XXIXA RAID
Betweenthe conflict of his own thoughts and Glaucon's outbursts of rage at the indignity cast upon his house, the day passed drearily for Captain Dion. But the night brought new excitement.
The narrowness of the streets made them dark almost as soon as the glints of the setting sun had climbed above the parapets and vanished into the upper air. No lamps were now burning, as in peaceful times, at the doorways of the houses. Upon the city walls and at the great gates loomed the outlines of the sentinels, the click of whose sarissas, brought to the ground at each turn on their beats, alone broke the stillness. The streets were deserted, except as here and there a light blinked through the opening door of some low resort, out of which revellers stumbled into the night; or as some thief, with bare and noiseless feet, evaded a house guard who was sleeping before the gate of an official or protected inhabitant.
It was about the sixth hour when three shadows, like so many condensations of the night itself, moved up the Street of David from the direction of the Temple. In a moment as many more followed. Others came stealthily out of the alleys, and appeared suddenly in the main street, as if they were exhalations from the pools of water between the greatstones of the pavement. If one had owl's eyes one might have detected more of these moving patches of darkness, some taking covert behind the projecting lattice-work of the bazaar windows, or within the screening lintels of the doorways. At first they seemed like common night waifs seeking places to sleep; but as sticks in a whirlpool make each its own gyrations, then float out through a common channel, so all these men drifted toward the house of Glaucon.
The sentinel stationed there observed one such shadow near him, and challenged it. While engaged in attempting to unravel what he thought were the comer's drunken accents into intelligible words, a grip from behind was upon his throat, and before he could utter an outcry a short sword had entered his body.
A rap on the door brought the challenge, to which the Greek watch-word "Avenge Bethhoron" was given. The cross-bar had scarcely lifted when in poured a score of men. The door-keeper fell, and in a few moments all the Greek guard were silent in their blood, except Captain Dion who, standing at vantage upon the platform of the room leading from the court, by splendid sword-play held off his assailants. The leader of the attacking party, after watching for a moment the uneven fight, laid his sword across the swords of the men.
"Back, men! I will deal with this fellow."
The speaker was a short but powerfully built man. His head was protected by a helmet of thick leather, which was in keeping with the black, coarse, chain-knit, iron corsage that covered his upper person. His form was as compact and as lithe as thatof a leopard, and his pose that of equal alertness. Without for an instant letting his sword drop from its position for thrust, and holding Dion at guard as the weapon seemed to search his body for a vulnerable point, the man spoke:
"You are in command here?"
"When I had any one to command," replied Dion, glancing at the dead bodies lying about the court. "But who are you?"
"No matter who," replied the invader; "I demand the person of the daughter of Elkiah."
"My life is forfeit for her," replied Dion. "Come on."
His challenge was not accepted by his antagonist, who, holding his weapon in guard, asked, "Your name, gallant Greek?"
"Captain Dion, at your service, sir. Come on."
The man lowered his sword.
"Retire, men. Captain Dion, a word with you."
"Tell me first by whose authority you have entered here," asked Dion.
"By the authority of the God of Israel, and Judas, son of Mattathias, we came. And now, as you can see, since your comrades are dead, we remain here by authority of our own swords. Twenty to one is scarcely fair play, and we have that vantage of you. Yield!"
Captain Dion was not more persuaded by the fighting odds against him than he was led by certain other considerations to give up the fight. He at once replied:
"I yield upon one condition—that no harm shall come to the lady Deborah."
"Our purposes seem to be one," replied the stranger. "Is the name of Jonathan, brother of Judas, sufficient guarantee for her safety?"
"Jonathan!" ejaculated Dion. "And yet your entrance in spite of our guards might have made me suspect one surnamed 'The Wily.' Have you Maccabæans taken the city?"
"It is enough that we have taken this house, and that you are our prisoner. Will you deliver the woman to us, or shall we take her out over your body? The choice is yours."
"I am a Greek soldier," said Dion. "My life will be forfeit by our own rules if I yield. My honor will at least be sustained if I fall guarding my charge."
He struck the attitude of defense.
"I had rather fall beneath the hands of twenty foemen, than be led out to die like a dog by my own people. Come on! You have my answer."
Jonathan did not move.
"Guard yourself, then!" said Dion, advancing. Jonathan made no sign of self-defense.
Dion lowered his sword. "I cannot kill a man who will not fight."
"Plainly not. You are not a soldier of that sort, and thus are unlike your fellow Greeks," said the Maccabæan.
"Do not taunt me," was the reply. "I believe that the daughter of Elkiah will be safer with Jonathan than with myself. For her sake I yield."
He presented his weapon.
"Not so, Captain Dion," replied the Jew. "Keep your sword. You may need it to defend yourself from others. Now lead me to the lady Deborah. Irespect her too highly to invade her privacy without heralding by her appointed guardian. Use your sword on me, Captain Dion, if I force her to do aught against her will. We two will go alone."
Jonathan bade his men retire.
The frightened servants had hidden away at the first noise of the encounter; but as the two men approached Deborah's apartment their way was blocked by old Huldah, who stood with arms akimbo, and behind her Ephraim.
"The lady Deborah is ill, and no one can see her," cried Huldah, as valiantly as if Ephraim were a whole battalion supporting her.
"Here is a military exigency which I fear the tactics of neither Greek nor Jew is equal to," laughed Jonathan. "We should have brought up our battering rams."
It is difficult to surmise what would have been the issue of this impending collision between a noted warrior and the puissant Huldah, had not little Caleb appeared at the instant the battle was about to be joined. Recognizing the voice of his friend of the Rocks, he ran to him with a delighted cry:
"Jonathan! Jonathan!"
"My child!" cried the Maccabæan with equal eagerness, as he caught the lad to his arms. "And Deborah, where is she?"
"Why, Deborah is gone two hours since," exclaimed the child. "She is now far away as Mizpah, or maybe Bethel. But, Jonathan, have we taken the city yet? And was Gorgias killed as I saw in my dream?"
"The Lord grant that your dream may be as thatof Gideon's soldiers the night before the destruction of the Philistines, when a barley cake overturned a tent," said Jonathan, kissing the blind eyes. "Deborah is gone? Where then, Captain Dion, is your boasted protection of this woman, whom you say you were ordered to guard? If she could go and come without your permission, why might not others have captured her? It is well that I, a Jew, have been ordered to relieve guard here to-night, since you, a Greek, have not kept it."
"Your words are deserved," replied Dion, bewildered by Caleb's news. "I cannot account for it. Deborah has not passed out by the court gateway into the street, that I can swear. Nor do I think she has flown through the air."
"For aught you know, Sir Greek, she may have done so. Remember that you are in the Jews' land. Here you must be prepared to believe such things as were never dreamed of by your people. This is, as you have doubtless heard, a land of miracles. Every hill and cave has a story, as true as that Deborah has outwitted your senses. But pardon my mirth, Captain. I see that your head sits lightly on your shoulders for having let your bird break cage, and I suggest that, if you do not care to submit your neck to the whim of your superior officer, you go with us. I doubt not we can put you again in charge of your fair captive, or at least where you will risk nothing if you avow that she escaped with your connivance. I think, Captain, that you will have to go with us. Come."
Captain Dion put forth his hands.
"You may bind me."
"You are too brave a man for that," repliedJonathan. "The name of Dion is not unknown to us. You may bind yourself with your word. It will suffice. Besides, you will need both hands in scrambling out of this town, and maybe your sword, for——"