"Where is she?"
Had not Nadan's eyes been upon the ground he would have detected something in Judas which would have halted his proposal; but he continued:
"She has been in my power. I could have carried her to my tent, yet I delivered her to her kinsman. She comes with his men."
A sunburst could not have changed Judas' aspect more than did the glad news. Nadan quite naturally misinterpreted it as an evidence of the favor with which the Maccabæan received his proposal, and he enthusiastically pursued his scheme.
"I could have taken her to my tent, for she was mine. But, son of Mattathias, I have wider thoughts for us both. With the tribesmen as your allies you can hold this land. Quickly the city will fall. Two thousand spears will follow the call of Yusef or his son. These you may have if you give me the daughter of Elkiah to wife, and assure me of the property of that house as her dowry."
"The woman is not mine to give," said Judas.
"Then the easier it is to give her," was the Arab's response. "When she was in my power I could have made the alliance of the tribesmen with the Greek on the same condition, for they have offered us ten times the amount of Elkiah's estate for our aid against you. Why did we not accept it? Because, son of Mattathias, the tribesmen prefer to live in fellowship with the Jews, for a thousand years our neighbors in the land, bound to us by the ties of intermarriage since the Moabite Ruth wedded the ancestor of your great King David. The Greeks are foreign to us. To make my marriage with this fair woman the seal of perpetual peace with the Jews by helping them reconquer this land, for this I gave up the daughter of Elkiah as my spoil that I might have her as a gift from your hands. I have already the consent of her kinsman, Ben Aaron, waiting only upon that of the son of Mattathias."
Nadan awaited Judas' answer with bowed head, an attitude of obsequious courtesy, which, however, did not conceal the hauteur of the man, or his reserved purpose of swift and vengeful retaliation if his scheme were not acceded to.
Judas pondered, and after some moments replied slowly:
"Son of Yusef, the tribesmen have been of old both the foes and friends of my people. I would make them only friends, that in peace we might both continue to possess these lands our God gave to our fathers. You have my pledge—if—if the woman shall consent."