XXXVWORSHIP BEFORE BATTLE
Deborah'sstory of her adventure, of the diversion of the tribesmen from their purpose of attacking Judas, and the strengthening of the Maccabæans by the addition of the men of Masada, would have filled the remainder of the day and night with interest, without the other and more startling news that was brought them. Scouts came in with the report that General Gorgias had made forced marches through Galilee, and was already upon the plain of Esdraelon, so often the battle-field in the history of Israel's resistance to northern nations. A day's march would bring the Greek armies as far south as Emmaus, nearly west of the Maccabæan encampment.
The imminence of another battle now filled Judas with a strange gladness. He was possessed by a presentiment of victory. Others could not understand the change that had taken place in him, but all caught his spirit. He was called the "Heart of Israel," and as the quickness or sluggishness of the natural heart is registered in every nerve, even to the extremities of the body, so the great leader seemed to impart his own personality to every soldier.
To those immediately about him he thus accounted for his confidence:
"God is surely with us. Nothing less than amiracle could have preserved the life of the maiden and scattered the tribesmen; for well I knew the preparations they had made to strike us."
"But will they not reassemble at Nadan's call?" asked Jonathan.
"Not in time to harm us in the coming battle. See how the Lord will turn the skill of man to his discomfiture. General Gorgias is a fast fighter. He is famed for the rapidity with which he hurls his armies. He will not loiter in the plain. If I mistake not his tactics, he will essay to strike our camps even before he has made his own. If he were an Apollonius or a Seron it might be days before he would hazard a battle, in which event the tribesmen could have time to gather. But Gorgias will be too quick for them to help him. But here is the maiden."
"Have you heard from Micah of Hebron?" asked Deborah. "I brake bread with him some weeks ago, when I was supposed to be nursing my convenient malady under the care of Huldah."
"Yes," replied Judas, "four score of his men reached us yester nightfall. They are the best archers in the south country."
"And the men from Kirjath-jearim?"
"They, too, have joined us. They will fight on familiar ground, for Gorgias will certainly take the broad ascent from the plain, and not repeat Seron's mistake on the high-road."
"The physician Samuel," added Deborah, "has also done us some service. His fame called him as far north as the Waters of Meron, and he saw most of the herdsmen between here and there."
"And some of them have joined us," replied Judas,"but I do not trust them as I do those of the southern country. They have not felt the King's cruelty as others have. They are, however, of splendid spirit. I have assigned them some desperate work, for in a man naturally brave nothing breeds loyalty like danger."
At that moment one came hastily reporting that a change was being made in the disposition of the Greek forces. Judas held a brief conversation with the scout. Turning, he said:
"Gorgias will undoubtedly climb the ascent to-night. I must away. One thing I ask of you, Deborah."
"Your wish is your command to me, Judas."
"You must not linger near this battle."
"I am not afraid."
"Would God that you were afraid, Deborah; that in this one respect you were like other women."
"Would you esteem me more, Judas, if I were like other women?"
"Deborah, if you were like other women, like any other woman in the world, the world would be less to me. No, be your own self; only do not remain here. If harm should come to you, I should lose heart. You cheer me. You inspire me. Take no risk."
"But have I not cared for myself at other times?"
"True: yet the battle to-morrow will not be as the others. Gorgias is experienced, the most tactful, the most desperate of all the Greek generals. He will not stand on the defensive, but make his own battle. If in the night he should get his forces to the ridge, the fight will be here, or between this and Jerusalem. If he should be worsted, he will be succored by two other armies as great as hisown. Promise me that you will not even see this battle, for I know too well that if you so much as look you will be drawn into some danger."
"For your sake, Judas, I will be as other women. The Lord gird you with His strength for the morrow!"
"Your prayer is a prophecy. It gives me strength already. Farewell!"
Deborah sat with little Caleb's hand in hers. The sun was going down. The red orb hung over the Great Sea, transforming the watery horizon into a glorious carpet fitting the feet of the King of Day, and making the sky his canopy of gold.
"Where are we now, sister?" asked the lad. "I hear a rustling as if the trees were moving together."
"Not trees, brother, but men are gathering. By the side of us is Mizpah, where, in the time of the prophet Samuel, the whole nation came together. I would that your eyes were open to see."
"But your eyes are mine, sister. What shall I look at?"
"Well, stand so. Now we see toward the sunrise the far-away mountains of Gilead and Moab. How beautiful! The great wall of rock rises into the sky. It flashes with color, almost like the floor of heaven which Moses and the seventy elders saw. Now turn—you are facing the north."
"Aye, I see old Hermon with his helmet of snow, and the cloud plumes floating from the top of it," cried the lad, as if his eyes had really opened.
"Now turn again—you are looking south. Here, almost at our feet, lies Jerusalem. Yet it was a long way to come, wasn't it?"
"Not when Jonathan carried me, and I was asleep," laughed Caleb.
"Yes," replied Deborah, "the white roads and the black stones in the fields, the gray of olive and the green of fig-trees between here and the city walls, look like a dream floating between two waking moments. And beyond the city is Bethlehem. And now turn this way—the way the sun is going. Down there we can see Lydda, as a pearl on a gray robe; and way off is Joppa, a dot on the shore of the Great Sea which looks like a blazing serpent with his back in the sky. Here is the plain of Sharon filled again with soldiers under the great generals Gorgias and Ptolemy and Nicanor. We can see the smoke, for they are making their camps. And we are on the side of Mount Mizpah, where once the Holy Tabernacle stood before Solomon built the Temple. And look, child; everywhere the brave men of Israel are coming—for Judas has bidden the people with him to spend the rest of the day in prayer. Listen! Quite near us is a company of soldiers. They have laid down their spears and bows and swords, and have covered their heads with dust. They are repeating together the Psalms of Penitence, and praying God not to visit the sins of Israel upon the land. Let us go nearer. They are now spreading on the ground the copy of the Books of the Law, that which Dion brought me one day, and which he found in the High Priest's house; the one in letters of silver and gold once encased in the beautiful ark with clasps of precious stone, but now with its holiest words cut out, and the margins covered over with pictures of heathen gods. Now the men are praying that the land may berestored to Israel; and they vow—every man—to keep all the precepts of the Law as our fathers did.
"Now what are they doing? They are holding up toward heaven some garments which belonged to the priests whom the Greeks have murdered."
"I can hear their words!" said the boy. "It is 'Lord, so perish the priests of the heathen!' How wild their cry is! Is any one coming to attack them?"
"No, my child. Their voices are harsh, being tuned for battle-cries on the morrow."
"But, listen, sister, some one is reading in a mocking voice."
"That," replied Deborah, "is a proclamation of the King which is posted on the gates of Antioch, a copy of which has found its way into our camp."
A soldier read:
"SCHEDULE FOR SALE OF CAPTIVES.One able-bodied Jew2shekels.One male child (sound)3"One woman (married)2"One woman (virgin)4""Purchasers guaranteed protection while returning to Antioch, Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Damascus, and to the mines within the King's domain."By order of the King."GORGIAS, Commandant."
"SCHEDULE FOR SALE OF CAPTIVES.
"Purchasers guaranteed protection while returning to Antioch, Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Damascus, and to the mines within the King's domain.
"By order of the King.
"GORGIAS, Commandant."
"But now they have changed," said Caleb. "Now they are wailing."
"Yes, Simon, son of Mattathias, has piled together all the tithes of fruits, which the men have brought, and they are begging the Lord with tears to accept them, though they have no altar on which to put the offering."
"I hear the words they are saying," said Caleb. "'Lord, Lord, what shall we do with these things since the heathen have broken down thine altars?' Shall we go and pray with them, sister?"
"Let us pray here," said Deborah.
Long time they bowed to the earth, the lad kneeling by her side, his arm thrown about her, and the blind eyes flashing with his imagination of armies and victories.
"Come, let us go!" said Deborah, rising.
"Where shall we go?"
"To Jerusalem."
"Why, sister! Not again to the city. Dion is gone, and our brother Benjamin too, and only Greek soldiers are waiting to kill you."
"Yes, child, to the city, to our father's house. I believe—Lord help my faith!—that on the morrow Israel will triumph, and we will welcome Judas the Deliverer, perhaps as the Messiah—for such he seems to me. But if we triumph not, there will be no need to flee elsewhere. The sons of Mattathias will first perish in the battle, and all the hosts of Israel with them; and we will perish too. But let it be in our father's house. Yet whether we live or die I owe it to our friend, the good Dion, to go back to Jerusalem. He is in peril for our sakes. The Greeks may slay him for letting me go. But if I show them that I have not escaped, Dion may be saved."
"Then let us go to Jerusalem," said Caleb, grasping his sister's hand. "Let us go."
They went a little way in silence except for the murmur of the multitude at worship, which at length died away in the distance. They sat down to rest amid the gray stones of the hillside.
"Hark!" said the lad, "that's Meph!"
"I hear nothing," replied Deborah. Caleb put his fingers to his mouth, and imitated the three notes of the quail.
"He hears. He is answering. There he has stumbled and dropped his crutch. He's up again now."
"I hear nothing," repeated Deborah; but in another moment a sun-faded mat of hair was projected from over an adjacent rock.
"I thought that would bring you," shouted the lame boy, "that is, if you were anywhere on the outside of your stone cage—that's what I call Jerusalem. I have been whistling for an hour, like a bird left behind when the flock has flown southward, and I couldn't call up a mate. But my! it's good to see you, Caleb, and to-morrow Judas is going to whack the Greeks again. He knows how to fight. Did you ever see—of course you didn't, but I did—a little red ant fight a big black ant? Before black ant can turn, red ant rushes at him and bites him in two in the middle where his back is as thin as his legs; then he falls to and eats up the pieces. That's the way Judas fights. You'll see to-morrow or next day; for the Greeks are coming, sure; and Judas is lying for them, just as he did at Bethhoron."
So Meph's tongue and his crutch rattled on for an hour.
Nearing the city, Deborah and Caleb concealed themselves behind the rocks, or wandered, as the women and children do picking dried brambles for kindling. Meph in the meanwhile acted as a scout, and gave warning of every moving shadow in the distance. Only once did he sound any real alarm.It was when several horsemen dashed from the direction of Emmaus, and made for the west gate of the city. After a while our wayfarers cautiously approached the northwest corner of the wall, and disappeared in the crevice. Meph came out alone, and after beating the bushes wildly with his crutch hobbled off, muttering all sorts of imprecations on game that will not stand to be caught.