"I know that I have no strength of my own; I know that I am a trembling, feeble, cowardly girl, weak as water!" exclaimed Zarah, bursting into tears; "but God—my God—once made a firm wall of water, and He who sends the trial will send the strength to endure it!"
"Zarah, you will drive me to madness!" exclaimed Pollux, alarmed at the constancy shown by so timid and fragile a being; "nay, turn not away, I will be heard! I command you to yield obedience to the king, and I have a right to command; Zarah, he who speaks to you is—your father!"
Had not instinct suggested that before, had there not been something in the voice, the face of the courtier of Epiphanes which had reminded Zarah of Hadassah, and had strangely drawn the maiden's heart towards him? Up sprang Abner's daughter with a cry, her arms were around his neck, her head was pillowed on his bosom, his vest was wet with her tears; she sobbed forth, "My father! my father!" forgetting for the moment everything else in the delight of having found the lost one at last, and of being locked in the embrace of a parent.
And Pollux, for a brief space, could think of nothing but the fact that his child was clasped in his arms. He drew her close to his heart, then held her back that he might gaze upon her face, and press kiss after kiss on the lips of her whom he called his darling, his pride, his beautiful child! But when the first burst of natural emotion was over, Pollux made his daughter sit close beside him, and with his arm round her slight form, resumed the conversation which had been interrupted by his revealing the intimate relationship in which they stood to each other.
"You see, my child," said the courtier, "that you may now yield with an easy conscience. A parent's commands are law to a Hebrew maiden; if there be any sin in what you do, it lies upon me alone."
"And think you that I would bring sin upon your head?" said Zarah. "Oh no, that would be to wrong a parent indeed!"
"I have such a burden of my own to carry," observed Pollux, bitterly, "that I shall scarcely be sensible of so small an addition to its weight. Zarah, it is clearly your duty to submit, for my safety is involved in your submission. If you refuse to obey Antiochus, you seal the doom of your father."
In anguish Zarah clasped her throbbing temples with both her hands; even the path of duty itself seemed dark and uncertain before her. Then a thought, sudden and bright, as if it were an inspiration, came into the young girl's mind.
"Oh no, I will save my father!" she exclaimed; "save him from worse than death! Let us fly together at once," she continued; "no, not together, I would cumber your flight; but make your escape, O my father, from this wicked court, this barbarous king, this life which, to a son of Hadassah, must be misery and bondage indeed! Oh, fly, fly; be safe, be free; be again what you were once! it is not too late! it is not too late!" There was intense delight to Zarah in the new-born hope that she might draw her wretched parent from this den of infamy, this pit of destruction.
Pollux was startled by the sudden suggestion. "Whither could I fly?" asked the renegade gloomily.