VIIIDEBORAH DISCOVERS HERSELF
Withthe impulse of flight Deborah glided out from beneath the portal of Apollonius' palace. For a moment she glanced backward, as if her soul would hurl its final malediction upon her enemy. Then she was seized with fright as she realized her danger. The lanterns which hung about the great doorway and throughout the court, with their transparent screens of red and yellow and blue, glared upon her like the eyes of demons. She ran at first without thought of her direction, driven by a wild impulse to escape.
When she reached the open street the light of the moon, shining down serenely between the house-tops, seemed like the white shield of some heavenly defender to save her from the pursuing lanterns. She paused to think. Whither should she flee? Should she flee at all? Caleb? Surely he must be somewhere in the place she had left. With that thought her feet became as lead. She could not desert the child.
She would go back, demand admission to the presence of the tyrant, and risk anything, everything, for her brother's liberation.
Quickly she saw the futility of this project. She might not be readmitted, and if so, Apollonius would now avenge himself by the accomplishment of his original purpose. What should she do? Ifshe went to her home, would not some emissary of the enraged Governor intercept her? Surely this proud and remorseless man would not let her live to tell the story of his shame.
Partly from instinctive caution, partly from the feeling that the darkness of the night better fitted her own uncertainty of purpose, she kept close to the houses on the shadowed side of the narrow street. Though she walked on rapidly, her soul stood still, like a sentinel peering through the gloom that echoes the step of some as yet unseen danger.
By her side at length loomed piles of fallen stone and half-standing walls. These were the ruins of what a few weeks before had been the elegant residence of Ben Isaac, one of the wealthiest merchants of Jerusalem. It had been razed by order of King Antiochus, who had first pillaged its treasures and then carried its master captive to Antioch, and there exacted from him by torture the remnant of his riches.
Deborah turned in amid the ghastly wreck. The wild desolation so fitted her experience that the spot seemed restful. The moon was sinking toward the west, and poured its full lustre against a still-standing wall. The very sharpness of the beams cut a block of contrasted darkness on the side toward the east. Deborah climbed over the rough stones and hid within the shadow.
Beneath her lay, like snowdrifts, the squat domes and flat roofs of the houses in the lower Street of the Cheesemakers, once the homes of honest artisans and tradespeople, now the sleeping-troughs of the vile herd hired to trample out the life of the nation.
Beyond, the vision broken only by the massive shape of the Temple on Moriah, lay the vale of Jehoshaphat, the quiet slopes of Olivet, and the long hills to the north glittering here and there as the moonlight fell upon the hated tents of the enemy. As the rising sea pours its tide into a narrow creek, so there came upon her a sense of her nation's shame and woe. At first her power of definite thought seemed destroyed by the flood. Why could she not cease also to feel? Why could she not die and become as insensate as the stones, these other ruins about her?
At length she realized a strange transformation taking place within her; she felt that she had grown suddenly to be no longer a child, but a woman. Nor was she merely a woman of Jerusalem, but a strong avenging spirit. She drank the bitterness of her own heart, and was intoxicated, frenzied, with it. She, who had never felt anything but love, had now learned to hate, and it seemed good to her. Then she became frightened at this revelation of herself to herself. She had possessed a mastiff, gentle, affectionate. Little blind Caleb would lie between its great paws as in the lap of Huldah. Once the beast was stoned upon the street. From that day his temper was changed. He became a savage brute; doubtless his original wild nature reasserting itself. Was she herself not some cruel, vicious spirit suddenly awakened?
She prayed, "God save me from myself!"
An answer came. It did not allay her excitement, but exalted her; seemed to inspire her.
The music of revelry in the tents beyond the walls became to her spiritualized senses like the timbreland song of Miriam of old, when that woman led the hosts of Israel by the waters of the Red Sea. Was not her own name Deborah? and did not a Deborah once lead her nation in battle? She remembered how her father had bemoaned her being only a girl, unless she could grow into another Deborah indeed. She heard again the words of the ancient song, "Awake! awake, Deborah! awake! Awake! Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive!"
If she could not imitate the great prophetess, why could she not emulate the deed of Jael, who drove the nail through the head of the sleeping Syrian general, Sisera? Why had she not slain Apollonius? A woman, a common woman of Israel, had delivered her land; why should not she? She murmured aloud the words of the Scripture, "Blessed above all women shall Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite, be; blessed shall she be above all women in the tent."
Then she prayed, "Oh, God of Israel, take Thy handmaiden for what Thou wilt—for what Thou wilt!"
A chill, as of a wind from icy Hermon, ran through her frame, though the night was not cold. Was this the breath of the Lord? Then her blood became like liquid fire, and burned along the veins. Was she in communion with the divine fury? Again her flesh felt a cooling sensation, as if fanned and softly touched by an angel's wing. Was not an angel with her? These experiences were repeated again and again.
Long time she sat upon a stone amid the ruins. She hailed the moonlight that lay beyond as someall-watchful Power; the shadow in which she sat became like some awful Presence. Was not this a token of God's will, approving her own thought to become an avenger of the wrongs of her people?
At length the moonlight faded; the shadow disappeared, for the dawn sent its ruddy gleams along the east. That was to her the smile of the Lord. Henceforth she was to be, not the daughter of Elkiah, but the daughter of Jerusalem; the child of her nation; the sacrifice, if need be, for her people. The fire had been put out on the Temple altar. Holy priests could no longer bind the brutes for sacrifice. But the great cause of God was itself the altar, and she—she would cling to that altar, binding herself there by the cords of a willing consecration. With the words of an oft-repeated psalm—words that had a meaning infinitely deeper now than she had ever conceived before—"Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God; bind the sacrifice to the altar," she stepped out of the shadow of the wall into the blending light of the setting moon and rising sun.
In an instant she darted back into her retreat. The stalwart form of a soldier was passing; but she was too late to escape his detection. The man halted, put his hand above his eyes as if to brush away the darkness, and turned in among the ruins.
Captain Dion's search for Deborah in the camp of Cleanthes beyond the Kedron had, of course, been fruitless. As he returned to the city, what had heretofore been a vague suspicion of the treachery of Apollonius became a conviction, and filled him with rage. Had he questioned himself, he would have said that his wrath was because of the personalinsult the Governor had put upon him, in tricking him in his purpose. He even thought of the slight at the banquet when Apollonius refused to allow him the honor of being Feast Master. Dion was not aware—for he had no skill in introspection—that he had been driven over the stones of Kedron and through the streets of the city like a madman, by love for a girl; that but for such fuel to his passion his resentment against Apollonius might have died away, or been suppressed by the sense that it was imprudent to antagonize one so much his superior in rank.
Dion's mind was somewhat confused by its own effervescence when he passed along the street in front of the house of Ben Isaac. His attention was drawn by a figure moving amid the ruins. Was this some strolling woman? Surely none would seek such a place at such an hour. He was not superstitious, but might not this be some shade of the slaughtered household of Ben Isaac? or, perhaps, one of the former servants searching furtively for jewels and coins which were known to have been concealed in secret nooks between the walls? His curiosity, if not his soldierly duty, would have led him to inspect.
With drawn sword he strode in between the fallen stones.
"Out of this!" he cried.
Captain Dion was a brave man, but at the moment he preferred that any pilferer might escape rather than he himself should encounter the ghost of a dead Jew. With the sun rising and a goodly rattle of a carnal weapon any self-respecting wraith from Hades ought to flit back to his appointed shades.
He turned the angle of the standing wall. Surely that was no apparition. Deborah stood with right hand uplifted to challenge the intruder. It was the attitude Dion had seen within Elkiah's gateway. He would scarcely have recognized her otherwise, so changed was she in feature by the tragedy of the night.
"The daughter of Elkiah! Gods! why are you in this place? What villainy have you fled from? Tell me, and I swear that I shall not sheathe my sword until you are avenged."
The familiar voice recalled her.
"The child! My Caleb!" she cried.
"The lad! He is at home. I found him; I brought him."
Complete as had been her transformation from a child into a spirit of vengeance, the kindly tone and news brought by Dion made her a girl again. She felt her weakness, her need of protection. She sat upon a stone, and the tears which she thought had been forever dried within her by the terrors of the night, burst forth as from a fresh fountain.
"My dear Deborah——"
She shrank from Dion's touch as he laid his hand upon hers, but it was only for an instant; his interest in her was evidently too sincere for her to resent. Jew and Greek, of races divided by eternal hatred, yet, as beneath the deepest sea the land connects the shores, they were two human creatures. Need and helpfulness—they are the two lobes of one heart, and beat from common impulses. She allowed him to take her hand in his, as even her blind brother would have done.
She said nothing of Apollonius' insolence. Hadshe told that, our story would have been different, for Dion's hot blood would surely have anticipated the great Avenger who was to come.
As they walked toward her home, the Greek studied furtively the face of his companion. How changed! He assigned for it but one occasion, her loving anxiety for her father and brother. He had known but little of such emotions, for his own life had been from childhood among the friends whom rank or chance had brought him; love was to him only a closer good comradeship. But now, through Deborah's eyes he seemed to be looking into unknown depths, fathomless places of the soul, while heretofore in his intercourse with women and men, he had sounded only the shallows.
As they neared the house of Elkiah, Deborah with the frankness of a child said:
"The Lord reward you, sir, for your kindness to me and to my father's house!"
"Will not your God reward me by letting me serve still further one whom, before all the gods, I have learned to love?"
She surely heard his words, but did not take in their meaning. Love? Yes, for her brother Benjamin; the love which a valiant soul has for doing any chivalric deed; the love which is respect and sympathy for one in distress—this was all she took from his words. How could a Greek mean more when speaking of love to a daughter of the race he was commissioned to destroy?
With these thoughts—or was it with lack of real thought about the significance of Dion's words?—she entered her house, and the Greek went slowly back to his camp.