"It is the true faith," said Deborah, "but how should you know it? Is a girl's belief more to you than all your boasted philosophy?"
"Not a girl's belief, but a woman's life," cried the Greek enthusiastically. "A life filled with the spirit of her God, is most convincing. That has persuaded me. And yet, Deborah, these thoughts are not altogether new to me. From childhood I seem to have had something of this faith. Voices have spoken to me from an unknown world—a world over this, as the sky domes all lands and seas. Our Greek gods are to this God of yours as the bright things about us are to the sun. Though the sun's face be hidden by clouds all things get their brightness from it. And strangely, these voices I speak of seem to be recalling me to something I had once known and forgotten, or to awaken something born in me, but still latent and unintelligible. Your father's clear faith, your own words, your devotion—these have been an interpreter of what I have so vaguely felt. Believe me, Deborah, I commit no sacrilege when I swear my devotion to the God of Israel."
Deborah listened with a delight not concealed by her expression of wonderment.
"Tell me," she said eagerly, "tell me more of yourself, Captain Dion. I pray you be seated. Did not your father have something of this faith? Else who has taught you?"
"My father I have hardly known," replied Dion. "He was attached to the court of Philip of Macedonia. When I was but seven years old he was sent on an embassage to Rome, and never returned to us. My mother had died four years before. Of her I have but dim remembrance, or perhaps fancied remembrance, prompted by this."
He produced from his breast a small box enclosing a beautiful face carved in relief upon ivory, and delicately enriched with flesh tints.
"This was the work of an Athenian who was greatly skilled in such art. This face has ever been in my thoughts. No other face of woman ever displaced it from my constant dream by day and by night, until——"
"Speak no more of that," said Deborah. "Let no stranger supplant your mother's image in your love."
"At my father's death," resumed Dion, "I was made a page in the household of Perseus, who succeeded Philip, until I was strong enough to carry a sword. Since then the camp has been my home. I fought for my King until he was utterly overthrown by the Romans; then I became a wanderer. Hoping that Antiochus would war against my old enemy the Romans, I gave him my sword. I did not seek such work as we have done here. But enough about myself. Pledge me, Deborah, that you will not go again to the army."