"I know not," she replied, "I only know that Dion dies not to-day with
the rest."
Then the Greek broke away from his captor. It was but for a moment, for
all around were Jews, who sprang up as if from the ground.
"Back, back, or you are slain! These peasants never miss with the arrow
or sling. Back!"
She drew him to the covert.
"For myself I care not, but you."
"For my sake then, O Dion, do not leave me. They will kill me. Save me,
Dion! Back! They will see your Greek armor, and the arrows will not
leave a branch on the tree if you are detected. Back!"
She had scarcely spoken when a missile clanged against the rock at her
side. Deborah sprang from the covert, and stood exposed in the open.
Dion heard the call of a Jew to his comrades:
"It is only a woman; forward, men!"
The group of patriots hurried by.
Deborah scanned the field far and wide. Seeing that the Jews had all
entered the ravine, she turned to her companion:
"Dion, go quickly! Once Dion was called a traitor to his people because
he saved the daughter of Elkiah; to-day Elkiah's child had almost
betrayed her people that she might save the life of the noblest of
Greeks. Hasten away."
His arms would have retained her, but swift as a frightened fawn she
ran, and, breathless in his futile pursuit, the Greek watched her agile
form until it disappeared among the throngs which marked the edge of
the battle. Then he sought to rejoin his forces. But it was only to
be caught in a crowd of fugitives who had escaped from the Wady, and,
helmetless, were making their way to the west.
The setting sun that day was not so red as the blood-stained rocks in
the Wady. Thousands of corpses lay amid the broken spear-shafts and
empty helmets which lined the dry bed of the brook, waiting until the
next winter's storms should flood its banks and wash away the signs of
one of the grandest victories of few over many that history has ever
recorded.
The sublimest heroism of that heroic day was displayed by Judas
himself. Heading a band of choice spirits, he leaped from rock to
rock down the side of the narrow valley, as a wild beast descends
upon its prey. He made straight for the spot where helmets were
brightest and the banners most enriched with blazonry, denoting the
body-guard of Apollonius. His voice, like a lion, roaring the war cry
'Mi-camo-ca-ba,' scarcely revealed his presence before his sword was
crossing that of the famous General.
The gigantic stature of Judas, together with his tremendous strength
and fury, well matched any superior skill of fence the Greek might
have had. Their swords intertwined like two writhing serpents, neither
daring to loosen its grip of the other. But steadily the Jew forced
Apollonius to give ground until he was driven back against a rock which
prevented the free use of his arm. Then the swords disentangled, and
that of Judas entered the throat of his antagonist.
The conflict was over. Judas gathered his scattered bands. Laden with
spoil--provisions, arms, and boxes filled with coins--they emerged from
the Wady.
Upon a knoll stood the five brethren; about them the warriors, wearied
with their work, and sickened with their deep draughts of blood. Judas
knelt, and the little host fell prostrate upon the ground in silent
prayer. Then, as they rose, a woman's voice raised the old song of
Miriam by the Red Sea, and the multitude joined as in the synagogue;
but with what new meaning in their faith!
"I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. Thy right
hand hath dashed in pieces the enemy."
When the shouts and psalms had died away Judas lifted the sword which
he himself had wrested from the death-clutch of Apollonius. It was a
slender weapon; its handle of fretted gold, its blue steel blade etched
with representations of the labors of Herakles.
"Listen, my brave men! This sword belongs to the daughter of Elkiah.
Her prowess and her prophecy have won it."
None but he and she knew his meaning, for she had told him of the scene
in Apollonius' house in Jerusalem.
Deborah looked upon the blade. She took it into her hand a moment. One
near enough might have heard:
"It is the same. I thank thee, O Lord, that a more fitting hand than
mine has done this deed."
She then bound the sword of Apollonius upon the thigh of Judas.
"So the Lord gird thee with strength!" she said.
As, according to Jewish tradition, David wore the sword of the fallen
Goliath through all his glorious wars, so Judas carried the sword of
Apollonius, until five years later it was buried in the grave of the
founder of the Maccabæan dynasty of Jewish patriots.
XVII
A FAIR WASHERWOMAN
The victory of the Jews at the Wady winged the fame of Judas far and
wide. Among his own people the chosen war-cry "Mi-camo-ca-ba" gave
place to the contracted word "Ma-ca-ba" or "Maccabee," the Hammer, a
title significant of the swift and crushing blows with which he smote
the enemy.
Even the tribesmen about the borders of the Holy Land, the Horites
in the caves of Petra, and the dwellers in the flint castles of the
desert, wondered if a new deliverer had risen in Israel. In black tents
on the plains and in strongholds among the cliffs were told again and
again the old stories of the Jewish judges; while the Arab sheikhs of
the Jordan valley deliberated if it were not wise to cast in their
lot with a people who, even if not favored directly of heaven, might
by such human valor as Judas and his men had displayed, beat back the
deluge of Greek power which threatened to submerge their own as well as
Israel's possessions.
Among the Jews the enthusiasm was like a fire amid brambles, so rapidly
did it spread. Simon, the Wise, was persistent in his counsel for
patience, and for wide and cautious preparation.
[Illustration]
"Remember, my brethren," said he, "that we are not boiling a pot, but
are to consume the very Cedars of Lebanon--for such is this gigantic
power of the north which menaces us. The fight in the Wady was but
the beginning of battles. Antiochus has many armies. He will gather
fresh hordes from the nations which own his sway. We have only wounded
this wild beast of Antioch. He will turn again upon us with more
ravening strength."
The news of the overwhelming defeat of Apollonius brought consternation
to the Greeks, and especially to the renegades in Jerusalem. Every
one who repeated the tidings added what he or she feared, until the
numbers of the Jewish patriots were swollen to vast multitudes in the
popular mind. The more sagacious assumed that the Jews must be in
alliance with the great nations which were contesting the dominion
of Antiochus beyond the deserts in the Euphrates valley. Some had it
that the Egyptian Ptolemy had resumed war against Syria; and even
Rome was rumored to have thrown her sword into the scale; for it was
incredible that an untrained peasant, with so small a force of herdsmen
as the Jews were reputed to have had, could outwit one of Apollonius'
astuteness, and with a single blow shatter his phalanges.
Imagination, made sensitive by fright, pictured the valleys beyond
the hills filled with strange armies. Squads of Greek horsemen would
scurry rapidly across open fields, then halt for long observation
on the hilltops before venturing another dash. Popular superstition
transformed Judas himself into a demi-god, or one of the ancient
worthies of Israel, Samson or Gideon, returned to earth.
"They say he is as big as Pelops, and carries a whole tree-trunk for
his mace," said a Greek soldier, looking stealthily behind him, and
watching an olive clump whose stiff branches shook in the evening
breeze.
The gates of Jerusalem were now closed by day as well as by night.
Watchers patrolled without the walls, so that not a goat approached
without being scrutinized, "lest," said a Greek wag, "his horns should
prove to be the head-piece of another Alexander, the great Macedonian,
who wore such horns for his crest."