"You are too brave a man for that," replied Jonathan. "The name of
Dion is not unknown to us. You may bind yourself with your word. It
will suffice. Besides, you will need both hands in scrambling out of
this town, and maybe your sword, for----"
XXX
FOILED
Jonathan's sentence was not completed. There was a sudden sound of the
quick-timed, regular tramp of many feet in the street. Meton, hearing
of the commotion in the house of Glaucon, had sent thither a detachment
from the citadel. There were a few sharp words of command outside,
followed by the crashing in of the gate. Then came a moment's silence.
This was while the Greek rescuers were forming for a dash through the
portal; for they knew that the foremost would fall beneath the unseen
swords that were ready to meet them.
Jonathan and his men were already in the breach. Man after man dropped
in his tracks as the Greeks crossed the threshold. The assailants,
though baffled, kept the gate open by thrusting back of the hinges a
piece of timber which they had used as a sort of battering ram. The
passage was soon choked with a pile of dead bodies. The Greeks then
massed a number of spearmen who, with their bristling points thrust
far ahead of them, essayed to rush their antagonists. This ruse was
unfortunate; for no sooner were the spear-heads beyond the lintels than
they were grasped by strong hands, and thrown upward, thus leaving the
unprotected bodies of those who had used them at the mercy of the Jews'
swords.
The Greeks had surely lost the fight had not Meton ordered another
party of his men to enter the adjacent houses, climb to the roofs,
and from them reach that of the house of Glaucon. Having gained this
advantage, they poured down in a torrent of destruction. The Greek
servants were spared. Huldah and Ephraim in some mysterious manner
disappeared. Glaucon, or what was left of the living man, since his
fright had been well-nigh as fatal to him as a stone from a catapult
would have been, was dragged from beneath a divan, but only to be
shoved back again as into a place of security, while a soldier was set
to prod him if he should attempt to come out.
An officer finding Dion, laid his hand upon his shoulder.
"Captain, I must put you under arrest. You will harbor me no ill will
if I obey my orders?"
"Do your duty, Mercedes, or I myself will report you," replied Dion.
The Captain extended his hands, which were quickly bound with his own
belt.
The uneven fight was soon over in the court. A score of Jews were
either slain or captured, though more than twice that number of their
antagonists measured their lengths upon the pavement. One lay with his
head in the fountain basin at the feet of Aphrodite, and stared with
his dead eyes into the face of the marble beauty that gazed down into
them.
"Who is the leader of this gang of rebels?" asked Meton.
"The Lord of Hosts is our leader!" said one of the captives.
"The lord of the host?" queried Meton. "Has then the great Judas fallen
into my trap? Shade of Apollonius! this is lucky for me. But where is
your lord of the host?"
He turned over the bodies of the dead Jews to look at their faces. "He
is not here--nor here. None of these have stature enough for the giant."
Jonathan, anxious for the fate of Caleb, had gone seeking for him in
the upper part of the house. His way was blocked by an immense Greek
who strode across a chamber carrying the blind boy beneath his arm.
No sooner had Jonathan spied him than the man's dead hands dropped
his burden. But a crowd of soldiers had followed the daring Jew, and
now seemed to have him as their captive. Thrusting Caleb behind him,
Jonathan kept his assailants at bay by the lightning movement of his
blade.
"This way, Jonathan! this way!" cried the lad; and, so guided, Jonathan
retreated step by step, now between the opening curtains; now across
another chamber; then down a flight of stone steps. At length he was in
darkness.
"This way, Jonathan!" sounded the thin voice of the child from the
cellar.
The Greeks who came after stopped, being unable to see any object; but
thrust with their swords through the darkness.
"Hold off, men, we have him trapped!" shouted one of the leaders. "Ten
men guard this stairway. The rest of you go with me to the cellarway in
the court. We will pick him out with our spear-points, or burn him out
like a fox in a hole; it matters not which way the rascal wants to die.
It is the great Judas himself in spite of his size, for there is only
one man who can handle the sword as this fellow does. But for all that
I would have had the better of him just now were it not that that blind
brat can see in the dark. Indeed, I stuck him once like a pig at the
bottom of the steps."
"You lie," said another. "You stuck me; and but for my hand catching
your blade you would have hamstrung me with your jab--jab--jab at
everything and nothing. I tell you I had the Jew by the throat, and
would have throttled him but for you."
"Had him by the throat?" shouted another. "You had me by the throat. I
was in front of you. I shall claim the reward when we get him. I swear
it was I that drove him down these steps. I had knocked up his sword,
and was closing on him when you put your camel's foot of a fist on my
throat."
While some watched by the cellarways, and the leaders consulted upon
means to extricate their valiant prey without danger to themselves,
Jonathan was being piloted safely by Caleb through the subterranean
passage. For a while he followed the lad. They at length came to a
place where the path became two. Here Jonathan took the child into his
arms.
"From this point I know the way," said he. "When we came in by the
crevice in the wall that Meph told us of, we went up that passage until
we came out in the Temple court. And there, Caleb, we swore before the
broken altar of our Lord to give our lives if need be for your and
Deborah's rescue."
"But how did you know of our danger?" queried the lad.
"Old Ephraim told Meph of her being under arrest in her house, and Meph
brought us word at Mizpah. But here is our change of uniform. Let me
get out of these vile Greek trappings before they give me some plague.
Alas, that our brave men could not come back with us! But we will
avenge them yet, the Lord willing."
"Will not Greek clothes serve you better when we come into the fields?"
asked Caleb.
"No Greek dares to walk a furlong beyond the walls in the night time,"
replied Jonathan. "The whole country belongs to the jackals, the foxes,
to us, and to God."
"Can you see God's eyes, Jonathan?" asked Caleb as they emerged from
the crevice.
"No, not now; the stars are not out to-night; but I can see God's
smile, for the day is breaking over Moab. You are tired, little
brother. My shoulder must be as hard a saddle as a camel's hump."
Jonathan took the blind child into his arms, and Caleb, with his hands
about the soldier's neck, and face hidden in his thick beard, after
awhile fell asleep. The child's weight did not weary the strong man,
but his spirit, so gentle, so pure, so wise, seemed to Jonathan to
mingle with his own, as the water purling from some mountain spring,
cool and clean and sweet, mingles with a muddied stream. There were
tears on the face of the man of battle, when, just as the day dawned,
he laid his sleeping burden down in a nook between the rocks.
A Jewish soldier went by; his iron helmet was slung back. Touching his
bared head, he gave the sentinel's watchword, "As the Lord liveth,"
and passed on. And such as he were walking in every by-path and ravine
and on every hill-top from Jerusalem to Samaria, watching over the land
as faithfully as the stars keep their nightly beats in the heavens.
Jonathan bent over the sleeping child, and kissed the little hand that
lay against the moss. Then, signalling to another sentry, he pointed to
the spot and walked away.
In an hour he returned.
When Jonathan and Caleb reached the camp at Mizpah, they were alarmed
to learn that Deborah was not there, nor had she been seen by any one.
Many possible explanations of her absence were suggested, which varied
chiefly according to the degree in which anxiety sank toward despair.
Most believed that she had failed to pass safely through the cordon of
guards, and had been captured by the Greeks.
Others inclined to the opinion that she had fallen into the hands of
marauding tribesmen, whose fleet steeds were often seen between the
city and the Maccabæan camps. Sometimes a horseman and tall lance
would be silhouetted against the sky from distant rising ground, then
disappear as quickly as the horned wild goats of the Lebanons at the
slightest movement to stalk them. Scouts reported that similar shapes
moved like shadows along the hillsides, pausing only in spots where the
color of the rock or of tree clumps toned with that of the horse, as
by a similar ruse certain birds and lizards escape the observation of
their sharpest-eyed enemies.
These apparitions gave credit to rumors that the sheikhs of various
tribes were preparing to side with the Greeks. These rumors were at
first without intelligible basis, for nothing had as yet occurred to
clearly prove any breach of neighborly relations between the peasants
of Judea and the herdsmen of the Jordan and eastward. It was as when a
coming storm heralds itself to the instincts of birds and cattle, and
sets the tree-toads croaking before any shred of a cloud appears in the
sky.
Judas sent his scouts eastward. They reported the fleecy indications
of unsettled political weather in the multitude of tents which were
gathered in hitherto unoccupied positions in the valley of the Jordan
and the mountainous regions beyond. The tribesmen were massing. For
this there could be but one purpose--to strike Judas' rear. This
discovery, which discouraged others, stimulated the champion to keener
thought and buoyancy. He had the joy of a sailor at the prospect of
high seas.
Yet Judas had his times of moodiness. Jonathan had often remarked to
Simon that these spells were never produced by danger, but either by
something in Judas' physical condition, or some mysterious sentiment
that made him its victim. The report that Deborah had left the city, or
something which timed itself with that announcement, now plunged him
into the depths. He brooded stolidly. His alertness of faculty took on
a seeming lethargy. His brethren tried to rouse him by the news of the
movements of the new Greek armies under Gorgias and Nicanor and Lycias,
who were reported to have passed down the valley of the Litany, that
portal of Syria between the Lebanon ranges through which the invaders
of Israel had so often come.
"We must put our men in motion," urged Jonathan.
"Aye," was Judas' laconic response.
"But when shall we move?" was eagerly asked.
"When the time comes."
"But when will the time come?"
"When I say so." And Judas turned away.
XXXI
THE SHEIKHS
Deborah's flight from the city had not been for her own personal
safety, else she would have taken Caleb with her. When she emerged
from the crevice, instead of going northward toward the fastnesses
of the Maccabæans, she turned to the east, at first keeping close to
the city wall. The night was dark except for the occasional flashes
of lightning, the couriers of a coming storm. In the momentary glare
she took in the stations of the few Greek sentinels who patrolled the
immediate fields. They were looking for no danger from the direction
of the walls, but peered outward, questioning with spear-point every
shadow which the sudden flashes projected beyond the rocks and bushes.
It was thus not difficult for Deborah to reach without detection the
extreme northeastern angle of the city. She here sat down to watch for
opportunity to pass unobserved into the open ground beyond. She thought
of the old walls at her back, worn by the storms of centuries, and
broken by the war-shocks of many generations; the armored forms close
to her, each one like the claw of the monster power of Syria which was
crushing, tearing, devouring the nation; the great black sky overhead,
like some flying dragon, so vast as to cover and smother the land.
How little was she! Only a single fibre in the writhing flesh of the
victim! Her life was so insignificant! Doubtless before many days she
would lay it down, if she remained in the city; perhaps sooner on this
adventure.
Her fingers felt between them a tiny berry. "I am less than this,"
she thought, "for it may abide when I am gone. Yet if I press this
seed down into the dirt, it will breed life in its decay. May I not
yield something if I fall? What now if I can bring to Judas a hundred
men! That will be worth dying for! He would not allow me to make this
venture if he knew it. That is well; then that brave heart cannot bear
the blame if it miscarry. So I give my life to God and His cause."
She pressed the berry into the ground, and smoothed the dirt above it
with her hand.
The lightning split the heavens with terrific shock. A tower above the
eastern gate caught the bolt as a shield would ward a flaming dart. The
rain came down in torrents. The sentinels retired closer to the walls,
drawing nearer together as their line shortened. In a moment Deborah
would be discovered! But while their eyes were dazed by another crash
she pushed boldly between them and ran.
"What was that?" said a soldier. "I must have stepped upon a jackal."
"It was as big and black as a wolf," was his comrade's reply. "They say
the dead Jews' ghosts come back to the city in wolf shapes."
"I heard one the other night. He seemed, from the noise he made, to be
walking on two legs with a crutch; but when I came to him he darted in
among the bushes, and back to Hades; for there wasn't a sign of him
above ground."
Deborah sped down the long slope from the city wall to the Kedron, and
across it, and up the side of Olivet. She did not see her way, yet kept
it, following every turn of the footpath; for she dared not venture
upon the high-road, knowing this to be sentinelled. When she heard any
sound on the beaten track she crossed the fields, over ditches, around
boulders, past garden walls of dried clay. She did not stumble, though
she gave no heed to where she stepped. Were her senses and muscles
preterhumanly alert, as those of a swallow skimming the ground and
striking nothing? Did instinct assert itself over the slower-paced
judgment, as in the case of frightened deer and homing pigeons? Did the
angels bear her up in their hands according to the promise? She asked
not, nor did she even wonder. The inner light of her purpose was so
strong that her soul dominated all physical limitation--for a while. At
length on Olivet, midway the ascent, she fell utterly exhausted. Then
she first realized the weakness of the flesh, and rebelled against it.
How long it took to steady the panting breath! and for the heart to
stop its violent beating!
After a few moments' rest she rose. Her feet were stones in weight.
Would that they had been as hard! for a sharp pain drew her attention
to the fact that one foot had broken its sandal, and was bruised and
bleeding. She could not run; she trudged on.
She came out upon the broad road, and passed through Bethany. No one
accosted her, for the once happy village was now deserted. Even the
dogs had followed the people when they fled from the invaders.
The day broke. The road grew white with its dust, then ruddy with
the coming light. Her faintness told her that she hungered, and she
remembered that she had made provision for this. She drew from her
bosom a handful of bread and dates, and ate. At a spring, where once
had stood a khan, she drank amid a circle of bewildered sheep, which
bleated and stared at this intruder of what for many months had been
their solitude.
She must rest; yet what if she should be too late? Already the
tribesmen about Jericho might have begun to fulfil their threat, and
move against Judas. These men had been the enemies of her people
for ages. Not since Joshua crossed their plain had they been at
peace, except at times when the degenerate Jews mingled their blood
in marriage with that of these heathen. Toward the Chasidim, those
extremists who would purge the land of all but the pure stock of
Israel, these tribes had sworn special hatred. Now that the Maccabæans
were facing new armies of Syria, the rumor of the fields became the
open boast in Jerusalem, that the whole population of the Jordan valley
was about to assail Judas' rear; for Antiochus' gold had corrupted
every Sheikh from the Sea of Galilee to the Sea of Salt.
And who was she, a girl, to turn these fierce fighters from their
remorseless purpose? A straw to change the course of the Jordan! A
child's hand to divert from its path an avalanche on the slope of
Hermon. Yet a child's hand can give direction to an avalanche, by
breaking the frozen front in this or yonder ravine. Doubtless the child
would be swept away by the descending mass; but what mattered that?
Though her limbs scarcely obeyed her will to rise, Deborah could
not rest. She might be too late. This fear suddenly became almost a
terrible conviction. There were clattering hoof-beats on the hard
roadway. She concealed herself behind the ruined wall of the khan. Two
horsemen rode slowly up, pausing upon an adjacent knoll, and inspecting
the country far and wide. Their horses were almost hidden beneath their
housings of network and tassels. This, however, did not conceal the
long and slender limbs and narrow flanks of the beasts, their broad,
deep breasts and thick necks, which showed that they were of that
thorough breed for the rearing of which the Arabs had already become
famous.
The two riders were swarthy, almost black. One was young, his sparse
beard fringing and breaking the perfect oval of his face. The other
was old, unless the deep lines across his brow, like the valleys and
gorges about him, had been made by sudden convulsions, the sharp crises
of his life. The youth's eyes were like the fountain beside which they
stopped--sparkling, yet calm and fully exposed. The old man's eyes
were like the pools which one, standing on the cliffs, sees gleaming
far down in the deep gorge of the Kedron, as that stream cuts its way
through the mountains of rocks which would bar its progress to the Sea
of Salt.
In dismounting the elder man seemed the younger, so quick was his
motion in taking the long lance from its rest, and planting it in the
ground as the tether post for his steed.
"Neither Jews nor Greeks are concerning themselves with us to-day. That
is clear, father," said the younger man.
"It is true, then," said the veteran, "that they are both looking for
a battle to the west. Judas' men were only yesterday scouring this
part of the country, but they are now withdrawn. That means that the
Maccabæan expects another fight with the Greeks speedily, for Judas
never calls in his men until he wants them to strike. They are like the
fingers on his hand; they turn into a fist only for the blow. We will
ride back, Nadan, and advise the camps to move against the Maccabæan
to-morrow."
Deborah heard this with consternation. The man was surely Sheikh Yusef,
the Arab, the fiercest of the tribesmen of the valley. She must act
instantly.
A slight groan attracted the attention of the men. Turning the corner
of the ruined wall they detected her crouching form.
"Who is here? By my beard, a woman!"
Deborah rose, and with clasped hands, exclaimed:
"Your pity! Do not harm me!"
"Who are you?" said Yusef. "And what brought you to such a place?"
"I am fleeing from Jerusalem. I am the daughter of Elkiah."
"Elkiah's daughter a fugitive, and in such a plight? Has your brother
turned you out? We had heard that he was in high feather with his new
friends."
"Alas!" said Deborah, "my brother is himself endangered. All are in
danger there. Have you not heard?"
"We have heard nothing. Tell us."
"Not heard!" said Deborah, in feigned surprise. "The Romans, the strong
people from the west, from over the Great Sea, from beyond Cyprus,
beyond Greece, are coming. It is reported that their fleets are seen
from the shore; that they have overcome the Syrian ships; that they
have made alliance with Egypt; that vast armies, the armies that
destroyed Perseus, are about to march through the desert, and come upon
Syria by way of the valley. The Greeks in Jerusalem distrust the Jews
who have submitted. They believe that my people have played them false,
and will turn to the Romans. Meton is slaughtering us."
The two Arabs looked at each other with faces that showed perplexity.
They withdrew to a little distance. Deborah could not catch all their
words, but enough to know that her ruse was not altogether futile.
However well bribed with Greek gold, the tribesmen would not risk the
alliance of Antiochus if this new power of Rome were to come upon the
scene. The Republic of the West was regarded as invincible along the
Great Sea, but had not yet essayed to strike Asia. If the crash of
empires were to take place it were wise for the nomadic peoples to
throw themselves with neither Greek nor Roman until there were some
signs as to which power would prove the stronger.
The older man remounted.
"But, father, we cannot leave the daughter of Elkiah here," said the
younger. "She must go with us."
Deborah had risen to her feet. The hood dropped from her head. Was it
her grateful look, or only her surpassing beauty, that held the young
Arab?
"You will go with us? You can ride?" said he.
"Nay, I must go to my kinsman, Ben Aaron of Masada. To seek refuge
there I have fled. Tell me the shortest way, I beg of you."
"To Masada? That is a long journey, and rough, and full of dangers. You
cannot go there alone."
Nadan held rapid speech with old Yusef, the conclusion of which was
this, on his part:
"It is true we must not leave her here, nor can we delay. Take you the
woman, Nadan. Cross the gorge of Kedron. By the night you can be at
Masada, and by the morning back with us. Nadan, the woman is comely.
Were I not needed with the people, she should share my saddle, not
yours. No loitering, my son. My salutation to Ben Aaron, the damned
Jew!--but it is unwise to damn him in the present emergency. His castle
on Masada will be the strongest in the wilderness--when we get it.
Speak him fair, and let the gift of his kinswoman be a pledge of peace
between us--until we see fit to break it. That woman's breath on your
cheek ought to give you soft words for Ben Aaron."
He placed his long lance in its resting strap, bowed his head to the
neck of his steed--both a salaam to the woman and a signal of haste to
the beast--and disappeared over the hill like an autumn leaf whirled
away by the wind.
XXXII
THE CASTLE OF MASADA
Nadan would have been no true son of Yusef if the commission to escort
the fair Jewess had not been a pleasing one; for the old Sheikh was
known as the "Solomon of the Tents," and many a Shulamite maiden had
looked upon him as "black but comely."
The paternal badinage with his son about the girl's breath upon his
cheek was undoubtedly as unwise as it was unnecessary. But Deborah
herself saved the young man from all temptation.
When Nadan returned to her she was standing with face uplifted, as when
one is looking at some far-distant object in the lower sky. Her eyes
did not rest on the summit of Nebo or Pisgah, whose grayish-blue peaks
rose like gigantic towers on the agate wall of the mountains of Moab.
Beyond them, beyond all the earth, her soul seemed to be drinking from
fountains in the sky.
Nadan's approach did not at once divert her rapt attention. The youth
felt something like resentment at her indifference to his presence. Did
not the maidens of the valley sing and dream the praise of Nadan? And
if his comeliness had been less, was he not the richest of the young
lords of the tribes, and their most daring rider?