He summoned Azariah to his tent and detailed his plan. Azariah also knew the place well, and [pg 297]entered into the scheme with enthusiasm—such enthusiasm, indeed, that Judas felt it necessary to give him a parting caution. “Remember,” he said, “if this scheme fails, that you come back to me immediately. If the ambush should be discovered, retreat at once. There must be no attack. I cannot spare a man. We shall want all that we have, if not more than all, to make head against the thousands of Lysias.”
Azariah promised obedience, and lost no time in setting out on his errand. Shortly after sunset he started, having with him a picked force of a thousand men. Before midnight he had reached the place fixed upon by Judas, and there, in a hollow half-way up the side of the hill that formed one side of the pass, he laid his ambush.
It was an anxious night for the little band. It was always an accepted maxim in ancient warfare that it was the most steadfast courage that was wanted for the ambush. Men who were brave enough when fighting in the open plain found their courage fail when they had to lie for hours watching for the moment of attack, crouched upon the ground, unable to move and scarcely venturing to talk. Azariah’s men were brave—indeed they had been carefully chosen for this very service—but they were not altogether insensible of the dangers of their position. They knew, too, and even exaggerated the strength of the advancing army. As [pg 298]they talked in whispers during the night, for, as may be imagined, few could sleep, they spoke of the chances of the coming day. The elephants, which had never before been seen on Jewish soil, were mentioned with special awe.
“Strange and terrible beasts they are,” said one man to his neighbour; “savage as lions, and many times larger and stronger.”
“Is it so?” said the other. “I heard once from an Arab, who had been driver of one of these creatures, that they are marvellously gentle and tame.”
“Maybe they are by nature; but their drivers have ways of rousing them to fury before the battle.”
“How so?”
“They show them the blood of grapes and mulberries, and the creatures rage terribly. ’Tis said that one of them can tread down a whole company of men.”
“Well, but ’tis possible, I know, to stand against them. King Antiochus, father to the madman whom the Lord smote for his sins, had an array of them in his army when he fought against the Romans at Magnesia, but they profited him little. So Simeon told me—you know the man, the old Benjamite who took service with the King. The Romans stood firm in their rank, and threw their javelins at the beasts’ trunks, and in the end, so Simeon said, they did more damage to their own people than to the enemy.”
“The Lord grant that it be so to-morrow.”