"Then," thought Hadassah, "daybreak shall find me here. I will cling to the stirrup of Antiochus. I will constrain the tyrant to listen. God will inspire my lips with eloquence. He will touch the heart of the king. I may yet persuade the tyrant to accept one life instead of another. Oh! my Zarah, child of my heart, it were bliss to suffer for you!"
Clinging to this last forlorn hope, Hadassah allowed herself at last to be persuaded by Anna to seek the residence of a Hebrew family, with whom she was slightly acquainted; there to partake of a little food, lie down and attempt to sleep. Snatches of slumber came at last to the widow, slumber filled with dreams. Hadassah thought that she saw her son, her Abner, bright, joyous, and happy as he had been in his youth. Then the scene changed to own home. Hadassah fancied that Zarah had unexpectedly returned; in delight she clasped the rescued maid to her heart, and then, to her astonishment, found that it was not Zarah, but Zarah's father, whom she clasped in her arms! It was strange that dreams of joy should come in the midst of so much anguish, so that a smile should actually play on the grief-worn features of Hadassah. Was some good spirit whispering in her ear, "While you are sleeping your son is praying. Your supplications for him are answered at last?"
But Hadassah lost little time in sleep. While the stars yet gleamed in the sky, the lady aroused Anna, who was slumbering heavily at her feet. The handmaid arose, and without awakening the household, Hadassah and her attendant noiselessly quitted the hospitable dwelling which had afforded them shelter, and turned their steps again in the direction of the stately palace of Antiochus Epiphanes.
As the two women traversed the silent, narrow, deserted streets, they suddenly, at the angle formed by a transverse road, came upon a young man, whose rapid step indicated impatience or fear. He was moving with such eager speed that he almost struck against Hadassah, before he could arrest his quick movements.
"Ha! Hadassah!"
"Lycidas! Heaven be praised!" were the exclamations uttered in a breath by the Greek and the Hebrew.
"Is it—can it be true—Zarah—captive—in peril?" cried the young man, whom the tidings of the attack on Salathiel's dwelling, and the capture of a maiden, had casually reached that night at Bethlehem, where he was sojourning, and whom these tidings had brought in all speed to Jerusalem. Lycidas had ridden first to the house of Cimon, where the message left by Hadassah had confirmed his worst fears. Leaving his horse, which had fallen lame on the rocky road, he had hurried off on foot to the palace, with no definite plan of action before him, but resolved at any rate to seek an interview with the king.
"Zarah is prisoner in yon palace," said Hadassah, "you will do all in your power to save her?"
"I would die for her!" was the reply,
Hadassah in few words made known to the young Athenian her own intention to await at the palace gate the going forth of Antiochus, and plead with the Syrian king for the life and freedom of Zarah. The lady was thankful to accept the eager offer of Lycidas to remain beside her, and support her petition with the weight of any influence which he might have with the tyrant, small as he judged that influence to be. Hadassah, thankful at having found a zealous friend to aid her, leant on the arm of Lycidas as she might have done on that of a son. Difference in nation and creed was for awhile forgotten; the two were united by one great love and one great fear, and the Gentile could, with the soul's deepest fervour, say "Amen" to the Hebrew's prayer.