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.