He gazed at her, apparently unconscious of the desperation in the face lifted to him. The slow smile that presently grew again in his eyes was none the less unthoughted. He slipped his hand under a strand of her rich hair that had fallen and drew it out, slowly, at full length. Slowly his eyes followed it as inch by inch it slipped through his fingers. Old memories seemed to struggle to the surface; old tendernesses; recollection of pure hours and holy things; paganism dropped from him like a husk and the spiritual hauteur of a Jew brought the expression of the unhumbled house of Judah into his face. Through a notch in the hills a golden beam shot from the sun and penetrating this inwalled valley lay like an illuminating fire on the man's face and glorified it. Laodice's breath stopped.
Slowly his fingers slipped along the fine silken length of that shining strand until his arm extended to the full; and the end of the lock yet rested on her breast. Thus might have been the hair of that Rahab, who was no less a patriot because she was frail; thus, the hair of Bathsheba, who was the mother of the wisest Israelite though she sinned; thus the hair of that mother of Samson, who slew armies single-handed! Badge of Judah, mark of the haughty strength of the oldest enlightenment in the world! He would not initiate his succor of Israel with violence against its purest type.
He smiled slowly; slowly let the strand fall through his fingers. He looked into her eyes and she saw a sudden light immeasurably compassionate and tender grow there. A weakness swept over her; she felt that she had been longing for that light. Then he rose quickly and moved away.
Old Momus, the mute, with his head on his knees slept on.
Julian, who had been halted involuntarily by the attitude of his companion and had been an amazed witness of this extraordinary end of the incident, looked at Philadelphus' face in frank stupefaction. But Philadelphus laid a hand so forceful and compelling on his companion's shoulder that it left the pink print of his fingers on the flesh, turned him toward the horses and led him away.
"We will breakfast farther on," he said.
A moment and they were swinging down the stony side of the hill toward the east, and Laodice, with her hand clutching her excited heart, had not thought of flinging herself upon Momus. She raised herself gradually to watch them as far as she could see, and her fixed and stunned gaze rested with immense homesickness and longing on the taller man radiant against the background of a risen sun.
Chapter IV
THE TRAVELERS
The Maccabee rode on, unconscious of Julian's critical gaze. The smile on his lips flickered now brightly, now very faint. The incident in the hills had not made him entirely happy, but it had awakened in him something which was latent in him, something which he had never felt before, but which held a sweet familiarity that the blood of his fathers in him had recognized.