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JUDAS MACCABÆUS
Jerusalem crowns a massive ridge of rock. To the eye of the inhabitant this was a projecting portion of the very foundation of the earth; to his faith it was the symbol of the eternity of the Jewish religion. The rock is not, however, as solid as it seems. For ages it has served as the quarry from which the builders of walls and fortresses, pavements and palaces, have taken their material, leaving little more than the shell of the dome which first attracted the worshipful gaze of Abraham as he journeyed up from the south country. The rock of Moriah may then be taken as a symbol of the hollow formality into which the religion of Israel has at times degenerated. In the time of our story there were, beneath the streets and houses of the city, long labyrinthine passages that were unlighted except by the occasional lantern of an explorer or prowler, and vast chambers where no sound, save of some cautious footstep, had echoed since the click of the hammer of the Phœnician stone-cutter in the days of Hiram, the royal friend of Solomon, whose Tyrian artisans built the Temple.
In the flight of Deborah and Caleb, the lad led the way first to the upper cellar of the house of Elkiah. The floor of this was laid in well-squared blocks of white marble, cornered with smaller blocks in black, making an artistic pattern which could be discerned in the dim light that now fell upon it. In ancient times this cellar floor had been the pavement of an upper court, and opened to the full daylight; for Jerusalem had been again and again destroyed and rebuilt upon its own ruins.
Passing through this cellar the fugitives struck a series of winding stone steps which brought them to a sub-cellar. Here the darkness was dense. Caleb stood a moment with his hands extended, as if possessing eyes in his finger-tips.
"I have it. The air comes this way. I can feel it as it oozes up from the cracks about the loose trap-door, as easily as you, Deborah, could see the light around window shutters. Here is the trap. The stone tilts. It is hung on an iron bar. The big end of the stone rests on a rim, and is enough heavier to prevent the other end from sinking when one steps on it, but not heavier than you and I can lift. Uriah and I have often opened it, and he is no stronger than I am. Your fingers here, Deborah."
As the stone was tilted there came up a stream of damp, chilly air, which, Caleb said, was "the breath of the thousand toads and bats that live in the crannies below."
The blind boy leaped unhesitatingly into the black depths.
"It's smooth here, sister. The old Phœnicians swept up all their stone chips before they went home. I could run barefoot here without stubbing my toe."
Deborah let herself cautiously down into the darkness.
"Ah," said she, as she felt the solid level beneath her feet, "if we could only trust God as easily as I can trust my child!"
"But why shouldn't we, dear heart?" replied the boy. "God says, 'I will guide thee with mine eye.' Hasn't He done so with me?"
He took his sister's hand and led on boldly for a few paces.
"Wait. Yes, we turn this way, for the air comes from this direction. Stoop, sister! Uriah once bumped his head here. Now we are past it. Uriah said the roof here was twenty cubits high, and was held up by big pillars of the rock which hadn't been cut away. One day he lit a lamp in here, and the bats flew about like black shooting-stars. Listen! That's the water that comes from Solomon's Pools, down by Bethlehem; the same that spouts up in our fountain. And that drip, drip, drip—Uriah said it was the dying heart-beats of our nation. God make him mistaken for once! It's nothing but leaks. And——"
Caleb did not finish his sentence. Even Deborah exclaimed in alarm. A sharp cry rang through the cavernous passage. At the next instant Caleb was thrown from his feet. Something large, yet soft, brushed him. He heard the quick snapping of teeth, then a rustling beyond them, which suddenly ceased.
"It's only a fox. Uriah said that one day he chased one into the big crack in the north wall. Lots of them must live in here, or else foxes haven't got the wit they are thought to have."
A little further on the fugitives felt the air to be fresher and warmer. A light flickered in the distance. It seemed to Deborah to come through a window with shifting lattice-work.
"That's the opening through the city wall, not far from the north gate," said Caleb. "It is covered up with bushes on the outside. That's the reason the soldiers haven't found it yet. The wind blows the bushes like a curtain, Uriah says, and it makes the light blink."
The exit from the cavern through the city wall was very narrow, a mere crevice between the great stones which some earthquake, or possibly the stroke of some battering-ram, had dislodged.
"Let me look out, sister. I can see with my ears without pushing the bushes."
Caleb lifted himself to the aperture, and crawled into it, where he lay for a moment as still as a lizard. He suddenly slipped down again to his sister's side.
"A sentinel is passing. He is a big, awkward fellow, for I hear his feet roll on the little stones. Now he has gone. The soldiers are afraid to come among the bushes or close to the walls, because the cracks in the stones are full of little adders. But they never harm me."
"The Psalm reads," said Deborah, "'Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder.'"
"But," rejoined the lad, "I don't even tread on them. One day, though, I put my hand on one, and he didn't bite me. Maybe that is what the Lord means, too."
"Yes," replied his sister, "for Esaias says, 'The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the cockatrice's den.' But that is to be when Jerusalem is redeemed by a new David. God grant that your safety from these reptiles may mean that glorious days are near at hand. The Deliverer must come. He must come. Maybe we shall see Him, Caleb."
So they talked in whispers while the aperture grew dim with approaching night.
Caleb and Deborah did not venture to come out of the old city quarry until darkness had fully fallen, and the ray of a star shot its salutation to them through the crevice. When they emerged they stood for a long time close to the wall, screened by the bushes.
"How large the stars look!" whispered Deborah. "They hang as in mid-air; the constellations like ear-rings and necklaces on the invisible angels. They seem nearer than the camp-fires and tent lanterns of the Greeks on the hills yonder. So let us trust Heaven's help is nearer to us than our enemies."
"Amen!" rejoined Caleb.
Deborah glanced upward at the majestic march of what Caleb said were "God's Helmets," and then along the line of the Greek encampment, as she exclaimed, "O stars that fought in their courses against Sisera, fight against Apollonius!"
Caleb started, pressing his sister's hand. "Are the stars moving, sister?"
"No, child; it is but the night winds warring against the high walls of the city. The stars hear no command of the Lord as yet."
"But listen!" again interposed the excited child.
"No, that is only the wind among the olives in the old garden of Kedron," replied Deborah.
"But was there not once the 'sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees' that told David the Lord went before him to battle?" quoted the child.
"Oh, if God would be to us as thy faith, my child!" and Deborah stooped to kiss his forehead as they hurried away.
It was not difficult to avoid the soldiers, for, with the exception of an occasional sentry posted along the high road, the companies kept within their various camps. The Greeks had learned lessons in caution during their brief occupancy of Palestine such as had not been needed in the other countries they had subjugated. It was quite a common thing in the neighborhood of Jerusalem for sentinels never to return from their beats. Small companies of guards sometimes disappeared mysteriously, as if swallowed by earthquakes which made no rumble and closed their lips in silence. Even close to the camps men dropped in their tracks, while a stone, the size of one's fist, went clattering over the ground, leaving its mark in a broken skull or a mangled face; for the Jewish herdsmen were still as expert with the sling as they were in the days of David. Rumor attributed many of these daring exploits to a single family, five young men, the sons of a priest in Modin, chief of whom in this outlawry was Judas, reputed a giant.
Deborah and Caleb were comparatively safe, for they did not attempt the highways, nor even the beaten footpaths, but passed hastily across the stony fields, and glided crouching between the vine-rows on cultivated terraces. Now they paused to listen in the deeper shadows, by some gnarled olive whose dusky branches made the night darker; again, they hid behind the broad-bottomed cypresses if noise were heard; then, utterly wearied, they rested quietly for a few moments under the fig-trees.
Their course brought the fugitives beneath the frowning palisades of solid rock into which were cut the tombs of the Judges. These had no terrors for Deborah. Indeed, she lingered as if to commune with those departed spirits who might be near to the gates of Sheol listening for tidings from the upper world. Did these heroes of old still live? Were they unconscious of the awful fate that had fallen upon their land? Were there no powers among them which could return to the visible world and avenge the sorrows of those who are still forced to endure existence in the flesh? She remembered that once she had been poisoned by passing a noxious plant. Now she wondered if the other world had no destroying breath with which to slay the Greeks. Would not the soul of Elkiah, the righteous, stir up the abode of the dead by his coming, and by the story of his wrongs? Was Jehovah dead, too?
She condemned such thoughts as blasphemous and pushed on.
Only the stumbling of their feet against the stones broke the night silence.
At length dawn began to pour over the mountains of Moab. The jagged peaks far to the east, like prisms, unwound the white light and twisted its threads into robes of purple and orange, and transformed snowy points here and there into diamond and pearl. Deborah felt the inspiration of the scene. Surely the chariots and horses of God must charge from the sky, if Jehovah were indeed the "Lord of Hosts."
A noble hill rose before the fugitives; this was Mizpah. Here, as Deborah related, was where Samuel gathered the faithful to smite the Philistines, and down these very slopes God pursued the enemies of Israel with His thunders. Some one of these great stones might be the very stone Samuel had set up and called "Ebenezer," to commemorate the Lord's help. Oh, if she knew which it was, that she might kneel beside it, and repeat aloud the vow to serve her country's God!
On the hill gleamed the white, flat roofs of the houses of the little city of Mizpah, just showing themselves above the brown walls. Should she hasten onward? The fatigue of the long, excited tramp, the chill of the night, which the warm glow in the distant east seemed to drive deeper into their aching flesh, the human longing for companionship, and the hope of help urged her forward. She would enter Mizpah. There must be many there who had known Elkiah, and would protect his children.
But what was that which the dawning light made suddenly visible against the background of the walls? Alas! Deborah was too familiar with the ubiquitous banner flying from the spear-head. Mizpah, like Jerusalem, was occupied by the enemy. To go nearer was to court the very danger from which they were fleeing. But to flee again was too much for exhausted flesh. The shock of this discovery paralyzed her remaining energy. She tried to cling to the side of the rock against which she had been leaning. She fell fainting at its base.
Then the brain, too much excited, and unchecked by will, wrought its usual work. Memory and imagination became confused. The hill of Mizpah appeared to her repeopled with its ancient inhabitants. Old scenes of which she had read took the place of those she had just witnessed. The Greek tents became those of the ancient Philistines. Who should deliver Israel? She thought that the tall form of Saul, son of Kish, strode again along the slope of Mizpah, looking for his father's asses. Where was Samuel with the horn to anoint him king?
A full flash of the sun bursting over the eastern mountains revived her. Did it awaken her, or merely vitalize and make real her dream? She could not tell, for though this was Caleb sleeping by her side, surely yonder was Saul. His herdsman's dress could not disguise his kingly bearing. It needed not the prophetic gift of Samuel to distinguish the Lord's anointed. So stalwart was he, a head taller than most men; so majestic of mien; so noble of countenance. The apparition came near. It stood over her, taller than the rock, and seeming stronger. It bent down to her, and then it spoke:
"My children, why are you here?"
The voice aroused Caleb. His movement and the quick grasp of his sister's hand brought Deborah fully back from her dream. She pressed her eyes, if possible to press out any mere illusion; but the figure of Saul was still there.
He repeated his question, "Why are you here, children?"
Kindly he gave a hand to the startled girl. She grasped it, partly to discover whether it were real or a phantom; partly because she was so weak in flesh and will that she would have grasped any human hand that did not strike her or wear the mail of the hated Greek. She rose to her feet. The stranger started as if he, too, were uncertain whether this were not an apparition; for Deborah was not a child, as her face asleep had betokened, but now a woman. Into her youthful features the sharp suffering of a few days had put those lines which ordinarily come only of mature years and slow corroding care. Her black eyes had sunken deeper into their sockets. Their gleam seemed to be a reflection from some inner mirror of the soul, rather than a direct outlook,—that resilience of intense introspection which martyrs have in their eyes when they gaze upon those who have come to see them die.
The stranger's manner became that of reverential sympathy.
"My good woman, how came you here? And who are you? Where is your home?"
Deborah's uncertainty as to her own identity was at that moment nearly as great as that of her inquirer. She gazed intently into his face until she could assure herself that she was waking.
"My home, sir, is nowhere and everywhere. When the nest is destroyed the birds' home is on any tree or rock, and God provides for them. Such is our only refuge. I am a daughter of Jerusalem. We are children of Elkiah, son of Reuben."
"Then the news I have heard is true," exclaimed the man excitedly. "God of Israel, avenge thy murdered saints!"
The face of the stranger underwent a contortion that transformed it. Had Deborah seen this aspect first she had not dared to trust the man; so wrathful, so cruel he looked. But instantly his expression reverted to kindliness. There came into it a wonderful benignity. His eye was as clear a fountain of honesty and affection as the sun is of light. Every lineament also spoke of courage that matched the tremendous strength which his stalwart frame and protruding muscles displayed.
Deborah briefly narrated the events of recent hours.
"And you, sir? Who are you that dares speak kindly to one whom even God seems to have forgotten?"
"I am Judas, son of Mattathias, the priest of Modin. But it is enough that I am a son of Israel and your protector," showing a stout sword beneath his herdsman's goatskin shirt. "A few of us have given ourselves during these dangerous times to the help of the fugitives from the Sacred City, and I thank our Lord that He has directed me to this spot where I may serve the house of Elkiah. But here, my children, you cannot remain; nor can you enter the town yonder. You must go with me. I will see you safely among those who revere your father's name, and are brave enough to defend his children as they would their own."
He took the lad into his strong hands, and placed him astride his shoulder.
Avoiding the open places, and as much as possible keeping the rocks between them and Mizpah, he led the way down the hill, skirting its northern base. At length they struck the bed of a brook, which, though torn by the winter freshets, was now dry. Scarcely had they begun to follow its water-whitened stones when they were challenged. A Greek sentinel strode out before them.
"The password!"
Judas leisurely placed Caleb upon the ground. His bowed attitude was that of a lion when he is about to spring upon his prey, and, swift as the king of beasts, the Jew was upon the sentinel. Bending him backward, his iron grip was about the challenger's throat. In another instant the Greek's skull was shattered against a stone.
Judas stood a moment, grim as a fiend, contemplating his work. Then his lips moved:
"Forgive me, O my God! But was not my frenzy Thine, O Avenger of Israel?"
Gradually his harsh features relaxed. He glanced at his helpless charge, then at the dead body. He sat down and burst into tears.
"Demon or angel, into whose hands have I fallen?" murmured Deborah, for her rescuer seemed either less or more than man.
A moment later the opening between the rocks where they stood was shadowed. A Greek armor blocked the way.
Deborah uttered a cry of horror. Surely they were entrapped. But her guide advancing familiarly embraced the intruder. The stranger, removing his broad-brimmed Greek hat, showed a head marvelously like the other's; the same bristling red hair, broad forehead and decidedly aquiline nose. Though not so tall as Judas, the newcomer was equally broad-shouldered and as compactly built; his arms longer in proportion to the body; his calves more knotty. If Judas were a lion, this man was of a panther's build.
"The attempt succeeded, brother Jonathan?" inquired Judas.
"Perfectly," replied the seeming Greek. "I spent the night within the walls of Mizpah, and learned that Apollonius has about twenty thousand between Jerusalem and the sea."
"So many? And we are a brood of partridges before the hawks."
"But Elijah's God is left, brother Judas."
"Aye, but there is no Elijah."
"Say not so. Elijah was not Elijah until God called him, and made him feel the truth his name signified,—Elijah, 'whose God is Jehovah.' And God can call whom He will, and whom He calls, He will empower. Gideon was hiding his wheat from the Philistines, when the Lord said, 'Go, in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel.' To whom may He not speak? And woe to the man unto whom the Lord speaks, if he shall not obey, though he be a Simon or a Judas. Our father's house is not like Gideon's, least in the tribe; nor are you, Judas, least in our father's house."
"Enough of this talk, Jonathan," replied Judas. "Our swords are only sharp enough to drink the blood of the enemies of the Lord; not bright enough to lead the host. Such words as yours savor of blasphemy. I will have none of them further. But these children of Jerusalem are in need. Take care of them. I must away. You have all the lads of Modin accounted for?"
"Every one at his station."
"No Greeks on Bethhoron?"
"Not out of the town walls, or their souls would flee their bodies as soon as their bodies left the covert."
"It is well."
Judas donned the Greek armor which his brother Jonathan had taken off.
"The Lord watch over you, my lady!"
His farewell was spoken with that mixture of humility and dignity which only men who are conscious of their own exaltation, either of rank or character, can exhibit in rendering service.
"Your father is Mattathias?" asked Deborah of Jonathan, when Judas was gone. "Is he not very old? Surely he has often been with my father in Jerusalem."
"Alas, Mattathias is old, or our cause would not lack a leader. But these events are too much for him. His life burns rapidly with the excitement, and the news of good Elkiah's death will make it burn the faster; for Mattathias is as old as Elkiah was, though less broken. Yet I well know that his life is only a breath of the Lord. Our father has five sons. Simon is the eldest and wisest; but there is that about our Judas which marks him for the leader. To his care is due the fact that these hills are so guarded that not even a little waif of Judaism like that blind child can lose his way. But Judas does not yet believe in himself. The Lord open his eyes, or send us another leader, else the people will perish. But you should rest."
Jonathan sought for his charge a little nook in the side of a ravine. Even the hard ground was inviting, for Deborah's limbs ached sorely from the unaccustomed strain of the past few hours. The quiet of the dell, and the knowledge that eyes as friendly as they were sharp watched over her, came as a sweet relief from the incessant fright of their journey. Long time she lay endeavoring to catch some of the calm out of the white clouds that floated above her; or listening to the hum of insects and the calls of birds, while she thanked God that there were creatures less savage than man. At length nature asserted its claim, and, with Caleb in her arms, she fell asleep. Jonathan came and threw over them a coarse outer garment such as the better class of peasants wore; but the fugitives were as unaware of their friend's deeds as of the thoughts which passed through his mind when from time to time he came and stood awhile beside them. Darkness fell. Their guardian let them sleep.
It was past midnight when he roused them, and the journey was resumed. Over hills and across ravines, avoiding the usual footpath, they toiled on, Jonathan carrying Caleb on his shoulder, and Deborah borrowing strength of limb from her indomitable spirit, until the stars faded in the dawning light.