The Greek turned, and said in quick words: "My command awaits me, Deborah. Tell me how I may save you."
She let him put his hand upon her. As she felt his touch she saw this much of her problem solved—he should not return to his command if a woman's will or a woman's wiles could prevent it. The love he offered her she would use not for herself, but for his own sake. Surely if it were right to deceive an enemy for his destruction, it were doubly right to deceive a friend in order to save him.
She replied, "My friend, my father's friend, you can save me from that which I dread worse than my own death."
"How? Who threatens you? Let me but hear it, and my sword will follow him through Jewish or Greek camp, or through hell itself."
"Let us draw a little more aside," said Deborah. "The light is so clear now that it shows us."
Dion slowly followed her, pausing again and again to look toward his camp.
A second bugle denoted that the host was to begin its march.
"You must go back to your duty," said she. "Go, I must save myself as I can. The bugle calls you."
"A more sacred duty calls me here. Deborah, tell me, what threatens you?"
She gently drew him to a seat beside her upon a shelving rock which was overcapped by a juniper bush. Did she mean the tenderness her face expressed, so near to his? She felt that her look was like that of a serpent enchanting a bird. She despised herself and would fain have risen and fled away from the spot. But as she noted the man's features, expressing so well the nobility of character she knew he possessed, and realized also the unselfishness of his devotion to her, she felt that she was not altogether practising deceit; that her web, though spun by her brain, was from substance drawn from her heart.