"The Lord grant that this Wady be the hole," responded Judas. "If He forsake us not, few of the Greeks will come out at the other end. But to your rest, my daughter! You will need great strength of body and soul to comfort those in the Fort of the Rocks, who will mourn for many of us to-morrow. God watch between us!"
Deborah went a little way in the direction of the Fort of the Rocks. Jonathan accompanied her until she insisted upon lying down to rest in a secure spot, feeling too fatigued to resume her journey before to-morrow.
But no sooner had Jonathan's form disappeared through the night than she rose.
"I cannot stay away from the battle," she said to herself. "Many of these, my brothers, will fall. My place is among them. But this blood, this blood! God, must it be? Yet I, a woman, have helped prepare this slaughter."
She fell upon her knees. "Lord, spare Thy people. If blood must flow let it be of those only who have destroyed Thy altars, and blasphemed Thy Holy Name. Spare Judas and Jonathan, and—all these Thy people! Avenge Thou our cause! As the sun drinks the water from the pools, so may Thy vengeance drink the blood of the enemy, and Thy land be purged!"
She rose and walked rapidly, not toward the Fort of the Rocks, but in the direction of the Greeks.
XVI
THE BATTLEFIELD OF A HEART
