something in Judas which would have halted his proposal; but he
continued:
"She has been in my power. I could have carried her to my tent, yet I
delivered her to her kinsman. She comes with his men."
A sunburst could not have changed Judas' aspect more than did the
glad news. Nadan quite naturally misinterpreted it as an evidence
of the favor with which the Maccabæan received his proposal, and he
enthusiastically pursued his scheme.
"I could have taken her to my tent, for she was mine. But, son of
Mattathias, I have wider thoughts for us both. With the tribesmen as
your allies you can hold this land. Quickly the city will fall. Two
thousand spears will follow the call of Yusef or his son. These you may
have if you give me the daughter of Elkiah to wife, and assure me of
the property of that house as her dowry."
"The woman is not mine to give," said Judas.
"Then the easier it is to give her," was the Arab's response. "When she
was in my power I could have made the alliance of the tribesmen with
the Greek on the same condition, for they have offered us ten times
the amount of Elkiah's estate for our aid against you. Why did we not
accept it? Because, son of Mattathias, the tribesmen prefer to live in
fellowship with the Jews, for a thousand years our neighbors in the
land, bound to us by the ties of intermarriage since the Moabite Ruth
wedded the ancestor of your great King David. The Greeks are foreign
to us. To make my marriage with this fair woman the seal of perpetual
peace with the Jews by helping them reconquer this land, for this I
gave up the daughter of Elkiah as my spoil that I might have her as a
gift from your hands. I have already the consent of her kinsman, Ben
Aaron, waiting only upon that of the son of Mattathias."
Nadan awaited Judas' answer with bowed head, an attitude of obsequious
courtesy, which, however, did not conceal the hauteur of the man, or
his reserved purpose of swift and vengeful retaliation if his scheme
were not acceded to.
Judas pondered, and after some moments replied slowly:
"Son of Yusef, the tribesmen have been of old both the foes and friends
of my people. I would make them only friends, that in peace we might
both continue to possess these lands our God gave to our fathers. You
have my pledge--if--if the woman shall consent."
"Of that I have no fear," replied the young man, grasping Judas' hand.
"Within a week I will return, a hundred of my young men with me, to
escort the fairest of women to the wedding tent by the bank of the
Jordan. And then, son of Mattathias, I will come again with thousands
of our bravest; aye, all the Moab and the north men from as far as
Bosrah and Bashan will come at the call of Yusef and Nadan."
The rhapsodic speech of the young Sheikh was broken by the clatter of a
crutch and an outcry:
"They're coming! The men of Masada, and Deborah--Deborah's with them!"
Over the hill appeared the head of an advancing company of men.
The Jews ran in crowds to meet them.
Ben Aaron was received with wild ovation. Every man in his following
was greeted with huzza and embrace.
For Deborah the reception was as reverent as it was joyous. The little
mule upon which she was seated could hardly keep his feet as the
multitude thronged about her, seeking her hand, patting the beast, and
gazing with tearful eyes upon the woman whom they had learned almost to
worship as an impersonation of their nation's cause.
Nadan stood far aside, perplexed by this scene. "This woman," he said
to himself, "cannot be the person she claimed to be. No Elkiah's
daughter, no fugitive from Jerusalem is she. A spy of the Maccabæans! I
see it all."
When Deborah recognized him, her manner was so warmly and frankly
grateful to her protector that the Arab became bewildered, and reversed
his thoughts. He deemed it impossible that one so fair, with those eyes
lustrous with sincerity, could be aught else than what she said. Who?
What was she?
Nadan's indecision was ended quickly when Judas saluted her. While the
champion observed due formality, he was also as familiar as her father
or a lover might have been in the presence of others. Nadan's own sense
of enchantment by her beauty made him keen to detect what he thought to
be the same feeling in Judas.
"Well did the wily Jew leave the choice to the woman herself, for he
knew her decision," Nadan thought almost aloud. "Why did I not test
the success of my errand by casting some gift into the spring of Dûk?
The sacred dragon of the waters would have drifted it away, and thus I
should have known of the deceit."
The Arab leaped upon his horse. With almost the celerity of a whirling
simitar he turned Emir about in a circle. Rising in his stirrups, he
twirled the spear around his head, and hurled it.
"Death to the Maccabæan!"
The weapon sped like a gleam of light to the spot where Deborah and
Judas stood together. Before the crowd were fully aware of his movement
the Arab had dashed through them, and was in flight. A single arrow
close to his head sang its reply to his taunt.
Judas had seen the launching of Nadan's spear, and thrust Deborah
behind him. He fended the missile by instantly bending, and with his
arm diverted its direction. The spear glanced upward from his cuirass,
and, curving like a swallow in the air, fell with broken shaft amid the
rocks a hundred cubits beyond.
XXXV
WORSHIP BEFORE BATTLE
Deborah's story of her adventure, of the diversion of the tribesmen
from their purpose of attacking Judas, and the strengthening of the
Maccabæans by the addition of the men of Masada, would have filled the
remainder of the day and night with interest, without the other and
more startling news that was brought them. Scouts came in with the
report that General Gorgias had made forced marches through Galilee,
and was already upon the plain of Esdraelon, so often the battle-field
in the history of Israel's resistance to northern nations. A day's
march would bring the Greek armies as far south as Emmaus, nearly west
of the Maccabæan encampment.
The imminence of another battle now filled Judas with a strange
gladness. He was possessed by a presentiment of victory. Others could
not understand the change that had taken place in him, but all caught
his spirit. He was called the "Heart of Israel," and as the quickness
or sluggishness of the natural heart is registered in every nerve, even
to the extremities of the body, so the great leader seemed to impart
his own personality to every soldier.
To those immediately about him he thus accounted for his confidence:
"God is surely with us. Nothing less than a miracle could have
preserved the life of the maiden and scattered the tribesmen; for well
I knew the preparations they had made to strike us."
"But will they not reassemble at Nadan's call?" asked Jonathan.
"Not in time to harm us in the coming battle. See how the Lord will
turn the skill of man to his discomfiture. General Gorgias is a fast
fighter. He is famed for the rapidity with which he hurls his armies.
He will not loiter in the plain. If I mistake not his tactics, he will
essay to strike our camps even before he has made his own. If he were
an Apollonius or a Seron it might be days before he would hazard a
battle, in which event the tribesmen could have time to gather. But
Gorgias will be too quick for them to help him. But here is the maiden."
"Have you heard from Micah of Hebron?" asked Deborah. "I brake
bread with him some weeks ago, when I was supposed to be nursing my
convenient malady under the care of Huldah."
"Yes," replied Judas, "four score of his men reached us yester
nightfall. They are the best archers in the south country."
"And the men from Kirjath-jearim?"
"They, too, have joined us. They will fight on familiar ground, for
Gorgias will certainly take the broad ascent from the plain, and not
repeat Seron's mistake on the high-road."
"The physician Samuel," added Deborah, "has also done us some service.
His fame called him as far north as the Waters of Meron, and he saw
most of the herdsmen between here and there."
"And some of them have joined us," replied Judas, "but I do not trust
them as I do those of the southern country. They have not felt the
King's cruelty as others have. They are, however, of splendid spirit.
I have assigned them some desperate work, for in a man naturally brave
nothing breeds loyalty like danger."
At that moment one came hastily reporting that a change was being made
in the disposition of the Greek forces. Judas held a brief conversation
with the scout. Turning, he said:
"Gorgias will undoubtedly climb the ascent to-night. I must away. One
thing I ask of you, Deborah."
"Your wish is your command to me, Judas."
"You must not linger near this battle."
"I am not afraid."
"Would God that you were afraid, Deborah; that in this one respect you
were like other women."
"Would you esteem me more, Judas, if I were like other women?"
"Deborah, if you were like other women, like any other woman in the
world, the world would be less to me. No, be your own self; only do not
remain here. If harm should come to you, I should lose heart. You cheer
me. You inspire me. Take no risk."
"But have I not cared for myself at other times?"
"True: yet the battle to-morrow will not be as the others. Gorgias is
experienced, the most tactful, the most desperate of all the Greek
generals. He will not stand on the defensive, but make his own battle.
If in the night he should get his forces to the ridge, the fight will
be here, or between this and Jerusalem. If he should be worsted, he
will be succored by two other armies as great as his own. Promise me
that you will not even see this battle, for I know too well that if you
so much as look you will be drawn into some danger."
"For your sake, Judas, I will be as other women. The Lord gird you with
His strength for the morrow!"
"Your prayer is a prophecy. It gives me strength already. Farewell!"
Deborah sat with little Caleb's hand in hers. The sun was going down.
The red orb hung over the Great Sea, transforming the watery horizon
into a glorious carpet fitting the feet of the King of Day, and making
the sky his canopy of gold.
"Where are we now, sister?" asked the lad. "I hear a rustling as if the
trees were moving together."
"Not trees, brother, but men are gathering. By the side of us is
Mizpah, where, in the time of the prophet Samuel, the whole nation came
together. I would that your eyes were open to see."
"But your eyes are mine, sister. What shall I look at?"
"Well, stand so. Now we see toward the sunrise the far-away mountains
of Gilead and Moab. How beautiful! The great wall of rock rises into
the sky. It flashes with color, almost like the floor of heaven which
Moses and the seventy elders saw. Now turn--you are facing the north."
"Aye, I see old Hermon with his helmet of snow, and the cloud plumes
floating from the top of it," cried the lad, as if his eyes had really
opened.
"Now turn again--you are looking south. Here, almost at our feet, lies
Jerusalem. Yet it was a long way to come, wasn't it?"
"Not when Jonathan carried me, and I was asleep," laughed Caleb.
"Yes," replied Deborah, "the white roads and the black stones in the
fields, the gray of olive and the green of fig-trees between here and
the city walls, look like a dream floating between two waking moments.
And beyond the city is Bethlehem. And now turn this way--the way the
sun is going. Down there we can see Lydda, as a pearl on a gray robe;
and way off is Joppa, a dot on the shore of the Great Sea which looks
like a blazing serpent with his back in the sky. Here is the plain of
Sharon filled again with soldiers under the great generals Gorgias and
Ptolemy and Nicanor. We can see the smoke, for they are making their
camps. And we are on the side of Mount Mizpah, where once the Holy
Tabernacle stood before Solomon built the Temple. And look, child;
everywhere the brave men of Israel are coming--for Judas has bidden the
people with him to spend the rest of the day in prayer. Listen! Quite
near us is a company of soldiers. They have laid down their spears
and bows and swords, and have covered their heads with dust. They are
repeating together the Psalms of Penitence, and praying God not to
visit the sins of Israel upon the land. Let us go nearer. They are now
spreading on the ground the copy of the Books of the Law, that which
Dion brought me one day, and which he found in the High Priest's house;
the one in letters of silver and gold once encased in the beautiful
ark with clasps of precious stone, but now with its holiest words cut
out, and the margins covered over with pictures of heathen gods. Now
the men are praying that the land may be restored to Israel; and they
vow--every man--to keep all the precepts of the Law as our fathers did.
"Now what are they doing? They are holding up toward heaven some
garments which belonged to the priests whom the Greeks have murdered."
"I can hear their words!" said the boy. "It is 'Lord, so perish the
priests of the heathen!' How wild their cry is! Is any one coming to
attack them?"
"No, my child. Their voices are harsh, being tuned for battle-cries on
the morrow."
"But, listen, sister, some one is reading in a mocking voice."
"That," replied Deborah, "is a proclamation of the King which is posted
on the gates of Antioch, a copy of which has found its way into our
camp."
A soldier read:
"SCHEDULE FOR SALE OF CAPTIVES.
One able-bodied Jew 2 shekels.
One male child (sound) 3 "
One woman (married) 2 "
One woman (virgin) 4 "
"Purchasers guaranteed protection while returning to Antioch, Tyre,
Sidon, Berytus, Damascus, and to the mines within the King's domain.
"By order of the King.
"GORGIAS, Commandant."
"But now they have changed," said Caleb. "Now they are wailing."
"Yes, Simon, son of Mattathias, has piled together all the tithes of
fruits, which the men have brought, and they are begging the Lord with
tears to accept them, though they have no altar on which to put the
offering."
"I hear the words they are saying," said Caleb. "'Lord, Lord, what
shall we do with these things since the heathen have broken down thine
altars?' Shall we go and pray with them, sister?"
"Let us pray here," said Deborah.
Long time they bowed to the earth, the lad kneeling by her side, his
arm thrown about her, and the blind eyes flashing with his imagination
of armies and victories.
"Come, let us go!" said Deborah, rising.
"Where shall we go?"
"To Jerusalem."
"Why, sister! Not again to the city. Dion is gone, and our brother
Benjamin too, and only Greek soldiers are waiting to kill you."
"Yes, child, to the city, to our father's house. I believe--Lord help
my faith!--that on the morrow Israel will triumph, and we will welcome
Judas the Deliverer, perhaps as the Messiah--for such he seems to me.
But if we triumph not, there will be no need to flee elsewhere. The
sons of Mattathias will first perish in the battle, and all the hosts
of Israel with them; and we will perish too. But let it be in our
father's house. Yet whether we live or die I owe it to our friend, the
good Dion, to go back to Jerusalem. He is in peril for our sakes. The
Greeks may slay him for letting me go. But if I show them that I have
not escaped, Dion may be saved."
"Then let us go to Jerusalem," said Caleb, grasping his sister's hand.
"Let us go."
They went a little way in silence except for the murmur of the
multitude at worship, which at length died away in the distance. They
sat down to rest amid the gray stones of the hillside.
"Hark!" said the lad, "that's Meph!"
"I hear nothing," replied Deborah. Caleb put his fingers to his mouth,
and imitated the three notes of the quail.
"He hears. He is answering. There he has stumbled and dropped his
crutch. He's up again now."
"I hear nothing," repeated Deborah; but in another moment a sun-faded
mat of hair was projected from over an adjacent rock.
"I thought that would bring you," shouted the lame boy, "that is, if
you were anywhere on the outside of your stone cage--that's what I call
Jerusalem. I have been whistling for an hour, like a bird left behind
when the flock has flown southward, and I couldn't call up a mate. But
my! it's good to see you, Caleb, and to-morrow Judas is going to whack
the Greeks again. He knows how to fight. Did you ever see--of course
you didn't, but I did--a little red ant fight a big black ant? Before
black ant can turn, red ant rushes at him and bites him in two in the
middle where his back is as thin as his legs; then he falls to and eats
up the pieces. That's the way Judas fights. You'll see to-morrow or
next day; for the Greeks are coming, sure; and Judas is lying for them,
just as he did at Bethhoron."
So Meph's tongue and his crutch rattled on for an hour.
Nearing the city, Deborah and Caleb concealed themselves behind the
rocks, or wandered, as the women and children do picking dried brambles
for kindling. Meph in the meanwhile acted as a scout, and gave warning
of every moving shadow in the distance. Only once did he sound any
real alarm. It was when several horsemen dashed from the direction
of Emmaus, and made for the west gate of the city. After a while our
wayfarers cautiously approached the northwest corner of the wall, and
disappeared in the crevice. Meph came out alone, and after beating
the bushes wildly with his crutch hobbled off, muttering all sorts of
imprecations on game that will not stand to be caught.
XXXVI
THE TEMPTRESS
The house of Elkiah had been measurably cleansed when Deborah emerged
from the cellar and passed unobserved through the concealed stairway to
her own chamber. Next day she came down into the court. A fawn could
not have been more timid amid its captors than Deborah seemed as, with
apparent surprise and startled look, she emerged amid a group of Greek
soldiers whom Meton had left to guard the property. Equally amazed were
the soldiers.
"Do not harm me. I will go back," cried Deborah, with tremulous voice.
"We'll not harm you," said an awkward man who was in command of the
squad. He attempted a courtesy, which was half a military salute and
half an act of gallantry such as in his peasant days he had practised
upon country maidens. In executing these difficult tactics he let fall
his sarissa, the iron head of which came in such perilous proximity to
Deborah that it seemed to belie his words.
"We'll not harm you, lady. We have no orders about you, seeing that the
General didn't know you were here."
"You will be kind to me, truly?" she begged.
"By all the gods, yes! Stand back, men!"
"I was afraid to come out of the place Captain Dion hid me in when the
Jews took the house. I heard the men shouting, and thought they were
searching for me." She trembled like a child.
"No, lady, we were not looking for you, for we supposed you had got
away," replied the good-natured pikeman. "We have taken out the dead
soldiers which were piled pretty thick hereabouts, and some of them
stuffed into corners where they have died like rats in their holes. But
it's all cleaned up now, except the smell--blood smell always lasts
until the moon changes. The cracks between the pavement stones are red,
but we'll have them scraped too. But it was a pity to have knocked
the arm off Aphrodite. The man that did that will never win himself a
wife--or the goddess has no more blood in her than her statue has. It
might have been your arm, lady, if Captain Dion hadn't hid you. I'll
off to the citadel and tell the General that the Captain didn't let
you escape. I knew he wouldn't. Captain Dion is the bravest of the
whole garrison, and Meton ought never to have ordered a better man than
himself under arrest. When Governor Lysias hears of it he ought to give
Dion the castle, and send Meton to command the camels and ass drivers."
Deborah went to Glaucon's apartment. As she approached she heard
voices. A glance between the curtains gave a picture of the pale
face of her brother, and close to it that of the Princess. She was
beautiful; yes, Deborah thought, as the head of a serpent on its
arching neck, with its rainbow eyes charming its victim. The Princess'
right arm was about the Jew's shoulder; her left hand on his, which
gripped tightly a silken bag. This Deborah recognized as that in which
the jewels of the house of Elkiah were always kept.
"There is no other way, my dearest Glaucon, than that I propose," said
Helena, half embracing him. "Menelaos is determined to have all you
possess. Give me these--no, I will not ask that--but let me care for
them. I can conceal them on my person. We will leave Jerusalem. In
Antioch we can live together. The races, the dances, the wines, and all
the pleasures of the world are there. If we tire of these things as
they are in Syria, we may go to Rome, where half of what we have here
will suffice for a lifetime. In Rome princes and princesses are known
by their jewels and equipages, and no one searches for ancestry any
more than for the pedigree of a beautiful horse."
Glaucon clutched the bag. At length he opened it.
"You may have some of them," he said. "This brooch of pearls was
once worn by Arsinoë, sister of the great Ptolemy Philadelphus,
King of Egypt. It came to my grandfather, who had made many loans
of convenience to the house of Ptolemy, which were never paid. This
cluster of diamonds belonged to the great Joseph, the tax-gatherer,
whose palace of white marble is beyond Jordan. He needed a vast sum
of ready money in order to buy the office of farmer of the revenues
of Syria when our land was under Egypt. He outwitted a whole company
of merchants from Tyre by offering single-handed more than they all
together. It was my grandfather who advanced to Joseph the needed
gold--which, of course, never was returned, as our possession of his
jewels shows. Joseph had nothing finer than these in all his marble
castle."
One by one the gems slipped from Glaucon's fingers into those of the
Princess.
"And that! Oh, how magnificent!" cried she, as he drew a necklace of
scores of precious stones, and spread it into shape upon the ebony
table.
"That I must never part with. It was my mother's, and now is
Debor--Berenice's," said Glaucon, gripping the necklace with hesitating
fingers.
"But she can never claim it, now that she has gone over to the
traitors, and is herself outlawed," argued the temptress.
"Yet it is hers," replied Glaucon, his voice softening as if a tear was
diffused through it. "I cannot part with it."
"Glaucon, my love!" cried the Princess, taking his face between her
hands, and kissing him upon the lips.
Deborah threw aside the curtain, and stood before the frightened couple.
"You monster!" cried she.
Both started from the seat. Deborah grasped the jewels which had fallen
from the fingers of the startled Princess. The woman quickly recovered
her self-possession.
"The traitress! The traitress! Ho, guards!"
"The strumpet of Antioch, how dare she come into the house of Elkiah?"
retorted Deborah.
"By better right, I take it, than the Jewish spy," replied Helena.
"Glaucon, command her to leave this house," cried Deborah.
The coward imitated the chameleon, which changes its color according to
the object that reflects the light upon it; for, as he looked from one
to the other of these women, he became for the moment the victim of
each, and dared to decide for neither.
"If Glaucon will not purge his house of this refuse of the camp of
Apollonius, then will I, that our mother's memory be not polluted.
Begone!" She raised the curtain and pointed to the exit.
The Princess' dignity gave way before the indignant gaze of Deborah, as
weak plants wither in the scorching rays of the sun. Still she moved
not.
"Must I compel you?" Deborah exclaimed. She dexterously drew from
Glaucon's side his sword, ere he could interpose, and poised it at the
throat of her enemy.
"Your paramour Apollonius once quailed before the sword of the daughter
of Elkiah. How shall I spare this miserable remnant of----"
The terrified woman did not wait for the completion of either the
sentence or the threatened action. She ran shrieking from the chamber,
and fell into the arms of--Dion.