The Hammer: A Story of the Maccabean Times

by Alfred John Church; Richmond Seeley

Azariah and Micah had been put under John, the eldest of the five brothers, in command of the force employed to blockade the garrison of Acra. The night had passed quietly; the garrison had not attempted a sortie, and had not even harassed the besiegers with a discharge of missiles. And when the morning came they seemed inclined to continue the same inaction. From the high ground the two Jews looked down upon the Temple courts and saw the priests directing a crowd of eager helpers in the work of cleansing the Sanctuary, and labouring diligently with their own hands. The first task was to pull down the idol altar which had been erected on the altar of burnt-offering. This was done in a fury of haste. The hands of the workmen could not, it seemed, move fast enough in destroying the abominable thing. The stones were carried out of the temple with gestures of loathing and disgust, [pg 243]and afterwards taken to the Valley of Hinnom—unholy things to be cast away in an unholy place.

But the stones of the holy altar itself had been polluted by the superstructure that had been erected upon them. What was to be done with them? At least it was manifest that they could not stand where they were. Sacrifice could not be offered upon them. They were reverently detached from the cement which bound them together, and then borne one by one to a chamber of the Temple, where they were to be laid up till a prophet should arise who should show what was to be done with them. The first duty of dealing with the altar completed, came the work of cleansing and repairing the courts and chambers. The long, trailing creepers were pulled down; the weeds and shrubs were rooted out. The place was still a ruin, but the manifest signs of its desolation and abandonment were removed. So numerous and so eager were the labourers that for this part of the work a few hours sufficed. The task of reparation would, of necessity, be longer and more tedious.

Azariah and Micah had been watching the work with perhaps a more absorbing interest than was quite consistent with their duty of watching the garrison, when suddenly one of the sentries blew an alarm. Scarcely had it sounded when a flight of arrows from the garrison of the fortress fell among the besiegers. The Greeks had watched [pg 244]their opportunity, and when almost all eyes were turned on the work that was going on below, had sent a volley among the ranks of the enemy.

This sudden attack did no little damage. One or two of the patriots were killed on the spot, several were seriously wounded; the others either covered themselves with their shields, a precaution which they ought not to have neglected, or sought refuge among the ruins.

Azariah, though he had been caught a little off his guard, was not unprepared to deal with a manifestation of this kind. He had organized a company of slingers, and he now ordered them to advance and clear the wall of its defenders. They knelt with one knee upon the ground, and covered themselves with their shields. Under this shelter they loaded their slings. Then, rising rapidly at a preconcerted signal from their commander, they sent a simultaneous and well-directed shower of leaden bullets on the defenders of the wall. These missiles, sent with a skill and a strength in which the Jewish slingers were unsurpassed, had a marvellous effect. In a moment the wall was cleared, except that here and there along its length the dead and wounded might be seen. The survivors did not venture forth from shelter to carry them away. A fierce conflict followed. From the loopholes of the towers and from behind the battlements the Greek archers kept up the discharge of their arrows, and the Jewish [pg 245]slingers replied. No great damage was done on either side; but every now and then a skilful aim at some exposed body or limb was followed by a cry of pain from the wounded man, and the cry was taken up by a shout of triumph from the hostile force. In the course of the afternoon a storm came on, with thunder and lightning and a deluge of rain. Before it had cleared away the light had failed, and hostilities had perforce to be suspended.

About the beginning of the second watch[16] Micah, who was making a round of the sentries, heard the sound of something that seemed to fall heavily upon the soft and plashy ground. The rain had ceased, and the sky had partially cleared; for a few minutes all was still; then Micah could hear a sighing which was not the sighing of the wind. He followed the guidance of the sound, and found a woman lying almost insensible upon the ground. He called one of the sentinels to help him, and together they carried her under shelter, and brought torches, by the light of which they might examine her injuries. That she was stunned by the fall was evident, for she did not speak, and when they attempted to move her she groaned with the pain. When left alone she did not seem to suffer much, and they judged it best to wait for the morning, administering meanwhile a little wine and water from time to time.

The next morning four of the soldiers were told off to remove her on a litter that had been constructed for the use of the wounded to a deserted house in the Lower City—and of deserted houses there was only too great a choice. As the bearers put down their burden on the way to take a brief rest a strange figure came up to the party. It was a woman, young and still showing the remains of beauty, but with a miserably haggard look. It was easy to see from her uncertain gait and wandering eye that she was a lunatic.

Huldah had been for some time a well-known figure in Jerusalem, and her story was of the saddest. She had been a servant in the house of Seraiah, and had been Ruth’s own waiting-maid. Returning home from some errand on which she had been sent one day at the beginning of Apollonius’s reign of terror, she had been seized by the attendants of the newly-dedicated Temple of Jupiter, and made a slave. Before many weeks had passed the cruel outrages to which she was subjected overthrew her reason. Thus become a trouble to her captors she was permitted to escape. Since then she had been accustomed to wander about the city. The horrors of the past still haunted her, and the recollection of the abominable idolatries in which she had been forced to serve. At every pool of water and fountain she would stay and wash. From every passer-by she would beg for something that might [pg 247]serve for her cleansing: it was the one craving of her soul to be rid of its defilement. For food or money she never asked; but a few kindly souls in the city gave her enough to support life, and sometimes would renew the garments, threadbare, but always scrupulously neat and clean, which she wore. Of these friends the kindest was Eglah, who had a fellow-feeling for the sufferer, and who was always on the watch to atone by her charitable deeds for what she believed to be the great offence of her life.

Huldah cast a glance at the litter in passing, and at once recognized in the suffering woman her own benefactress. For indeed it was Eglah whom Micah had found under the fortress wall. The recognition made a marvellous change in the poor maniac. It turned her thoughts in another direction. She ceased to dwell upon her own sufferings, and, for the time at least, reason regained its sway.

She knelt down by the side of the litter, and kissed one of the hands that hung listlessly down. Then, rising to her feet, she arranged the cushion on which Eglah lay so as to make it more comfortable. That done, she bade the bearers take up their burden, made a gesture of dissent when they were turning aside to the house to which they had been directed, and led the way to Eglah’s own dwelling.