The boy turned around quickly, and answered with all seriousness.
"I am all here."
"Did you," the Maccabee began again, after silence, "care for me alone?"
"There has been no one here but us," the boy said, hesitating at the symptoms of gratitude in the Maccabee's voice.
"Us?"
"You and me."
After another silence, the Maccabee laughed weakly.
"It requires two to constitute 'us' and I am, by all signs, not a whole one!"
"But you will be in a few days," the boy declared admiringly. "You are an excellent sick man."
The Maccabee looked at him meditatively.