"How much longer?" the Ephesian demanded.
"What! Fast and slow!" the Maccabee said calmly. "Last night you wasted hours to spite me. To-day you begrudge me a moment's talk with a lovely wayfarer. Or is it because she prefers me? You have ordered our progress long enough. I shall move when it pleases me."
He sat down by the fire, clasping his hands back of his head, and half-closed his eyes. The Ephesian rose and tramped restlessly about. As he glanced down at the reposeful attitude of the man whom he could not exasperate he saw the sun glitter on the Maccabaean signet on the hand clasped back of Philadelphus' head. The sight of it in a way collected Julian's purposes. He knew that by some misadventure he had missed Aquila whom he had hoped to meet in Emmaus, bearing treasure stolen from the daughter of Costobarus. By this time, then, the Maccabee's emissary had doubtless arrived in Jerusalem–the last possible point for the two conspirators to meet. To proceed to Jerusalem without the Maccabee, with whatever excuse he could invent, would not deliver the dowry of the bride into his hands, in the event that Aquila had not succeeded in his instructions to make way with Laodice before he reached Jerusalem. Nothing occurred to Julian at that moment but to impersonate the Maccabee until it was possible to get possession of the two hundred talents from those friends in Jerusalem who were interested in his cousin's welfare. No one in Jerusalem knew Philadelphus Maccabaeus. Aquila, as fellow-conspirator, would not dare to expose him if Julian appeared as his cousin. Perilous at best, it seemed the only plan by which he was to get possession of a fortune which even Cæsar would be glad to have.
The resolution formed itself in a brain turbulent with passion and desperation. He halted silently back of his cousin and with a sudden flare of intent on his dead white face snatched a dagger from his girdle and drove it between the shoulders of the Maccabee. Without a word, Philadelphus turned upon his assailant and started to his feet. But Julian, catching a glimpse of the dire purpose in his cousin's darkened eyes, struck again. The knife, blindly wielded, glanced on the Maccabee's head with wild force. Under a veil of scarlet Philadelphus sank to the earth.
Julian with a sob of terror sprang out of range of his victim's gaze. After a time he took courage and looked. The lids were fallen and the breast was still.
Julian bent hastily and snatched the signet from the nerveless hand and fumbling in the bosom drew forth the wallet there. He opened it, finding within ancient parchments with heavy seals, new writings, rolls of notes and a packet of letters. He rose, trembling violently, and backed away. After a moment's fascinated gaze at the roadway to see if the pilgrims passing had seen what he had done, he whirled about, mounted his horse and galloped frantically toward Jerusalem.
Meanwhile the midday activity on the Roman roadway swept by the smoldering fire and the motionless figure lying in the grass some distance back from the highway. Along the splendid causeway the Passover pilgrims fared, men afoot, men on camels, families and solitary travelers; the poor, the once rich, the humble and the haughty; figures in burnooses, gabardines, gowns and tunics; striped and checkered woolens, linens or rags; noisy or silent, angry or sad, hour in and hour out, until the hills were a-throb with the human atmosphere. Time and again the sweet invitation of the rare grass along the marsh invited the way-weary to halt to tie a sandal, to bind up a wound, to eat a crust spread with curds or simply to rest. No one approached the silent man who had fallen beside a dying fire. They were tired enough to refrain from disturbing a man who slept. So, though they looked at him from where they sat and two or three asked each other if he were asleep or merely weary, he was left alone. One by one they who halted took up their journey again and the figure in the grass lay still.
Finally near the noon hour there came from the summit of a hill overhanging the road, a high, wild, youthful yell that cut with startling distinctness through the dead level of human communication on the highway. Each of the travelers below looked up to see a young shepherd in sheepskins with long-blowing stiff crinkled locks flying back from a dusky face, with eyes soft and shining as those of some wild thing. Around him eddied a mob of sheep as wild as he, and a Natolian dog raced hither and thither in a cloud of dust, rounding the edge of the flock and shaping it to the advance of the young faun that mastered it.
"Sheep! by the prophets!" one of the sedate Jews exclaimed.
"The only flock in existence in Judea, I venture!" his companion declared.