XLVTHE TRIAL
Themorning after this conversation the two prisoners were summoned. The court was held in the open portico of the gymnasium on Ophel. Captain Dion and his companion were brought there, their arms still bound. Judas had been pacing the portico, absorbed with his own thoughts.
"The prisoners, sir," said their custodian.
Judas sat down upon a fallen statue of Hermes, near it a rusted discus. Slowly he raised his head, as if loath to so much as look upon one taken in such shame as that of Captain Dion. He glanced first into the face of the older prisoner. In spite of his unkempt condition this man was imposing. His erect attitude belied his wrinkles as a token of age. The blood from an undressed wound still clotted his brow, but this could not hide the rare nobility of his features.
Judas studied the man a long time in silence. He seemed fascinated by the stranger's appearance. If what the Greek orators had on this very spot declaimed were true, that a goodly physical endowment is the outweaving of goodness of soul, Judas' decision had been an instant discharge of the prisoner.
He turned to Dion. Before his eyes rested upon the Captain, Judas forced a look of severity, knitting his features into hardness. As when a soldier puts a chain corselet over his breast, so Judas hadevidently determined to guard his sense of strict and merciless justice against any temptation that might come from his former liking for the culprit. The muscles of his face were set like linked steel.
Captain Dion returned his judge's gaze with perfect self-possession. There was neither blush nor pallor, nor flicker of fear, nor sign of resentment.
"Take off those ropes," commanded Judas. Then, turning to a soldier:
"Your report, Captain Jacob!"
Captain Jacob related the events attending the capture, as he himself, in charge of the company that made the arrest, had witnessed them. He stated that Dion and his accomplice were caught in apparent hiding, engaged in conversation which betokened familiarity and mutual understanding. Several others confirmed Captain Jacob's evidence, and added details which deepened the color in the picture of the plotters, and, at the same time, brought out the shrewdness and courage of their captors.
The clouds massed more heavily on Judas' brow as he listened. There were moments with this strange man when, without uttering a word, his aspect became almost as terrible as when shouting his battle-cry, "Mi-camo-ca-ba!" At such times his friends would turn away, dreading the outburst when the hot lava of his soul should reach his lips.
When the testimony against the prisoner was ended, Judas remained for a long time silent. At length he spoke. The words came slowly, as if each were compelled to halt and answer the challenge of a sentinel placed before the door of his lips.
"Has Captain Dion any explanation of what is charged against him?"
Dion's coolness matched that of his interrogator. There was neither stoical bravado nor shame in his confession:
"Maccabæus, every word these men have spoken is true."
A murmur of rage at the prisoner's audacity ran through the crowd, as they pressed close about him.
"Is not this enough?" cried Simon, putting his hand to his sword as if he himself would serve as executioner on the spot.
Judas raised his hand. The angry multitude moved back, yet every man stood ready to be the minister of Judas' vengeance the moment the signal should be given.
"Captain Dion," said the judge, "I did not ask you to either confirm or deny what these true men of Israel have said. Your confirmation would not add a feather's weight to their veracity, nor would the denial of ten thousand Greeks shake our confidence in them. I ask not your testimony, but your explanation."
"We need no explanation," muttered Eliezar.
"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 meunless 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 withoutbiting 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.