"Let him explain when his dead lips can talk; they can't lie. But the
Greek who is to be believed does not live," said another.
"Silence!" cried Judas, and his men slunk away under his indignant
look, as hounds when whipped back from the prey they have caught and
are waiting to tear.
Judas again addressed the prisoner:
"Captain Dion, by the gateway after Emmaus you gave me your hand in
voluntary alliance. No one compelled that act. I then believed yours to
be an honest hand. I will not now fling it from me unless you yourself
shall show that it is unworthy another honest man's touch. Explain your
conduct at Bethzur."
Dion advanced a step. He bowed very low.
"My thanks, Maccabæus! An honest man can ask no more than you have
granted me."
He then put his arm about the shoulder of his fellow-prisoner.
"This man, Maccabæus, is my father, General Agathocles, the commander
of the last phalanx of your foes to fly from the field of Bethzur. Do
with us what you will."
The crowd surged in again, and stared at the noted captive. A huzza
broke forth. Was it in self-gratulation that so important a foeman had
fallen into their hands? Or was it elicited by the dramatic nature of
the scene, as father and son thus stood defenceless except for their
mutual embrace? Judas rose from his seat.
"God forbid that even in war there should be such miscarriage as that a
son's hand should be raised against him who begat him."
Simon interposed, "If they be father and son, it does not disprove
their treason."
"Perhaps accounts for it," said Eliezar, with a shrug.
"Silence, my brothers!" commanded Judas.
Turning to the elder prisoner, he asked:
"Are you General Agathocles? Does Dion speak truth?"
The venerable Greek stood erect, yet trembled with rage, as he replied:
"Maccabæus, never before has man questioned the truthfulness of either
Agathocles or his son without biting the dust. Give me my sword, and
let the gods decide betwixt us."
"Your pardon," instantly replied Judas. "God forbid that I should wrong
one in bonds!"
The Greek as quickly rejoined, and with equal courtesy:
"Your pardon, Maccabæus! I forget that I am your prisoner, and that the
question is right. Let me speak further. There has been no treason to
either Jew or Greek. I was fairly taken in fight. Dion's sword, wielded
in your service, conquered mine. This wound"--pointing to the bruise
upon his forehead--"is the witness. But one sword, Maccabæus, could
have accomplished this--not your own, though so famed for its skill and
weight. Only the arm that Agathocles has trained could get the better
of Agathocles himself--if it be not bombast for an old man to say such
things. I was first my own Dion's captive before I became yours. Treat
me as any other whom your men have taken. War asks no mercy. Do with me
as you will. And for Dion, I ask only your justice, Maccabæan."
"Both shall have justice," replied Judas. "But what is justice? God is
just, and we--we are only men."
He sat down again upon the broken statue of Hermes, and with his
sword-point drew lines upon the ground.
"In one of his moods again," whispered Simon.
But the spell was quickly off. He stood up. His sword trembled in his
hand from the nervous tension with which he grasped it.
"General Agathocles, you are my prisoner. I must maintain discipline."
"That is just and wise, if an old man of many wars may counsel a
younger one. Maintain discipline, or abandon the art of war. Do with me
according to your custom."
"We have no custom in this regard," replied Judas. "It is not our wont
to take prisoners. But I will imitate a custom of your own service,
hard and cruel though it often is. With the Greeks the captive is the
spoil of his captor, to kill, sell, or keep as his slave. Is it not so?"
"It is so," replied Agathocles.
"Then," said Judas, "Captain Dion, do with this man what you will. He
is your prisoner."
There was a murmur of dissent from the crowd. Judas walked away. He
picked up the rusted discus, and flung it ringing along the pavement
until it turned upon its edge and rolled out of sight down the slope of
Ophel.
"Humph!" ejaculated Jonathan, as he watched him. "He has been fighting
with himself to-day, Simon, and as usual he got the worst of it. Well,
Judas is the only man that can conquer Judas, thank the Lord!"
"But why," said Simon, "should Judas be an enemy to himself? There
are surely enough other foes for him, without his throwing away his
own interests. He has put a scorpion into his sandal in sparing these
Greeks. If your surmise about Deborah and Dion be correct, he would
better have made way with them both."
"If my surmise be correct," replied Jonathan, "making way with Dion
would not make way for Judas with a woman like the daughter of Elkiah."
Judas on leaving Ophel strode through the Cheesemakers' Street, turned
into the Street of David, and went to the house of Elkiah.
Deborah was pale as one worn with some great care or long watching.
Judas scarcely noted this. Indeed, he forgot the usual formality of
salutation as he was admitted into her presence, but burst through the
curtained doorway, his big voice ringing out the news like a trumpet
announcing victory.
"Dion is not a traitor! He is exonerated!"
He grasped both her hands in the eagerness with which he told the turn
of affairs. Her beaming gratification led him to more enthusiasm.
"Agathocles is like Dion. Though in a Greek, good blood will tell. It
is like a spring in a muddy lake."
"But tell me more of the evidence in his favor," she asked. "The
circumstances surely seemed against Dion. Everybody condemned him. Tell
me everything. How was it proved that there was no collusion between
the father and son? Who testified for them?"
"Why, nobody testified on their side," said Judas, as if the need of
such testimony had occurred to him for the first time. "My brothers
were for condemning them both."
"And you had secret knowledge of their innocence?"
"None--and yet, Deborah, there were two things which persuaded me.
The one was the bearing of the men. I cannot weigh arguments, but I
know men. Goodness, honesty, honor--I feel these things in men. I have
never been betrayed where I have given my confidence. Sincerity is like
sunshine; it is its own evidence."
"True; and the other thing which persuaded you to Dion's innocence?"
she asked.
Judas mused for a while; then he said:
"Dion had an advocate."
"Who?" exclaimed she. "I thought all were against him."
"Not all, Deborah. As I sat there to judge, you yourself seemed to
stand before me. You said, 'I have trusted this man; and will trust
him. One who has done such things for my father's house cannot be
untrue to any one or to any cause.' And, Deborah, you won your case--as
you always do with me."
"Judas," replied she, "God is in this matter. I was with you, though
I knew it not. I was in prayer. I used the very words you have just
spoken. I said, 'O Lord, I have trusted this man. One who has done such
things for my father's house cannot be untrue.' I prayed that Heaven
would send his vindication."
"Deborah," replied Judas, "are we two so near to each other that soul
speaks to soul without words?"
"God is near to us both, Judas. This I know. He leads me, and He leads
you, as He leads all men by you. And what think you, my brother--for
such, and father, too, you are to me--is not God near to some
Gentiles--to Dion? He has given this man our faith, our spirit of
sacrifice, though he is separated from us in blood."
The conversation was broken into by a loud outcry in the court, which
rang through the house and seemed to fall back again in shatters out of
the sky.
"Dion's free! Dion's free!"
It was Meph. The only check to the lad's joy was the fact that he was
not the first to bring the tidings, as he supposed he was--and rightly,
from the way he had exercised his crutch in getting over from Ophel.
His disappointment was only partially mitigated by the fact that he had
been outstripped as a herald by no one except the great Judas himself.
XLVI
DISENTANGLED THREADS
As Dion and Agathocles went their way from the trial scene on Ophel,
they narrated to each other the events of the score of years of their
separation.
During Dion's childhood the war between Macedonia and Rome was in
progress. General Agathocles had been commissioned by King Philip to
proceed to Italy, and there, if possible, negotiate terms of peace.
During his journey he was set upon by bandits, his credentials from the
King stolen with his baggage. Entering Roman territory he was seized
by the military authorities, who had been warned of his coming as a
Macedonian spy; and, having no documents to disprove the charge, he
was sentenced to the life of a quarry slave in one of the many isles
which the blustering Republic was constantly adding to its domains.
Here he remained for a score of years, until the overthrow of Philip's
ill-fated son, Perseus, at the battle of Pydna, made Macedonia no
longer a menace to Roman dictation over the entire country between the
Adriatic and Ægean. Since the veteran warrior was supposed to have no
longer cause in which to draw his sword, it was restored to his hand.
But the years of his degradation and cruel maltreatment had grown in
the gallant man such hatred of Rome that he quickly sought an occasion
in which to display it.
At his liberation Greece was helpless at the Roman's feet, but the
kindred Greek monarchy of Syria presented itself as an obstacle to
further conquest of the republic in the east. Agathocles therefore
hastened to offer his service to Antiochus.
Had not this political motive actuated the old warrior, a more tender
incentive would have been sufficient for his joining the Syrians.
In Macedonia he learned that Dion was still living, and that he had
joined the army of Antiochus. Agathocles soon traced his son to the
forces operating against Palestine; and, after campaigning for awhile
in Persia and Cœle-Syria, he secured his own transference to the army
under Lycias. This Governor hailed the old soldier, whose reputation
had survived the years of his supposed death, and gave him command of a
Macedonian contingent.
"But how came you, Dion, to join with these Jews?"
"My father, I have never forgotten the words you spoke to me when a
child--though your face and form had faded from my memory. You taught
me always to hate a tyrant. Then Rome was the taskmaster of Macedonia.
In hatred of Rome I gave my sword to Antiochus just as you did. In my
ignorance I imagined that he might some day come to be the avenger of
our country's disgrace. But Antiochus is himself a monster, such as
even Italy cannot breed. In his army here I found myself a tool of an
atrocious despot. Father, it was because I am son of an Agathocles that
I gave myself to these poor people who are defending their land, their
homes, their altars, from this ravening beast."
"Had you no other thought, my son?"
"Not at first," said Dion, "but I have since learned to believe in
the religion of these people. They worship with sincerity. We are
hypocrites. What Greek would shed a tear if his carved god were
taken away? But these Jews bleed at the heart for the sacrilege
Antiochus offers in Jerusalem. I have seen old men drop dead beside
their desecrated altars--dead from the shock of their grief at the
dishonoring of their God. I have seen others die with such tranquillity
of mind amid outward torture that I could not but believe that their
souls were drawn from their bodies by the kiss of the divinity they
prayed to. Father, I have seen peasants who had never practised foil or
been in a battle, suddenly gifted with skill to overthrow the armies
of Apollonius and Seron and Gorgias and Lycias. What is the meaning of
such things as you and I saw at Bethzur, but that this Judas hurls the
very bolts of Jove or of his Jehovah of Hosts, as the people call their
God? I have seen a woman of the Jews, a mere girl in years, do deeds
such as are scarcely invented in our stories. She is possessed of more
wisdom in council than a tentful of our Generals. She believes that her
God helps her--and so do I."
"Is she a beautiful woman?" queried Agathocles, with a knowing glance
at his companion.
"Aye, the fairest of women, father. Pygmalion would have thrown away
his chisel if he had seen the daughter of Elkiah."
"I do not doubt it, since my Dion has evidently thrown away his Greek
sword for her sake."
"Not for her sake, father; but for the sake of a cause which produces
such a woman and such men, such faith and such heroism."
"And such beauty. Eh, my boy? Have I not been young? Dion, you are
in love with this woman, up to your eyebrows, and therefore can see
nothing except through her shape. The mists on the shore make pebbles
look like castles, so the witchery of this beauty magnifies everything
Jewish. Hush, boy! I know it. I have been as young as you."
Both lapsed into silence, except for an occasional ejaculation from
Agathocles: "A Jewess! Well, why not? One must love something."
Was the old soldier merely tantalizing the young man, or was he
voyaging over the seas of memory? At length he put his hand upon Dion's
shoulder.
"This Jewess, my boy; is she very fair? Is she like the picture of your
mother?"
"No, father; she is very different. Yet in soul they must be like;
for surely the gods--surely the Lord could not make two so faultless
without repeating the model."
"And she a Jewess! Well! well!"
XLVII
A QUEEN OF ISRAEL?
The victory at Bethzur betokened a lengthened peace, for campaigns in
other parts of his wide empire were absorbing the mind and resources of
Antiochus. Judas took the opportunity to renovate Jerusalem as befitted
the capital of the new nation. The immense spoils of recent victories
went far toward providing means for refurnishing the Temple and palace;
while the repute of Judas brought him such offered alliances as assured
the safety and growing importance of his rule.
Some would have installed the hero in the office of High Priest, and
thus combined all civil and religious authority in the one person. To
this he would give no ear. The multitude hailed him with the title
of King. This also he repudiated, saying, "I am not of the house of
David, and none but the predicted One shall come to His throne." But
no disclaimer on his part could prevent the enthusiastic huzzas when
he passed along the streets or visited the camps on the hillsides.
At times the word "Messiah" was heard. It never failed to bring such
rebuke that the same lips dared not repeat the acclaim. The people
after a time acquired the habit of greeting him with silent obeisance,
for they knew that his great heart was hurt rather than elated by their
praise.
Yet ambition was not foreign to the soul of Judas Maccabæus. If God had
given him power, was he not to use it? If Israel was again resplendent,
should not the chieftain of Israel wear the dignity? One thing he saw
with special clearness--it was that authority must be centralized and
compactly knit if it were to endure the fraying of factions; and,
further, that it must be perpetuated in orderly descent if it were to
outlive the generation which created it.
This latter consideration, that of an hereditary leadership, was
incessantly urged by his brethren. At length Judas gave signs of
yielding to their importunities.
"I see it," said he. "The rule of new Israel must descend from father
to son. Then let Simon be King, or Jonathan."
"We dare not," replied Simon. "While Judas lives it were blasphemy to
speak another name. The sword of the Lord is the sword of Judas. That
Israel and its enemies know full well. King Judas!" cried he, waving
his sword.
Every sword in the little circle was uplifted, while a reverent "Amen!"
went round.
"I want no such thing as a crown," said Judas.
"Nor," rejoined Jonathan, "did you want to lead us in the field. For
how many moons did you refuse to command, until it was clear that the
people would follow none other? Judas is brave; but not Judas himself
dare fight against the will of heaven."
"Well! A King! What then?" replied he after a pause.
"To marry. To found the Maccabæan dynasty," said Simon, glancing for
approval around the circle.
Judas seemed staggered by the burden which was being bound upon him.
"Let him alone awhile," suggested Simon. "He sees the necessity, and
will conquer himself in this as in other matters."
The day following Judas went to the house of Elkiah.
Long time he and Deborah conversed about the new hopes of Israel. Judas
told of the embassage he was sending to Rome, of the service General
Agathocles might render in Egypt, where the veteran was favorably known
and where the age-long jealousy of the Ptolemies against the Seleucidæ
was always ready to burst into hostilities. They spoke together
with pious enthusiasm of the restored glory of the Temple, and the
restitution of the ancient dignity of the priesthood.
The clouds were for the time lifted from the brow of the champion.
Deborah noted the change. She had never thought of her friend as of
prepossessing appearance; but now his strong and rugged features grew
softer. There was a boyishness in his tone and manner which better
suited his years than they did his experiences of exploit and care. She
began to regard him as handsome. Deborah, in her modesty, as little
suspected the cause of this transformation in her guest as the sun is
conscious of his agency in brightening the objects he shines upon.
"The Lord has blessed me in two respects especially," said Judas,
giving free rein to speech and feeling. "The spirit of our father,
Mattathias, has been given to my brethren, any one of the four being
fitted to take up the leadership if I should lay it down. With Simon
to counsel, and Jonathan to plan, and Eliezar and John to strike, I
am like one with four right arms. And, Deborah, God has given me your
companionship. Without that I should have lost heart."
"Your words give me great joy," replied she, "for during these terrible
years I have had one prayer deeper than all others--it has been for
you; and that I might, however humbly, cheer and sustain you as became
a daughter of Israel."
"And you will continue your sweet and helpful ministry, will you not?"
he asked eagerly. "In this day of our prosperity I shall need you even
more than in the past. I am accustomed to war; I have become, perhaps,
too self-reliant there. But I know not how to organize peace. My hands
are too hard for anything but swinging the sword. Alas! as Solomon said
on coming to his throne, 'I am as a little child, and know not how to
go out or come in.' Deborah, promise me that you will still----"
She interrupted him with eager, almost passionate, remonstrance:
"Promise you? Judas, do I need to promise you anything? Do you not know
that your own heart is not truer to our cause than mine is to you? If
Judas should doubt me, it would kill me. Tell me some desperate venture
by which I can prove my loyalty. Test me, I beg you."
"Some desperate venture? I know of one that will test us both. It is
so desperate that I hesitate to speak it to the bravest woman of all
Jewry."
What sublime audacity there was in her tone as she replied: "If the
champion of Israel is afraid, let him not speak it. But know that the
daughter of Elkiah dares to hear and to do whatever Judas may think."
"Such words would make any coward brave," replied he. "Deborah, the
Jews would make me King."
"A King! Why not? You are already the King, by right of sword, by right
of your people's love, and, if Heaven's will ever had reflection from
earth, by the will of our God."
"You believe in me overmuch, Deborah."
"No! no!" she responded eagerly, "but Judas has this one great
weakness, that he will not believe in himself. Can you not see that
Israel must have a King, and that there is but one head on which the
people will allow a crown to rest?"
"But, Deborah, I could not endure such an honor and such
responsibility--alone. Will you share the venture with me? Will the
Daughter of Jerusalem be its Queen?"
Deborah started as if he had struck her. The flush on her face became
deathly pallor. She trembled as the most timid girl might have done
before her captor in war.
"Forgive me, Deborah. I was too rude in testing your loyalty."
The blood came back to her cheeks. "Loyalty! Say not that word. Let
Maccabæus as King command me, and I will die at his feet. But----"
She sat upon the couch and burst into tears.
"Forgive me! Forgive me!" he cried. "What have I said? I was blind and
stupid. Loyalty? Loyalty I know is not love."
After a moment's silence she said: "Judas, we are both speaking we
know not what. I, too, am but a child, and know not the way of my own
thoughts. Do not take offence, my dear friend; but I would be alone.
Pray for me. And I will pray for you, as I have always prayed--one
prayer for us both. God will give us light."
"Your will shall be mine," he responded, but his manner betokened a
struggle for submission such as no one had ever before seen in this
strongest of men. He stood with bowed head. "We are but two children
lost in the woods. God forbid that we must now find our way by
different paths."
He went away.
Deborah remained for a long time in the spot where Judas left her.
"A Queen! A Queen of Israel! The Queen of the most kingly of men,
though he were uncrowned!" What problems of political import were thus
thrust upon her! What tides of ambition swept over her! The highest,
deepest, purest ambition. She grew dizzy with the confusion of her
thoughts. Their very weight seemed to paralyze her brain. She ceased to
think, and sat down like one distraught.
At length her mind, rested by its brief vacuity, began again its
working.
"A Queen!"
She dismissed this consideration; for, momentous as was the destiny
it involved, there was something else that appealed more urgently
for decision. She was a woman. To her a throne seemed but a passing
circumstance. There was a deeper issue.
"Love is the abiding thing. Can I be--the wife of Judas? Could this
man, noble as he is, possess my life, my soul? Is admiration, or even
reverence and self-sacrificing devotion--is this love? Or does the soul
have depths as well as heights; and does worshipful regard dwell on the
heights, and love in the depths, so that they may be utterly remote
from each other, indeed, antagonistic? Dion is not comparable with
Judas. Judas is on the heights; nothing higher, save God Himself. But
Dion--he has his place, too; but where?"
She now remembered that the beginning of Gideon ben Sirach's story,
which had so nearly made a Jew of the Greek, started in her a glow
of happiness, and that she had felt a strange disappointment at its
conclusion, which still left him a Greek. What did this experience
mean? Did she really love this alien? As one of foreign blood he
could never come into her life. The laws of her people, especially
as interpreted by the Jewish purists, would forbid such a thing as
marriage with him. She had been taught this doctrine by her father. It
was one of the underlying occasions of the war. The Maccabæans regarded
pure blood as next to the purity of worship.
So she said, "Dion cannot come into my life."
Then, having settled the matter so far, she thought of Judas:
"What other woman of Israel would presume to decline such a proposal?
And who am I to set an example of conceit?
"The Queen of Israel!"
Deborah felt the flush of womanly pride mantle her face. It was a
moment when almost any other woman would have turned first to her
mirror, and then dropped upon her knees to thank God.
But even as she framed the image of the popular hero within the thought
of her personal possession of him, the figure of the Greek intruded
itself into the picture. His image was in the background, it is true;
but there it was, nevertheless. She could not help following him with
the eyes of her fancy. Was not Dion's soul as fine-fibred as that of
Judas?
Judas had sublime faith; but this he had inherited from his fathers.
It was wrought through and through his nature by training in the Law
since childhood. But Dion now had the same faith. And this he had
himself acquired, without gift of birth, education, or circumstance.
Is it not even nobler to force one's mind through a thousand errors to
the truth than to have the truth born in one, to discover one's pearl
after delving the seas for it, than to find it in one's ancestral
treasure-box?