"And you believe, Jonathan, that that Greek stands in his way?" replied Simon. "This I would not credit unless you should tell me that you yourself had caught them in dalliance."
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. "Listen!" said he, "ears open and teeth tight, for I have never breathed this to living man before. The night before the battle in the Wady I followed her, for I feared that her daring would bring her to harm. I tracked her into the very camp of Apollonius. May the rising moon there shatter my wits forever if I speak not the truth! I saw this Dion come to her. I would have slain him and her. But when I drew to strike I overheard their words. I saw that she was stealing this man out of the fight, lest in the vengeance we were about to take on Apollonius he, too, should fall. She risked her life to give us the victory—that we know; and I know that she risked her life for this man at the same time. If ever woman loved a man, she loves him. I saw that she accepted his love from the touch of his lips."
Simon turned fiercely upon the speaker. "Jonathan, dare you impugn the loyalty of the daughter of Elkiah? She is not a Glaucon, though she has his blood."
"Her loyalty?" replied Jonathan. "I laud it. This woman is so true to us and our people that not even her love for this man made her swerve. And why should she not love the Greek? He is as good a fellow as any since the day when Father Abraham was himself a heathen in the land of the Chaldees. I have mingled much with the Greeks in Jerusalem without giving them a chance to cut my throat. I have been more than once, as you know, in this palace when Apollonius was its master. I have learned much of Dion from the lips of his fellows in camp and field. He was the pride of the Greek service; could have had high rank, but he risked it all for the safety of Deborah. He won her gratitude by saving her from foul dealing. I say, Jew that I am, Deborah ought to love Dion. And, further, I will say that Deborah ought not, and will not, marry Judas. It was not alone for the benefit of foreign alliance that I spoke of our brother seeking a wife from the courts of other nations; I foresaw that he could not marry within Judaism, since he would marry none save Deborah; and she is an impossibility, unless I know nothing of the soul of this woman. Now mark me further, my over-wise Simon. Did you not note that when Judas was brooding over the kingship he went to the house of Elkiah? And since his return he has been behind what you call his thunder-cloud. I tell you that when Judas' lightning flashes, it will not be with the light of statecraft, but against Dion. Judas, generous, self-yielding, patriotic, is one man; Judas in love is a different man. I would that the Greek were far away from Jerusalem."
Judas still sat by his table. The light faded in the high window beneath the cedar rafters of the great chamber. A star gleamed through the aperture, then floated on to look into a million other chambers where men and women sat with bowed heads or lay upon restless couches. The moon looked in, and hung her white veil on this wall of the chamber, and then on that, but evoked no response from Judas, except an occasional smile that relieved the harshness of his features.
By and by the sun rose. Jonathan came and saw him fast asleep with his head resting on his clasped hands. When his brother woke him, his face showed the marks of suffering. Years seemed to have put wrinkles about his eyes and mouth, as time cracks timber and lime walls and almost everything else. Why not a man's face?
Judas ate a little of the meal which the servants brought, responding only in briefest words to their questions. Then, as if a spring had uncoiled somewhere within his body, he suddenly rose.
"Brother Jonathan, bring the Captains here at the sixth hour—and the Priests at the ninth; for we have pressing business to-day."
Without another word he passed through the great doorway into the palace plaza, and thence into the street.
"What news?" asked a guard. "Maccabæus is as wrathful this morning as a starved lion. Are the Syrians marching again upon the city?"