"What are you thinking of?" cried Manasseh, in a voice that all could hear. "Have I not made peace with our neighbours and sworn in the name of the one living God to maintain it, and would you put me to shame?"
"Have they not murdered our brother Jonathan?" demanded Aaron.
"No; our brother fell in battle like a brave soldier, with his sword in his hand. And others of our land are fighting now for their country and will die for her. We shall mourn them and honour their memory, but we are not wild Indians to exact a bloody vengeance for those fallen on the battle-field."
"Very well, brother Manasseh, but you need not charge us with being wild Indians. I do not ask that we should fall upon our neighbours and burn their houses over their heads, but that we should be on our guard and defend ourselves and our families the best we know how. Believe me, brother, I am as good a Christian as the next man; I go to church every holy day, even when I am ill; but I feel easier, when I pray for my soul's salvation, if I know my gun is loaded and primed."
"Then you are no true believer in God," returned Manasseh, in a tone of reproof. "You worship that Jesus in whose name the massacre of St. Bartholomew was perpetrated, the burning of heretics sanctioned, and the crusades undertaken; but you are no true follower of that Jesus who came with a message of peace and good-will to mankind, and who said to Peter, 'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'"
"I am not so sure that he really said that," rejoined Aaron, shrewdly. "Matthew has it that he did, but Mark and Luke make no mention of it, and, according to John, Jesus simply said to Peter, after the latter had cut off the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant, 'Put up thy sword into the sheath.' At any rate, I am not clear what I should have done had he said it to me; but I know one thing, if I had been there when the Saviour handed the sop to Judas, I should have dealt Iscariot such a blow on the head that he wouldn't have had wit enough left to betray his master. And just so I will strike down the traitor who leads a foe against Toroczko, if he once comes within my reach."
"What traitor do you mean?"
"The one that the girl spoke of yesterday when she said, 'If a traitor rises up from amidst your own people, then tremble!' I know whom she meant now: with the insurgents is a man, lately come into notice, who surpasses all his fellows in cruelty. He is our Iscariot."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because he calls himself Diurbanu. No genuine Wallachian would have taken the nickname of his king, Decebalus. It is as if one of us should call himself Attila. Now, then, Manasseh, I love you and am ready to follow your lead. I shall never forget how you went up to Monastery Heights and came back with our two brothers. You knew how to serve them better than I. I would have avenged their death merely, but you saved their lives. So, as you made peace with Moga and his people, you have a right to ask us to keep it. Therefore we will demand no atonement from them for Jonathan's death. But when we hear that Diurbanu and his men, who know nothing about that peace and are no parties to it, are advancing on Toroczko, then will be the time for us to act."