XVIIA FAIR WASHERWOMAN
Thevictory of the Jews at the Wady winged the fame of Judas far and wide. Among his own people the chosen war-cry "Mi-camo-ca-ba" gave place to the contracted word "Ma-ca-ba" or "Maccabee," the Hammer, a title significant of the swift and crushing blows with which he smote the enemy.
Even the tribesmen about the borders of the Holy Land, the Horites in the caves of Petra, and the dwellers in the flint castles of the desert, wondered if a new deliverer had risen in Israel. In black tents on the plains and in strongholds among the cliffs were told again and again the old stories of the Jewish judges; while the Arab sheikhs of the Jordan valley deliberated if it were not wise to cast in their lot with a people who, even if not favored directly of heaven, might by such human valor as Judas and his men had displayed, beat back the deluge of Greek power which threatened to submerge their own as well as Israel's possessions.
Among the Jews the enthusiasm was like a fire amid brambles, so rapidly did it spread. Simon, the Wise, was persistent in his counsel for patience, and for wide and cautious preparation.
"Remember, my brethren," said he, "that we are not boiling a pot, but are to consume the very Cedars of Lebanon—for such is this gigantic powerof the north which menaces us. The fight in the Wady was but the beginning of battles. Antiochus has many armies. He will gather fresh hordes from the nations which own his sway. We have only wounded this wild beast of Antioch. He will turn again upon us with more ravening strength."
The news of the overwhelming defeat of Apollonius brought consternation to the Greeks, and especially to the renegades in Jerusalem. Every one who repeated the tidings added what he or she feared, until the numbers of the Jewish patriots were swollen to vast multitudes in the popular mind. The more sagacious assumed that the Jews must be in alliance with the great nations which were contesting the dominion of Antiochus beyond the deserts in the Euphrates valley. Some had it that the Egyptian Ptolemy had resumed war against Syria; and even Rome was rumored to have thrown her sword into the scale; for it was incredible that an untrained peasant, with so small a force of herdsmen as the Jews were reputed to have had, could outwit one of Apollonius' astuteness, and with a single blow shatter his phalanges.
Imagination, made sensitive by fright, pictured the valleys beyond the hills filled with strange armies. Squads of Greek horsemen would scurry rapidly across open fields, then halt for long observation on the hilltops before venturing another dash. Popular superstition transformed Judas himself into a demi-god, or one of the ancient worthies of Israel, Samson or Gideon, returned to earth.
"They say he is as big as Pelops, and carries a whole tree-trunk for his mace," said a Greek soldier, looking stealthily behind him, and watching anolive clump whose stiff branches shook in the evening breeze.
The gates of Jerusalem were now closed by day as well as by night. Watchers patrolled without the walls, so that not a goat approached without being scrutinized, "lest," said a Greek wag, "his horns should prove to be the head-piece of another Alexander, the great Macedonian, who wore such horns for his crest."
The only inhabitants permitted free access and egress at the city gates were the women who went daily to the brook Kedron, bearing loads of clothing which they hastily washed in the running water, with faces made white as the linen by the stories their fright invented. At any moment this terrible Judas might leap upon them out of the hills or the heavens.
A group of these women were one morning at the Siloam pool. Among them was one of well-bronzed face, and short black hair which sprayed out beneath the close folding of her soiled kerchief. This woman was accompanied by a child who sat upon the brink of the brook, that his feet might feel the brush of cool water as it flowed by. She untied a hamper of garments which she had carried upon her head, and, tying up her skirts above her knees, waded into the stream. Like the others, she dipped the pieces altogether into the water, pounded them one by one with a short wooden club, then wrung each garment into a tight little bundle, and flung it upon the bank.
Suddenly a cry arose among the women. A cloud of dust appeared upon the old road leading from Bethany. All gathered their laundered work, andhastily climbed the steep ascent to the southern gate of the city.
"Is it Judas?" asked the boy. "Can we get in before he catches us?"
"If we hurry," replied the woman. "Come."
"I wish it were Judas," said another, pausing in the shadow of the tower above the gate. "Since these Greek fashions have come there is nothing but wash, wash. The new Princess has enough white linen to cover the peak of Hermon as the snows do, and enough coloured garments to make her like a sunset."
"Is she beautiful?" asked the strange washerwoman.
"So the men say, but——"
"But? Go on."
"Why, you yourself, girl, would be fairer than the Princess if you had one of her jewels in your hair. And as for her figure, no one sees her except as she lies like a painted statue in the palanquin. She may have a turtle's back and duck's legs, for all she arches her neck like a swan."
The clamour of the washerwomen sufficed without further watchword with the sentry at the gate, who opened to them the "needle's eye" or small door. Once within the city they could not be induced to venture out again for the day, though assured that the imagined Judas was only a Greek courier riding from the direction of Jericho, who brought tidings that no enemy was to be seen for a distance of twenty stadia in any direction.
Passing the cellar-like tunnel beneath the city wall the laundresses scattered, each in her own way, through the streets.
The woman we have described, with her load upon her head like a huge turban, and with the lad clinging to her skirts, went up the Cheesemakers' Street to the Street of David. She paused an instant by the little altar which stood by the street door of the house of Glaucon, whether in detestation of this sacrilege of a home devoted to piety or to offer a pinch of incense, an observer could not have told. She rapped sharply at the gate. The bar was instantly dropped from within. A short, stout man, whose long temple locks were well whitened with years, stood in the half opening.
"What do you want?" said he, as he saw the unexpected visitors.
Before the woman could make response, the child had uttered a cry, "It's Ephraim! It's Ephraim!"
The man started back, and stared at the lad.
"As the Lord liveth!" he exclaimed, and caught the boy to his arms. "Surely Sheol has opened its gates. But where, woman, have you found him?"
"It's Deborah, too!" cried the lad. "Are you blind, Ephraim, that you cannot see Deborah?"
The woman passed through the door, and dropped the bundle from her head upon the pavement of the court.
Old Ephraim gazed stupidly at her. Then he clutched the boy closely, as if it were necessary to re-enforce vision by feeling the living child, ere he could credit his senses.
"God be praised! It is she. My master's children, both!"
Overcome as by an apparition, the old servant staggered for a moment, then with a spasmodic burst of strength grasped the door, swung it shut,dropped the heavy cross-bar between the lintels, and stood with his whole weight against it.
"Ephraim, I am not pursued; no one will harm me here," said Deborah.
"No one dare touch you here," replied he, with a fierce look at the closed portal, as if in challenge of men and demons without. "No one will touch you here, but—but you shall not go away again."
Ephraim glanced up at the sky, which dropped its light into the open square court around which the house was built, as if he would close that way of exit also, apparently imagining that it was only by some such aerial flight that Deborah had formerly disappeared.
"Is Benjamin here?" inquired Deborah.
"Benjamin! God bless your lips for speaking that name once more. It's many a day since we have heard anything but 'Glaucon,' 'Glaucon,' as the son of Elkiah has gone in and out of his father's house. Aye, he smote me in the face for repeating the name we called him when, on the eighth day of his life, we circumcised him according to the Law—the name recorded in the Temple when, about as big as Caleb, he was enrolled as a Son of the Law, and the fringes put upon his coat. But whence came you, my daughter? And why this dress of the serving women? And your hands are hard, and your feet torn, and your beautiful hair is cut off, and years have come into your face. When Huldah shall see you, she will cry tears that are bitter as well as gladsome, for your old nurse has sat in the house like 'Rachel, mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were not.' Poor hands!" He raised them to his lips.
"Your kiss, good Ephraim, has gone far to heal them," replied Deborah, with moistened eyes.
"And in this?" touching her garment, as if it were some unworthy thing that defiled an altar. "In this? The daughter of my master, with robes in her chamber fit for Sheba's queen, clad like a water carrier?"
"Huldah's fingers and mine will soon remedy these things," replied the girl.
"That they shall"; and Ephraim's voice rang through the house:
"Huldah! Huldah!"
The old woman appeared upon the scene, with eyes flashing contemptuously from beneath the white mantle which covered her head.
"What now, Ephraim? Are you grown so old that you dare not push the beggars from the door? I'll show you that a woman's strength does not ooze out through her wrinkles."
She made at the intruders, but her prowess vanished as quickly as the strength goes from a broken bow.
"My mistress! My darlings!"
She threw herself prone upon the pavement of the court, kissed the feet of Deborah, and fondled them.
"Poor bruised things!"
She could not rise, for Caleb had thrown himself into the lap of the woman, who, when the first paroxysm of her excitement was gone, sat crooning over the child, forgetful of the weary months during which her arms had longed for him as if he had been her own.
"You were always a mother to us, Huldah. The Lord bless your dear good heart."
"And to think that you were away from me, and wanting me!" cried the nurse, hugging closer the blind child.
"The Lord has been with us," replied Deborah. "Some day I will tell you all."
"I would have known all that happened to my master's daughter," said Ephraim, "if I had known whither you had gone, for with you I had gone also. Here have I stayed, not for love of Benjamin, but because I did not know where to go to seek you."
"The Lord reward you, Ephraim! And now let me go to my chamber."
"That alone has been untouched," said Huldah. "You see that all else has been changed."
Ephraim led the way across the court, Huldah following, carrying Caleb.
In the centre of the court played the little fountain; but it no longer sent up its simple sheaf of spray. The water now trickled from the hands of marble Cupids, and fell upon the nude form of Aphrodite, and filled a shell-shaped basin at her feet. At the corners of the court stood exquisite sculptures, evidencing the new taste of the master of the house.
As Deborah stepped upon the platform, or open square room which served as the entrance hall to the living apartments, she was confronted by a middle-aged man, in white chiton and embroidered girdle, with close-curled locks and flat face. His lofty but otherwise expressionless look, and the stiffness of the motion by which he simulated dignity, indicated that he was the chief of several Greek servants whom Glaucon had installed.
"Not in here, woman," said he, putting his hand upon Deborah. "You Jewish dog," he added, addressing Ephraim, "have you forgotten your business, to bring your street herd into the house? I'll teach you."
He raised his hand to strike him, but Deborah's arm intercepted the blow.
"Hold, I am mistress here," she said.
Her shabby garb could not disguise her supreme grace of mien, nor did her weather-bronzed skin hide the beauty of her face or lessen the tone of refinement in her voice. The man stared in motionless amazement as she raised the curtain and passed within, bidding Huldah to follow.
Leaving Ephraim to tell the story of her identity, she entered the first lower chamber, the reception-room of the mansion. She noted the strange and foreign things which had taken the place of the familiar furniture, much of which had been the heirloom of many generations; then she passed to her own chamber. Here, as Huldah pointed out, everything was as she had left it the day of her flight.
"Now, good mother, let us be alone," said she, with a fond embrace of the old nurse.
"Here is the key of the chest," said Huldah, after much fumbling in her bosom, and nearly denuding herself in the search. "The Greek slaves that Benjamin has hired steal everything that their fingers touch. But they have not come in here. Even Benjamin swore to kill them if they did, though they have opened all his closets, except the hidden ones between the walls."
When they were alone, and Caleb, tired of seeing every familiar thing with those eyes in his fingers,had dropped to sleep upon the couch, Deborah knelt by the side of it—the bed which had been hers in childhood. She would pray. But quick memories wrought a veil that shut out the present communion. She recollected her mother that day when they carried her out to be buried, and when, as a parting gift, she left them little Caleb. She thought of the happy years when Benjamin had taken her upon his big boyish shoulders, and played with her on the roof-top, and down by the brook Kedron where she had been to-day. She had been wont to dream of Benjamin as a prince among the people, and wondered if the Messiah, when He should come, would be handsomer or braver or kinder than her brother. Then she recalled the strange sickness that had fallen upon Caleb; the days of pain which her little mother-hands alone could exorcise from his hot temples and writhing form; and how, when the sickness passed, his eyes grew larger, as if seeing things far away, but saw not anything that others looked upon. She sat again at her father's feet, and learned from his lips the sacred precepts of the Law and the thrilling stories of her nation's heroes, and the wonders of Jehovah's arm made bare for Israel's deliverance. God had been to her in those childhood days a Presence of which she seemed conscious—the clouds His robes of glory, and every whispering breeze His assurance of love and care.
But now—she tried to pray, but her prayer was only like the cry of a child in fright. Her soul threw out its arms blindly grasping at she knew not what—yet called that unknown "God's Will."
How weak she was! And yet how strong!
She realized that she was but as a leaf in thestream which the current carries along, but which the current cannot sink. True, she could not resist the terrible tide of circumstances into which her lot was cast, but neither could these circumstances destroy her. She stood with clenched hands, motionless, looking at nothing.
Her lips moved, and this they said: "I cannot even pray. I was Elkiah's daughter, but now I am not even a woman; I am a spirit, vengeful, hating, deceiving, or I could not do this thing. Yet surely, I am Elkiah's daughter. This is my chamber. And this, and this, and this is mine. O, my father, forgive me! And yet thy sainted spirit called me to come home again. O, Lord God of my father, help me to honour his name, and to save his house!"