IXTHE NASI'S TRIUMPH
Itwas the twenty-fifth day of the month Chisleu, which answers to the Roman December. Ten days before, Apollonius, by order of King Antiochus, had erected in the Temple court an altar to Jupiter Olympus. This day the crowning of the blasphemy was to be perpetrated by the destruction of the ancient altar of the Jews, and the pollution of the great rock where it stood—the rock sacred in the reverence of the nation since Abraham had there bound his son Isaac for the sacrifice; the loadstone of the people during the years of captivity, toward which they prayed when they hung their harps upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon.
Apollonius' invitation to the revellers of the previous night to be present in the Temple court, was honored by the attendance of all that company with the exception of Captain Dion. These, the Governor's guests of honor, occupied a platform near to the gate of the Holy Place, while the soldiers from barracks in the city and camps in the fields swarmed like bees, and settled in disorderly masses everywhere about the Temple mount. The overlooking walls were topped with a dense array of conical felt hats and bronze helmets, while thousands of legs, ending in the heavy cothurn—the buskin worn with gruesome propriety by both tragedians and soldiers—depended from the coping, and dangledabove the heads of the crowd that stood below. Warriors from the mountains of Bithynia chaffed in unintelligible speech with those from the Euphrates, as together they clung to cornices and capitals like chattering bats. Wherever an elevation or projection offered a glimpse of the Temple plaza there was a mouth full of derision for the religion of a people that had not so much as a statue or idol to worship.
At Apollonius' nod an enormous trumpet brayed forth the signal. Men took down the bar that blocked the gateway, where once hung the splendid doors—those which Kallisthenes had burned. A procession, such as might appropriately have had its rehearsal in Pandemonium, entered the sacred precincts. It was headed by a huge Syrian who personated the Jewish High Priest. His gigantic proportions were magnified by an enormous tub, which he wore on his head to burlesque the genuine Pontiff with his flower-shaped mitre inscribed "Holiness to the Lord." On the breast of this buffoon was a clumsy shield, painted coarsely in panels of twelve different colors, to represent the Urim and Thummim, from whose twelve mysterious jewels once flashed the will of the Lord. The pomegranates, wrought in silk upon the vestments of the real priest, and the tiny bells which interspersed them, were imitated by a string of dried gourd shells which clattered against one another as the mountebank strode along.
Behind him came a herd of swine, prodded by soldiers clad as common priests. The mock Pontiff shouted a lewd prayer to Jehovah, and drove his short sword into the throat of a huge black boar, the signal for the slaughter of the herd. Obscenesongs and shouts mingled with the death squeals of the victims, while the blasphemers, stripping bare their lower limbs, danced in the blood which drenched the sacred pavement.
One huge sow was covered with a white blanket on which was inscribed the four letters indicating the name of the God of Israel. This beast was led to what remained of the foundation of the old altar, and there disemboweled. Her broth was scattered about the Holy of Holies, and her offal flung by the hilarious crowd into one another's faces.
Piles of the sacred Rolls, containing the Law collected by the great scribe Ezra, were brought from their cabinets in the Temple. These were sprinkled with swine's filth and burned.
There was then led in a band of captive Jews, mostly of the servant class, since their masters had already been disposed of. These were stripped naked amid hilarious taunts for the sign of their race. Each was forced to hold a piece of the sow's flesh in his teeth. If one allowed it to fall, he was stabbed to death and cast among the carcasses of the beasts.
The crowd grew demented with their blasphemous sport. They demanded more and more human victims. Every Jew found in the streets was haled with insult of tongue and the prick of spear-points to the scene of butchery. The decree of the King granting immunity to certain households was of little moment. While the demonized multitude did not dare to altogether ignore the certificate of royal clemency which was affixed to the gates and lintels of a favored few, private soldiers themselves assumed to test the loyalty of the inmates.
Elkiah's household was thus challenged. The oldman was dragged to his doorway and given the alternative of worshipping Jupiter or being put to death. He took the spices which they thrust into his shaking hand, as if he purposed to drop them upon the Greek altar at the gate. A howl of disappointment rose from the crowd, who imagined that their victim was thus escaping them; but it soon changed to a wild cry of cruel gratification, for Elkiah only looked a moment upon the grains, while his lips moved in some inaudible prayer; then he flung them into the faces of his challengers:
"The curse of Nadab and Abihu, who offered strange fire upon the altar, be upon the son of Israel who this day denies his God! The worms of hell consume you all!"
Before he could be hindered Elkiah threw himself against the little heathen altar. It fell crashing beneath him. The next instant he was seized and thrown like the carcass of a beast across the shoulders of a gigantic Greek, who carried him to the Temple. Here he was cast into a pile of patriots, some still breathing, the most dead.
"The old bigot is gone at last," said his bearer.
"Then I will grease him for better frying over in Gehenna," said another, as he forced a piece of swine's fat into Elkiah's mouth.
The insult revived the patriot. He spat out the uncleanness. Then a strange strength came into the venerable man. Before hands could grasp him he had risen to his feet. His bent form became suddenly erect with the inspiration of his passion. The crowd drew back a little as if the dead had come to life. Elkiah's voice rose to a shrill outcry, and rang above the howling of the multitude:
"Say the heathen, 'The sacrifice shall cease on the altar of Jewry'? It shall not cease. I myself will be a sacrifice. God receive my offering!"
He raised his clenched hands above his head and stood an instant, glaring upon the bystanders like the incarnation of a curse. Then he strode with shaking steps to the side of the old altar, and before any one could stop him threw himself upon the stones. His frame quivered an instant as if a priest's knife were indeed turning in his heart. Soldiers lifted him, and flung him back upon the pavement.
The Jew had conquered. He had made his sacrifice to his God. Elkiah, the Nasi, the last of the Sanhedrin, was dead.
Deborah had essayed to follow her father when his captors took him from his house. A Greek officer seized her and forced her back.
"By all the gods of Greek and Jew, you shall not go!"
The speaker was Dion.
For a little her resolution seemed to yield before the imperiousness of her friend. But her spirit was as a Damascus blade which, suddenly bent, springs back into shape. With a wild cry, "I will go to my father; they shall not harm him!" she broke from Dion. His stronger arms regained her.
"You will not be harmed if you stay here," Dion said; "but both you and your father will perish if you go. None but I can save you, Deborah. By my love I entreat."
"Your love! your love!" There was utter contempt in her tone. "You, a hired slaughterer of our people!"
"Nay, then by my strength you shall not go."
He grasped her wrists. The might of her soul was imparted to her arms, and she had nearly freed herself. It required a rough grip of even the athlete's strong hands to detain her. His hard fingers deeply indented her softer flesh. Her face was contorted with pain. Dion relaxed his hold, but not enough to allow her to escape.
So close they stood that their breaths mingled. If soul were breath, as the one Hebrew word for both signifies, it might be that their spirits touched and mingled also; for the fire slowly died from her eyes.
"You are stronger than I," she said, with panting breath.
"Forgive my use of force," replied Dion; "but I had to choose between offending and saving you. I have seen too many cruelties to dare to let you go from the door."
Deborah's look searched Dion to the heart. She spoke with slow accents, as if uncertain whether to venture the words:
"I will trust you, though a Greek. Let no harm come to my father."
"If man can save him, I will. But do you pledge me, Deborah, that you will not go to the streets. A flower would be safer thrown there under the feet of the mob than you among the soldiers. Pledge me, I beg you; pledge me."
"Then I will wait. But fly! oh, Dion, fly! Your word! Your sword if need be! My father! Oh, my father!"
Dion was gone.
As the Greek hurried away only the arm of the old servant Huldah prevented Deborah falling tothe pavement. She moved close to the street door, but did not open it. There she stood, not unlike the statue of a runner whose whole attitude shows flight while the feet are motionless. She had almost broken her pledge and gone after Dion, but something held her back. Was it her word? She did not think of that. It was rather the word of the Greek; for had he not said, "If man can save him, I will"? She saw that in this man of hated race was the only hope. If he should fail, then God had willed the worst, and she would submit.
Submit? To what? To grief? To bereavement? Yes. To insult? Perhaps to death, for the assailants of her father would not spare his child.
But there was another submission she deliberately contemplated. It was submission to the overmastering passion which had been born last night amid the ruins of the house of Ben Isaac—to become a minister of vengeance for her people. She seemed to hear her father's voice above the din of the street calling her to avenge his name. The shades of the martyrs of Israel in her excited imagination trooped from Sheol, and stood around her as if to lay their hands upon her in ordination to a life entirely devoted to patriotism and religion; devoted, whether with her hands red in the blood of Israel's enemies, or white with nursing service of Israel's distressed people, she knew not, she cared not.
She was aroused from her reverie by the voice of Caleb.
"Sister, shall we not flee? Death is over the house. They have slain our father. I but now heard the passers-by say, 'Elkiah is dead.'"
"Flee, child? Whither can we flee? The angel ofdestruction hovers over us, his wings black, oh, so black! and over all the city, and over all the land. We are safe for the moment only here. We must wait on the Lord, and—on the Greek!"
"Has fear driven away your memory, sister dear?" said Caleb. "There are passages from our home into the great quarry which underlies the city."
"True, child, but we have never learned them."
"But I have. I go where those who can see find no way. From the cellar of our house a way opens into the cellar of our neighbor Moses, and from that into the cellar of Omri. They both fled that way. I heard them beg father to escape with them, but he would not. He declared that he would die in Jerusalem rather than flee so long as the altar of the Lord stood on Moriah. But the altar has fallen, sister; the people in the streets just now said that not a stone of it stood any longer. Were our father here, he would now flee. Come! Benjamin will be safe, since he has become as one of the Greeks, and Dion will care for him. Come! I can guide you, and God will guide me as He always has done. Come!"
"Nay, child, the daughter of Elkiah cannot leave her house while her father lives. He will return—or Dion."
"But our father will not come again," urged the child. "Did I not hear them say, 'The Jew is dead'? Come!"
"I will not believe it until Dion returns and tells me with his own lips. They will not, they dare not kill my father. Besides, I have given the Greek my word."
"Your word to a Greek! What is there in that?"
"True, only my word to a Greek! To a Greek! Then let us go for your sake, child."
She followed the blind boy as he darted across the court to the door which opened into the servants' apartment, and thence into the cellar. At the entrance she stopped.
"Nay, child, I cannot go. I have given him my word."
"Trust not the Greek," cried Caleb. "He will not come back. He dare not if he would. They would kill him if he befriended us or our father. But hark!"
The blind boy stood in an attitude of listening. Then he cried excitedly, "Aye! He comes. I hear Captain Dion's voice in the street. He has turned the corner—now he is at the door."
Dion stood before them.
For a little he was speechless, as if the words he would speak were too cruel to utter. He did not even lift his eyes to the young woman's face.
"Do not speak, sir!" said Deborah. "I know it all. My father has been slain by your people."
"Nay, not slain," replied the Greek. "Your father's God has taken him. As Zeus lives—as Jehovah lives—Elkiah died as only the greatest and best of men can die; no hand struck the blow. On the steps of the altar of his God he himself gave up his life. The gods take the breath of such men with a kiss."
Deborah bowed herself upon the pavement.
"Aye, he was a sacrifice. Oh, my father!" Then she rose. Her eyes seemed to see the ascended spirit as she said slowly:
"Now I swear by thy white locks—by the altar of thy broken heart! I, too, will be a sacrifice!"
The Greek was paralyzed by the sense of his helplessness to say or do anything to mitigate the woman's woe. Though he knew not what it meant, he knew that there was a tragedy in her heart as real as the one that had just occurred at the Temple.
Dion lingered to offer—what? Comfort? Help? Perhaps he acted simply from the instinct by which noble natures wait to give themselves to others for whatever may be needed. One thing he could do.
"Your father shall have honorable interment. I have secured from Apollonius the order that he be buried in the sepulchre of his fathers. With your brother's sickness and the hazard to your life and that of Caleb, I ask your permission that I may be his mourner."
"My thanks, good sir. And my father's God will bless you."
Still Dion lingered, until Deborah herself said:
"Captain Dion, you must go away. This house is no place for a Greek."
"Nay, it is the place for such a Greek as I. Let me help you. Tell me your desire, and it shall be done."
Deborah did not look at her companion. Advancing to the centre of the court where the sun gleamed fairly upon her, she raised her hand. It was not now the attitude of defense from danger such as Dion had seen before. It was not that of daring which had cowed the besotted Apollonius. It was that of supreme spiritual exaltation. It seemed to enlarge her physical form and to transfigure her countenance with the strong glow of inner light. Dion had seen the priestesses of almost every shrine among his own and foreign peoples, but nothing soaugust as this self-ordination of the Jewish maiden to her mysterious service, as she said in suppressed tones:
"Now, O God of my father, I will fulfill my vow! Lead Thou whither Thou wilt. Guide me as Thou hast all true sons and daughters of Israel. Amen!"
Then her eyes rested a moment upon Dion's. A faint smile, or rather the slightest yielding of the rigidness of her alabaster features, denoted a not unkind recognition. If her voice was softened, it lost no tone of determination as she repeated:
"You must go away. I shall need no further help."
"You know not what you say," replied Dion eagerly. "You are utterly helpless here. Your brother's name will not save you one moment from the danger which I know will follow you. You must flee. Can you conceal yourself for a little while? I will return with the dress of a Greek woman, and in that disguise I can take you to a place of safety."
"Nay, go you and bury my father," said she.
"Promise me that you will not pass into the street."
"I will not go—into the street."
"The gods be praised!" cried Dion. He seized her hand, and before she could withdraw it had pressed it to his lips. Then he hastened away.
Caleb had been a silent auditor of all this. Now he ran to his sister's side.
"Not with the Greek, Deborah, with me. You said, only, 'Not into the street'."
"Yes, I will go with you, child. And may your blind eyes see the way of the Lord!"
She passed into the chamber where Benjamin lay.The leech had pronounced his healing sure, though he was not yet recovered from his stupor. Deborah softly imprinted a kiss upon her brother's forehead. She glanced at the familiar objects in the apartment, most of which were sacred with memories. At length her eyes rested upon a little ivory shrine of the Greek Aphrodite, a token of the new religion her brother had embraced. Then she fled from the desecrated chamber.