"This way, Jonathan! this way!" cried the lad; and, so guided, Jonathan retreated step by step, now between the opening curtains; now across another chamber; then down a flight of stone steps. At length he was in darkness.
"This way, Jonathan!" sounded the thin voice of the child from the cellar.
The Greeks who came after stopped, being unable to see any object; but thrust with their swords through the darkness.
"Hold off, men, we have him trapped!" shouted one of the leaders. "Ten men guard this stairway. The rest of you go with me to the cellarway in the court. We will pick him out with our spear-points, or burn him out like a fox in a hole; it matters not which way the rascal wants to die. It is the great Judas himself in spite of his size, for there is only one man who can handle the sword as this fellow does. But for all that I would have had the better of him just now were it not that that blind brat can see in the dark. Indeed, I stuck him once like a pig at the bottom of the steps."
"You lie," said another. "You stuck me; and but for my hand catching your blade you would have hamstrung me with your jab—jab—jab at everything and nothing. I tell you I had the Jew by the throat, and would have throttled him but for you."
"Had him by the throat?" shouted another. "You had me by the throat. I was in front of you. I shall claim the reward when we get him. I swear it was I that drove him down these steps. I had knocked up his sword, and was closing on him when you put your camel's foot of a fist on my throat."
While some watched by the cellarways, and the leaders consulted upon means to extricate their valiant prey without danger to themselves, Jonathan was being piloted safely by Caleb through the subterranean passage. For a while he followed the lad. They at length came to a place where the path became two. Here Jonathan took the child into his arms.
"From this point I know the way," said he. "When we came in by the crevice in the wall that Meph told us of, we went up that passage until we came out in the Temple court. And there, Caleb, we swore before the broken altar of our Lord to give our lives if need be for your and Deborah's rescue."
"But how did you know of our danger?" queried the lad.