"I will send my servants," said the physician, "and have Gideon removed. He is taken in dumb palsy, a disorder I would study. In my house he shall have comfort while life abides in his frame, which will not be long; although I have known such to live for many moons."
"He shall remain here," commanded Deborah. "He is a true Jew, servant to my father's friend."
XLIII
BATTLE OF BETHZUR
Little thought was given to Sirach or his story during the next few weeks. The nation was summoned to a sudden life-and-death-struggle with the Syrian Empire. Lycias, the Governor, menaced the Sacred City with sixty thousand men. Profiting by the failure of his predecessors in the three "Battles of the Passes"—the Wady on the north, the Heights of Bethhoron, and the slopes of Emmaus on the west—this cautious General passed to the south, and then swung his armies eastward to the neighborhood of Hebron. It was a masterful stroke, since from that region there were many roads which converged to a point not far from the city. Upon any one of these open ways the invaders might mass, or with their greater numbers they might advance in force by all of them. The choice of approach being with the invaders, the defender was forced to abide an attack very near the city walls, unless by strategic insight he could divine his antagonist's plan almost before he began to execute it. Judas was therefore compelled to sentinel every spot of ground from Bethshemesh on the west to Hebron on the south. His sharp-eyed peasant soldiers signalled by flying arrows in the day and fire-flashes at night the slightest change in the disposition of the Greek forces. The instant Lycias' advance turned into the open valley of Elah, and began its wary movement northward, the Jewish leader saw that the enemy would essay the narrow pass between the rocky slope of Bethzur and the cliff of Halhul, some twelve miles from the city. He therefore gathered his men secretly a little north of that gateway of the hills and waited. Judas was mindful that these slopes and wadies through which the Greek legions would have to approach were memorials of the valor of David, the shepherd king of Judah, in his wars against the Philistines. He bade his men bow for worship, and himself led the prayer:
"Blessed art Thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst break the violence of the mighty by the hand of Thy servant David, and didst deliver up the camp of the stranger into the hands of Prince Jonathan. Shut up now this army of the invaders in the hands of this Thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in all their host."
Scarcely had the muttered "Amens" ceased when the clatter of horsemen was heard beyond the pass.
The Greeks were not aware of the presence of the Jews, since the latest of their scout reports placed the patriots in unsuspicious ease behind their city walls. They, therefore, moved incautiously into the narrow valley of Bethzur.