"I brook no more idle delay!" cried Antiochus; "as you love your life, do sacrifice at once to my god."
"I cannot—I dare not!" exclaimed the young maid. Faint as was her utterance of the words, they were heard distinctly, so great was the silence which prevailed through the assembly in that marble hall.
The answer surprised Antiochus and his courtiers.
"Ha! there is some resistance in the willow-wand then, after all!" cried the king, half amused and half angry. "I warrant me tough boughs grow on the tree from which that slender twig has sprung. Tell me, fair rebel," he continued, "your name and lineage, and the place of your birth."
Zarah had firmly resolved that, come what might, she would betray no friend; above all, that she would never draw down the fire of persecution upon the house of Hadassah. In the midst of all the misery which she was enduring from personal fear, Zarah forgot not this resolution.
"My name is Zarah; I was born in Bethsura; my father was called Abner," faltered forth the young maid.
Pollux involuntarily started and gasped, as if every word had been a live coal dropped upon his bare breast. It was well for him then that all eyes, even those of Lysimachus, were fixed at that moment on Zarah.
"Is your father living?" inquired the king, who, in the common name of Abner, did not recognize the almost forgotten one previously borne by a favourite.
"I know not," was the reply.
"Was he not with you at the rebellious meeting?" asked Antiochus
Epiphanes.