“Where and how,” said Micah to his companions, “shall we keep the Purim feast?”
“Shall we keep it at all?” said Azariah, always somewhat disposed to take a gloomy view of their [pg 346]prospects. “A Mordecai we have, none more steadfast; and there is a Haman against us even more cruel and wicked than he of Persia. But Ahasuerus is against us, nor do I see who shall turn him from his purpose.”
“Well,” said Seraiah, with a smile, “at least we can use our swords without his license.”
While they were talking they observed a figure emerge from out the darkness into the circle of light made by the flames. They rose to their feet, for it was the captain himself.
“Sit down, my friends,” he said, “we shall be on our feet enough to-morrow.” And as he spoke, he took his seat on the ground by their side.
He went on, after a few minutes of silence, “So Azariah doubts what sort of a Purim festival we shall keep. As for myself I doubt not. But I have been thinking not so much of Mordecai and Haman—though it seems to me a happy thing that we shall fight on the day of that deliverance—as of Hezekiah and Rabshakeh. Did not the king his master send him to blaspheme the Holy City? And did not Hezekiah lay the letter before the Lord? And what was the end? In one night the host of the Assyrians was as if it had not been. So shall it be, I am persuaded in my heart, with this blaspheming Nicanor and his host. He and they shall be utterly destroyed. Yes, Azariah, we shall keep our Purim right joyously, after the manner of our fathers. [pg 347]But as for our enemies, the wine that they shall drink[25] will be the wine of the wrath of God.”
He rose with these words, and passed away to spend the rest of the night in meditation and prayer. His face next morning, when in the early dawn he stood in front of his slender line, was as the face of one who has talked face to face with God. Not less rapt than his look was the tone of his voice as he poured out the words of his prayer—“O Lord, when they that were sent from the King of the Assyrians blasphemed, Thine angel went out and smote an hundred fourscore and five thousand of them. Even so destroy Thou this host before us this day, that the rest may know that he hath spoken blasphemously against Thy Sanctuary, and judge Thou him according to his wickedness.”
A murmur of assent passed through the little army as he uttered these words in that clear, thrilling voice which was one of his many gifts as a born leader of men. The next moment the line advanced, for Judas followed again the successful tactic of attack. Never had his Ironsides advanced with a more determined courage; never did they deal fiercer blows. The enemy were scattered by their impetuous onset, as the dust is scattered before the wind. For all his brutality and falsehood, Nicanor was no coward. He stood in the very van of his army, [pg 348]giving such cheer as he could to his men, and though the lines behind him reeled and shook with that movement which is the sure presage of defeat to a soldier’s eye, at the approach of the Chasidim, he stood his ground with a dauntless courage. He was almost the first to fall, Azariah striking him to the ground with a sweeping blow of his sword. It was an appropriate ending to the blasphemer that he should receive his death-stroke from the weapon that bore the talisman of the Holy Name.
The Greek line had been already beginning to break, but the death of the leader completed the rout.
It was no common victory that Judas won that day. The pursuit was long and bloody. The beaten army fled in wild disorder over the country, only to find enemies on every hand. Before the sun set it was simply annihilated. The tradition of that awful slaughter still lingers in the place, and the valley is called “The Valley of Blood.”