Among those who watched the approach of Judas and his host to Jerusalem were two men, one in extreme old age, the other numbering, it would seem, about fifty years. They wore the priestly garments, old indeed and threadbare, but still clean and showing many signs of careful repair. Theirs was a strange history. For two years they had been in hiding in the city. When Apollonius had filled the streets of Jerusalem with blood, the murderers had sought with especial care for all priests and Levites. To them at least no mercy was to be shown. These two men—Shemaiah was the name of the elder of the two, and Joel that of the younger—had narrowly escaped death from the soldiers of Apollonius. They had taken refuge—so close was the pursuit—in a garden, the gate of which happened to be open, and had hidden themselves in the bushes till nightfall. Where they were, who or of what [pg 236]race was the owner of the house, whether they were likely to meet with more mercy from his hands than they could expect from the soldiers, they knew not. But that hiding-place was their only chance, and in their desperate strait they snatched at it. While they were debating in whispers whether they should throw themselves on the compassion of this unknown person, they saw—for it was a moonlight night—the figure of a woman walking down a path which passed close by their hiding-place. They could see from her features, which the brilliant moonlight of the East lighted up, that she was a countrywoman of their own, and they resolved to appeal to her for protection. Shemaiah, whose age and venerable appearance would, they judged, be less likely to alarm, threw himself on the ground at her feet. She started back in astonishment.
“Lady,” he said, “I see that you are a daughter of Abraham. Can you help two servants of the Lord that have so far escaped from the sword of the Greeks?”
She was reassured by a nearer view of the speaker. “Who are you?” she said. “Speak without fear, for there is no one to harm you.”
Shemaiah told his story.
“And your companion,” said Eglah—for that was the woman’s name—“where is he?”
The old man called to Joel, who came forth at his bidding from his hiding-place.
Eglah stood for a few minutes buried in thought. Then she spoke.
“As I hope that the Lord will have mercy on me and pardon my sin, so will I help you even to the giving up of my life. But I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Now listen to my story. When Antiochus—the Lord reward him for the evil that he has done to His people!—came to this city, I was seized and sold for a slave. And a certain Greek soldier, Glaucus by name, the captain of a company, bought me in the market. He had compassion on me, and dealt honourably with me, and made me his wife after the fashion of his people. And I consented to live with him, though I knew that it was a sin for a daughter of Abraham to be wife unto a man that was a heathen. But alas! sirs, what was I to do? for I was a weak woman, and there was no one to help me. Should I have slain him in his sleep, as Judith slew Holofernes? Once I thought to do so, and I took a dagger in my hand, but when I saw him I repented. Whether it was fear or love that turned me I know not. That I was afraid I know, for the very sight of the steel made me tremble. And I must confess that I loved him also, for he had been very kind and gentle with me; and there is not a goodlier man to look at in all Jerusalem.”
“Be comforted, my daughter,” said Shemaiah, whose years had taught him a tolerance to which [pg 238]his younger companion had, perhaps, scarcely attained. “’Tis at least no sin for a wife to love her husband.”
“Then you do not think me so wicked as to be beyond all hope?” cried poor Eglah, eagerly.