Mounting a donkey, which was among the many animals captured in the attacks upon the Romans' baggage train, John bade adieu to his comrades; and with Jonas, now grown into a sturdy young fellow, started for home. He journeyed by the road to the west of Jerusalem, in order to avoid the bandits of Simon son of Gioras; who still scourged the neighborhood of Masada and Herodium, lying between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. He avoided all the towns in which there were Roman garrisons; for the bandages on his head would have shown, at once, that he had been engaged in fighting. He traveled slowly, and was six days before he arrived home.
"This time, my son, you have not come home unharmed," Simon said. "Truly you are a shadow of your former self."
"I shall soon be strong again, father; and these are honorable scars, for I had them in single combat with Titus, himself, in the valley between Hebron and Carmelia."
"Then how is it that you live to tell the tale, my son?" Simon asked, while exclamations of wonder broke from Mary and Martha. "Surely God did not deliver him into your hands?"
"I wish not to boast, father, and I have told the true story to none; but truly God did deliver him into my hands."
"And he is dead?" Simon exclaimed.
"No, father, he lives, for I spared him."
"Spared him!" Simon exclaimed. "What, you did not avenge the miseries of our people upon the son of the oppressor?"
"No, father; and I rejoice that I did not for, had I done so, surely the Romans would have avenged his death upon all the land. But I thought not of that, at the time. I was sore wounded, and bleeding, and my sense was well-nigh gone; but as I knelt upon him, and lifted my hand to slay him, a thought--surely sent by God, himself--came into my mind, and I said:
"'Swear by your gods that you will spare the Temple, or I slay you;' and he swore that, so far as lay in his power, he would spare the Temple."