soldiers of Antiochus fled even more precipitately than did the
traitorous Jews. The grim towers beat upon the fugitives with shadows
like the wings of an avenging spirit, which, indeed, some declared
they saw descend from the sky. A few companies under Meton's closer
discipline kept within the Citadel. Even that Commandant's courage had
been well shaken by the previous disaster to Seron, and his nerves
permanently disordered by the tragedy of the General's suicide in his
presence. The new discomfiture of the more famous Gorgias--a defeat
so thorough that even that great soldier's genius seemed utterly
paralyzed, so that he did not attempt a retaliatory blow--completed the
demoralization of Meton, so that he gave no orders for the defence of
the city at large, being fully content to keep his own skin unpunctured
within the walls of his castle. Judas, having no artillery for
assailing the fortifications which had withstood every assault since
the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was equally content to let Meton be his own
jailer.
The house of Elkiah became the resting-place of the Jewish hero on
the few and brief occasions when he rested anywhere. He was incessant
in his watch. For days he would be absent with his brothers scouting
the country to the eastward. He commissioned the brightest men as
messengers to the tribes not yet allied with him, offering them
either peace or war as their Sheikhs might elect. Envoys were sent
to the Romans, to the Egyptians. He laid out extensive plans for the
restoration and fortification of the city walls. In this he was aided
by Dion, who had already attained a certain celebrity as an engineer
among the Greeks.
For such projects there was urgent call, and for all the resources of
Judas' fertile brain. Lycias, the new Governor of Syria, was collecting
the remnants of Gorgias' army, compacting them with those of Nicanor
and Ptolemy, and enlarging them by daily arriving contingents sent from
all parts of Antiochus' kingdom. The Governor quickly marshalled a
force of sixty thousand, ready to renew the war.
Even these public and threatening affairs did not entirely absorb the
attention of Judas. When in Jerusalem he came daily and watched the
failing life of the blind child. As the lad's body grew emaciate the
blind eyes gained in lustre, the light of his soul flooding them from
within, like stars bursting through a fleecy cloud. Judas would sit by
the bedside of the sufferer, gazing upon the thinning and whitening
face, while his own thoughts were far away among the problems of
statecraft and strategy.
"Yes," he one day said to Dion, "Caleb's eyes are my oracles, as my
father used to say Deborah's were to him. They are to me what I imagine
the water of the deep springs is to your Greek priests. In them I
sometimes seem to see the lines of coming battle, and the shadows of
great events that heaven is preparing to bring to pass."
At times Judas would throw himself upon the bed beside his little
friend, whose restlessness was calmed when he could pass his tiny,
shrunken fingers over the face of the champion. Suddenly the soldier
would kiss the child's hot lips, and, without a word, hasten away to
the towers or the fields, as if prompted by some inspiration.
One day the lad said to Judas:
"Big brother, carry me as you used to do in the Fort of the Rocks."
"Where shall I take you, little brother?"
"Take me to the roof, that I may see the clouds with your eyes--God's
banners, father used to call the clouds with their white and gold. And
I would see, too, the mountains full of the chariots and horses of God;
and hear the winds talk, and tell their strange stories of what is
happening everywhere they go. Take me, big brother."
The lad lay in Judas' arms behind the parapet, his fingers feebly
twining in the thick beard of his giant playmate. The wind came softly
from the south.
"What was the wind saying to you, little brother?"
"It comes from Bethlehem, that I know; and it talks about Bethlehem."
"And what does it say about Bethlehem?"
"It says that you, Judas, were born in Bethlehem."
"How so?"
"Why, it repeated the words of the prophet, 'And thou, Bethlehem in the
land of Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of
thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel.'"
"Say not such things, my child," said Judas, "I was born here in
Jerusalem."
"Do you remember it?" said Caleb.
"No."
"Then I think you are mistaken."
For a while they were both silent. Suddenly Caleb cried:
"Look! Look, Judas! A star!"
"There are no stars now, little brother; it is daytime."
"A star! A star! There it floats over Moab. Now it passes over Jordan.
There! There! A star out of Jacob, which Balaam saw."
The thin hands were stretched out, the eyes fixed, the whole frame of
the child shook with convulsion.
Judas gazed into Caleb's eyes--his fountain of divination--but the
depths were covered, as when a spring is frozen over. Tears from
his own eyes dropped upon the face of the child, which gave back no
response. He pressed his lips against those of the lad. Was it to
breathe into them his own abundant life? or to take from them the
sweetness of the life that was failing? Judas had been called to ponder
great problems, questions involving the fate of a nation, the solution
of which he believed to be the fulfilment of prophecy and the turning
of the highways of history. But here was a deeper study than statecraft
or war--that of the issue of a child's life. Whither was it going? On
what wings would the spirit rise as now it was disentangling itself
from the frail flesh which had held it down for a little while? "What,"
he thought, "is love--the love by which this little one has held my
soul close to his, calming my turbid nature, taming my ferocity, and
making me think of and feel the nearness of God himself!"
A slight tremor ran through the tiny frame. Judas carried Caleb within
the upper chamber, and laid him upon the couch. Then, burying his face
in the pillow, this strongest of men wept with a breaking heart over a
dead child.
Deborah quickly came, and Dion too; for the tidings sped. As they gazed
upon the beautiful face, which seemed but the shadow of the soul that
still hovered over it, Judas repeated Caleb's last words, about the
star.
"It is prophecy," said Deborah. "What saith the Scripture of these
words of Balaam? 'He hath said which heard the word of God, and knew
the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty,
falling into a trance, but having his eyes open,' even as Caleb did,
'I shall see Him soon, but not now. I shall behold Him, but not nigh.
There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of
Israel.' Of whom are these things said, son of Mattathias?"
"I know not, Deborah." For a long time Judas sat with his head bowed
upon his hands. Neither spoke, but worshipped silently by the altar
of their grief. At length Judas said: "But I know that He shall come.
I too 'shall see Him, but not now. I shall behold Him, but not nigh.'
Of whom the words are spoken God knows. It is enough for us that we be
found faithful."
Dion stood by. He looked from the champion to the heroine as they spoke
thus together. Then he, too, kissed the dead child, and without a word
went away.
That day, as the sun was going down, a long procession wound its way
through the streets, and out of the north gate to the rock-hewn tomb
where lay many generations of the house of Elkiah. There they placed
the body of the "little Prophet of Israel," as the people fondly called
him. As they rolled the stone back in its groove, and thus covered the
mouth of the sepulchre, the multitude gazed upon the giant form of
their chieftain. But Judas turned away, and laying his hand upon the
shoulder of Dion, as they walked together back to the city, said:
"Captain Dion, have you anything in your Greek books so beautiful as
this from our prophet Esaias? He is speaking of the days of Messiah,
days to come, when such peace shall fall upon the earth that the 'wolf
also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the
kid--and a little child shall lead them.'"
"In Messiah's days?" responded Dion. "It is already fulfilled, for this
little child has led us both; both you and me."
XLI
A STRANGE VISITOR
There were strange visitors in Jerusalem during these days--Sheikhs
from beyond the Dead Sea, with turbans as big as cartwheels, which
might furnish linen, if not enough for a tent to live in, at least for
one's winding-sheet when dead; chiefs from beyond the Lebanons, with
silken head-housing of flaming colors, bound about the temples with
ropes of wool inwoven with silver and gold threads; men wearing helms
of leather, which capped closely their thick, short hair, and having
short tunics bound about their loins with belts of hide from which hung
heavy half swords--these last from the west, where Rome was challenging
both Alexandria and Antioch for the mastery of the world. Such persons
were drawn to Jerusalem by the fame of Judas; for men wondered if a new
star had appeared which would change the shape of the constellation of
the nations.
Very different in bearing from these warlike and courtly visitors were
two persons who one day accompanied Judas on the street, going toward
the house of Elkiah--a lame lad clattering on his crutch and an old man
tottering on his staff.
"I found him a day's journey--for a fox--to the north--nigh on to
Bethel," said Meph, his sentences broken by the slipping of his crutch
from projecting stones into mud-holes, of which things in about equal
proportion the pavement of the streets of Jerusalem then consisted. "I
treed him----"
"Treed him? Our friend doesn't look like a climbing animal," replied
Judas, laughing.
"Yes, I treed him; that is, I got him under a tree. I knew that a man
like him--would rest more than he would walk--and--I believe--I got
my eyes on every tree big enough to cast shadow over a cony--between
here and Bethel before I spied him. I thought he was dead--for he
didn't hear me come, and I make as much noise--Jonathan says--as a
broken-wheeled chariot. And he would have died--sure--but for some of
this stuff"--producing from his jacket next the skin some fragments
of black bread. "But even then he couldn't talk until I had given
him--but, Judas, you won't put me under arrest if I show you something?"
"No, Meph; you are not enrolled as a soldier, so have a right to
whatever you find."
"Then look at this!" said he, jerking from somewhere under his shirt
a flask of bluish bronze inlaid with patterns of mother of pearl. "I
found this on the crest above Emmaus. Phew! Isn't it fine? I'll wager
you that General Gorgias himself dropped that. Well, I knew there
was something good in it--so I just put it to the old man's mouth.
My! it oiled up his tongue so that he talked faster than I can--on
these stones. And he told me of sailing on the sea--and riding camels
on the desert--and of beasts bigger than houses--with tails on both
ends--which trampled to death whole companies of soldiers with a single
step on them."
"Elephants," interjected Judas. "The old man has travelled far if he
has seen these monsters. They say the King has sent some of them to
Governor Lycias for his next fight with us."
"Whew!" whistled the boy. "Can I go and see them?"
"Maybe----"
"Well," resumed Meph, "when the liquor had dried out of his throat--the
old man stopped--and I couldn't get another word out of him except
'Dion! Captain Dion!' I told him I knew a Captain Dion. Then he got up
and went with me--for about a furlong when--he fell down--and so up and
down--up and down--we went all day--and all night, too--for he wouldn't
stop until he got here."
The old man was stumbling on with Judas' strong arm beneath his
shoulder, now and then putting his hand to his ear, trying to catch
what Meph was saying.
A few moments later they were within the house. The stranger was
utterly exhausted, but, though unable to rise from the couch upon
which they had laid him, his eyes were alert to everything. He studied
the furniture as if it had memories stored in its carvings. The faces
about him seemed to disappoint him, but each swing of the curtain of
the chamber riveted his attention. He ate and drank a little of what
Deborah brought him; then fell asleep, muttering in his dream:
"It's Dion I want. Don't take it, my child. Wait--wait; I will find
you. The sea is not wide enough nor the mountains high enough--for
Gideon ben Sirach is strong yet."
Though broken, his sleep was long. The sun went down, the night passed,
and still he slept.
"I fear he will not awake again," said Samuel, the physician. "The
breathing is heavy, and grows shorter. His secret is his and God's."
"So let it be!" said Dion. "I don't know how it can concern me. I do
not care to know any mystery that may have been over my past life,
since now I have come into a clearer light. I could well wish that all
the past were forgotten, and that life could begin to-day."
"So it may, friend Dion," replied the physician. "If God can forget
anything, will not that make it as if it had never been? Read our
Scriptures. How often the Lord says, 'I will not remember.' Where go
the clouds when the north wind blows upon them? But saith the Lord, 'I
will blot out as a thick cloud thy transgression.'"
"It is a good word," said Dion. "I would trust it. But see, our pilgrim
stirs."
A slight tremor ran through the old man's frame.
"This is death!" whispered Samuel.
The physician's look, which had hitherto denoted only anxiety for his
patient's recovery, quickly changed. It was now not less eager, but one
merely of curiosity. He held the patient's wrists, and brought his face
close for a study of death.
Though Samuel knew that the flight of a soul cannot be followed,
he gazed intently as if to detect its direction in starting, or at
least to note which fibres of flesh longest retained their grasp of a
departing spirit.
But he was baffled. The sleeper suddenly threw his arms above his head,
hard knit his hands, then drew in a deep breath and expelled it with a
groan.
"No! He lives! The sleep has only refreshed him!" cried Samuel.
"Has Gideon ben Sirach rested well?" he asked, bending over him.
The man gazed stupidly at the physician, then with a yawn fell asleep
again.
"Well, let him rest, and when he wakes we will have his story, if it
takes some of the medicine from Gorgias' flask to start it."
"Doubtless," said Dion, "his story will prove only a dream that has
oozed out from some crack in his brain. We shall need one of your
Josephs or Daniels to interpret it."
"If it is so obscure as that we will summon Meph," replied the
physician. "That boy seems able to solve riddles with a punch of his
crutch."
XLII
A CLOSE CALL FOR DION
"If the Lord give me strength to end it," said Gideon ben Sirach the
day following, as he sat up on the edge of the couch, and rested his
hands on the top of his staff. "If the Lord give me strength, I will
tell the tale--if such you may call it--which has never yet passed my
lips."
His black eyes, far sunken beneath his long and bristling brows,
gleamed sharply with the effort to penetrate their partial blindness,
and scan the faces of his auditors.
"As the Lord liveth! I may trust my words in your ears, Judas, son of
Mattathias, whose father has a score of times taken from my hands the
Passover Lamb, and slain it for the feast in my master's house. And in
whom can I confide if not in the daughter of Elkiah, the just man, Nasi
of our Sanhedrin in days when not even the gold of Egypt or Syria could
bribe it to wrong judgment? And if this man be not Dion, page of King
Philip of Macedon, and Captain in the army of his son Perseus, may my
words be deafness evermore in his ears if he listens to them."
"Amen!" responded Dion. "I am your man so far."
"Aye, and let thy Amen be the anathema of an old man whose eyes in
Sheol may soon look upon the face of my master, to whom and to God I
go to render my account. My son, put thy hand beneath my thigh, and
swear that thou art he."
Dion obeyed. As he did so Gideon put his hand upon the young man's
brow, and pushed back the thick curling locks. He felt with his long
thin fingers beneath the hair; then suddenly cried, with excitement
that barely allowed distinct utterance:
"Thou art Dion, but not the Greek."
"I am Greek for as many generations as thou art Jew," replied Dion,
laughing. "I swear, old man, that I am a Greek."
"The Lord forgive your oath!" replied Sirach. "But what was I saying?
Had I told my tale?"
"No, good man, you had not yet begun it. We are waiting to hear it and
to believe it, if it be not too incredible, for your memory seems as
tangled as your tongue."
"Aye, and believe it you shall. There was once in Alexandria, in the
days of Ptolemy called Euergetes--that damnable king who bade them
gather all the Jews in the hippodrome that they might be trampled to
death by the feet of his elephants--there was among these sons of
Abraham one named Nahum, son of Nahum of Jerusalem. By a miracle from
the hand of the Lord the infuriated beasts were tamed and harmed not
one of our people, even as the lions in the presence of Daniel."
"We have heard the story," said Dion, impatient at the old man's
prolixity.
"Nahum escaped death; but, having been a leader of our people against
the tyrant, Ptolemy followed him and his children with persecution. He
seized the estates, and sought to kill all his lineage. Nahum fled.
"Sara, daughter of Nahum, was befriended by a noble Greek of Macedon,
who took her as a child to his own house. She grew fairer than the
flower of the lotus, her mind brilliant as the diamond, her virtue
white as the pearl. By most she came to be esteemed a Greek, for her
father's friend bestowed upon her all the culture of his people. But
the God of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob and Rachel, was with her. There
came to Alexandria a son of the faith, as Isaac the patriarch came
to Padan Aram. My master, Shattuck, espoused this woman, Sara. She
bore him a son. But upon the child's face the father never looked.
Journeying to Alexandria Shattuck was lost, whether by the hand of the
robbers of the desert, or through the jealousy of others, I may not
say--for I am too old a man to speak the thoughts which it were well to
bury with my body. The child's life was sought, I know not by whom; but
this," Gideon bared his arm, across which was the scar of a wound that
had well-nigh severed it near the shoulder, "this arm took part of the
stroke which, but for it, would have exterminated my master's house."
Dion had been listening not only with incredulity, but with some
disposition to make sport of Sirach's story. He now took the hand
of the old man, and gazed upon the scar as if it were an object of
religious reverence. He then pushed his fingers through his own hair in
a manner that was not his habit even when deeply thinking.
"Old man," said he, "if I were the baby for whom you took that slash,
I would build you a tomb as big as Absalom's down there in Siloa. That
cut would have taken the top off a man's head."
Sirach continued: "These arms carried the boy to the house of the
noble Greek, always the friend of Nahum's daughter. This man suddenly
disappeared from Alexandria, taking with him Sara and her child. I
learned that they went into Macedonia; and that he might shield the
repute of Sara he claimed her as his wife and the lad as his own son.
Meanwhile I was in charge of the wealth of Shattuck my master.
"The property of my master in Alexandria was of great value. For many
years--God is my witness--Gideon ben Sirach has guarded it. Not a
shekel of it all has passed to others. Faithful men of our race have
stood with me against those, high in the King's favor, who would have
taken it. So long as the death of the child cannot be proved the
estate remains. His death established, all will be alienated to the
state, which in Alexandria means to those whose favor the King buys by
granting them the liberty to rob whom they will.
"The child of Sara I have searched for far and wide. While the Greek
lived he could not be induced to confess that he was not the lad's
father. His pride and contumely for our race--no, I will not say such
words--his love for the boy forbade it.
"When the noble Greek died a few years later, the child disappeared.
I traced him to the court of Philip, where he was in waiting, and
afterward, as he grew to be a man, to the camps of Perseus, and at last
into the service of Antiochus. Wherever the armies of Syria have gone
Gideon ben Sirach has followed, but with too slow a foot. When this
new Antiochus--the Lord rot his bones!--poured his legions into our
Holy Land, I pursued. But, as a Jew, I have been expelled from his
camps--until now--the Lord's name be praised! My eyes behold the son of
Shattuck."
Sirach reached his hands toward Dion to embrace him. The young man
recoiled as if from defilement.
"Sirach is demented! Ha! ha! Dion a Jew! Dion ben Shattuck! Oho! But
take no offence, friend, at my words. I have no doubt that Shattuck was
more worthy of my paternity than I am of inheriting his shekels. But
the whole thing is a dream of Sirach. His memory is as confused as his
tracks have been while searching for his Dion. That I may have been
taken for such a waif is quite possible, since I have been a homeless
fellow--just the one to gather myths, as the crooked oak on Olivet
draws flocks of wild pigeons to its dead boughs. But there is nothing
in it. I am not your Dion, my good man, for all I like your story."
"Thou art not Dion? True, true," said Sirach, "thou art not Dion,
because thou art Gershom; for so Sara, thy mother, called thee; for she
said, 'He is a stranger amid a strange people,' as thy name Gershom
signifies."
"Is there such a name among the Jews?" asked Dion. "I have never heard
it. But what sign, Sirach, have you? I surely was never circumcised."
He burst into laughter.
"Sign? Sign?" cried Sirach. "By the scar on thy forehead which my
fingers felt when thou knelt, I know thee."
Dion was for the instant startled, and felt again amid his curled
locks. At length he burst again into loud laughter.
"I have now the clew of Sirach's credulity. As a child I was known
for my crown jewel, as my playmates called the scar on my head. As a
page they dubbed me 'Prince' because of it, and now my cock's comb of
a scar has been good Sirach's decoy. Ha! ha! I bethink me there was a
fellow in Philippi, a Jew adopted by a Greek, who wore a split scalp.
I got my decoration in this way. As a child I played with my father's
great sword. One day it fell on me, and but for the hand of some god as
helpful as the arm of Sirach to his little Gershom, I had never lived
to become the hero of such a pretty tale as our friend has told. But
now, Sirach, I will give you a challenge in turn--tell me the name of
the good Greek who so befriended your little Gershom's grandfather,
Nahum, in the hippodrome."
Sirach sat staring at Dion, as if his words had stunned him.
"Tell us the noble Greek's name, Sirach--the Greek who was Sara's
father's friend."
"Yes, yes," said the old man, "Nahum's friend was Ctesiphon,
Ctesiphon----"
"But I--I am the son of Agathocles," fairly shouted Dion. "I am not son
of any Ctesiphon."
The old man rose. He attempted to speak, but his throat gave no
utterance. His face twitched as if pulled by strings. He sank back upon
the couch. His eyes followed Dion; otherwise he was motionless.
"He would tell us more," said the Greek, and bent above him, held by
a strange fascination. But the lips did not move again. An intense
longing came into his eyes, as if the soul would speak without need of
voice.
"It is a stroke of God," said Samuel. "He will tell us no more. I
surely thought he had you, Dion, for as good a Jew as the rest of us."
"But for my father, Agathocles', memory I had not cared," replied Dion.
"If my sword be Jew, why not the hand that holds it?"
"I will send my servants," said the physician, "and have Gideon
removed. He is taken in dumb palsy, a disorder I would study. In my
house he shall have comfort while life abides in his frame, which will
not be long; although I have known such to live for many moons."
"He shall remain here," commanded Deborah. "He is a true Jew, servant
to my father's friend."
XLIII
BATTLE OF BETHZUR