"What now?" said Jonathan. "I have not seen our brother so distraught in his moodiness since the old days in the Fort of the Rocks. There was need of his brooding then, but not now when all things are coming our way, as when the quails were blown by the east wind and covered the land to feed our fathers in the desert."
"But have you not noted?" asked Simon, "how Judas comes out of his black clouds? He is always brighter afterward, and shows us something that none but he could have thought of. He will accept the kingship."
"Brother Simon," replied Jonathan, "I like not the look of Judas' face. He is not meditating as is his wont. He is struggling with some rage. I once before saw that same look on him. It was when he crushed the skull of a Greek spy who had got within our lines at Mizpah. A word in your ear, Simon."
"It will be as safe as under an altar."
"A man has crossed his path."
"Who?"
"Dion."
"Faugh! A feather crossing the rush of a torrent! A partridge flitting through the lair of a lion! What cares Judas for the Greek?"
Jonathan took playfully the beard of Simon. "You are called the Wise; and yet methinks you are dull-witted. We have insisted that Judas should be King. That is well. But you have blocked the way of the project by insisting that he should marry the daughter of Elkiah. This, have I not said, he will never do."