"It is that Greek," said their officer. "See, he is in communion with the enemy. Take them alive, but if they try to escape kill them both."
The two turned from the open glade to a covert among the rocks. Scarcely had they begun to converse when they were seized by overpowering numbers, who could not have more stealthily performed the exploit if they had been leaves of the overhanging trees which turned into men as they fell. The arms of the captives were quickly pinioned behind their backs, and under guard they were marched to the city.
XLIV
A WIFE?
The following day the excitement in Jerusalem was intense and clamorous. As band after band of the Jewish heroes returned from the pursuit of the Greeks they were met at the city walls with such cheers that the Kedron valley echoed as if the generations of the dead entombed along its rocky sides had awakened to greet the valor of the living. Companies vied with one another in relating the marvels of prowess they had performed; but through all the boasting ran a vein of reverent recognition of the heavenly leading of affairs, and almost as worshipful praise of the strange man by whose hand Jehovah had wrought this new deliverance.
Those who had captured Dion at the spring of Bethzur gave full credit to their own shrewdness and courage in that exploit.
"All Greeks are treacherous," was one comment. "Judas is so true himself that he suspects no one else; but he ought not to have allowed the Macedonian to remain in the city after the rest of his kind had been chased out by their own heels."
"Think of his impudence! He even asked for a command. To command us—us! Jonathan was for trusting him; but Simon, the Wise, advised caution. No doubt this Greek traitor had planned an ambush for us. The other Greek is of high rank; his face would show that without the gold in his sword-hilt."