XVI
THE BATTLEFIELD OF A HEART
Deborah joined a group of Greek women on the edge of the camps. These were venting their rage upon an officer in command of a contingent sent from Jerusalem.
"The Captain forbids us to come among his tents; Astarte curse him! Are his men better than other men, or better than we?"
"They say he was born in Athens; as if Athens were better than Antioch!" said one.
"The statue of Athena, the prude, in the Parthenon, is so big that it crowds out all other gods and goddesses; and so this upstart Captain would crowd us out. And are we not goddesses? My Adonis, the one with a brass pot for a skull, called me one."
"Yes, they call us heavenly, and help us to Hades."
"Captain Dion would make Aphrodite herself wear long skirts," said another.
"Dion!" The word rang sharp as a thunder-crash through Deborah's soul. A glare as of the lightning's bolt seemed to illumine her. In it she saw herself again a woman. Dion! Was she leading this man to slaughter? But why not? He, too, was the enemy of her land, of her religion, of her God. Had she not vowed death to Greeks of every name? Did her oath spare even Dion?
Yet Dion had saved her. And that, too, in spite of his soldierly duty to his cause.
Deborah staggered back into the darkness. Her strength until now had been that of a man; but it was the strength which her soul, with its tremendous resoluteness, had imparted to nerve and muscle. Now that her soul was shaken, it sent its quiver through her physical frame, and she was weak as a child. She sank upon the ground.
Then one by one came memory's pictures of the terrors she had experienced in Jerusalem. What had sustained her during those awful days? Her pride as the daughter of the house of Elkiah? The necessity of guarding her blind brother Caleb? Her faith? All these, doubtless; yet she confessed to herself that but for the kind words of the Greek Dion she might have given way. Not his proffered love. No! No! That alone would have made her hate him; but he had been good to her. And if—if God had used the Greek's kindness, even his love, to sustain her, to give her strength for her holy devotion, should she despise this Greek? Should she lead him into this ambuscade? If he should fall on the morrow would she not be his murderess? She recoiled from herself as from some polluted thing.
Then, as a wave receding into the sea comes back, her feeling was quickly reversed. Had she not taken delight in imagining herself another Jael, who could drive the nail through the temple of a foeman of her people, though he were sleeping in her own tent. She tried to say, "Even Dion to his death!" but the sentence would not frame itself in her purpose. Her brain seemed to stagnate. She could not think. She prayed, "Lord, I am but as a mould; fill me with such purpose as Thou wilt!"
At length she said to herself, "I will seek out Judas, and beg him to spare the advance of the Greek hosts, for there Dion will be, since his camp is here foremost."
Scarcely was this project formed when she abandoned it. The contingent from Jerusalem to which Dion belonged was as numerous as all Judas' band, and, if not destroyed in the first surprise of the attack, might turn the tide of battle. Besides, what reason could she give Judas for this request? Confess her attachment to a Greek? If womanly shame did not forbid such an acknowledgment to another man, it surely would cost her the confidence of the Jews. Never again would they believe in the patriotism or honesty of one whose brother was a traitor, and whose lover—for such they would regard Dion—was in the hostile camp.
Following her first impulses Deborah had risen from the ground and walked slowly toward the place where she knew Judas could be reached by her signals. But she quickly turned back.
"Might I not warn Dion? Not, of course, his fellow-officers. But, if I did, would not his sense of duty lead him to divulge the plot?" She prayed again for light, but no light came. The gloom deepened about her. Two spirits were tearing her soul asunder in their strife for possession. She thought of her people; of her father dashed to death by Greek hands beside the altar; then of the brave band of patriots who, unless they triumphed bloodily at the very dawn, must themselves be slaughtered before the nightfall. She felt her personality dissolving into a flame of zeal for her land and her people's God. She cried out with uplifted arms: "O God, I am no longer a woman. I am Thine; Thy Avenging Spirit! Use me as Thou dost use the lightning's bolt, the flood, the plague, that I may bring destruction to all this host!"
Then, even as she stood with outstretched arms in this awful imprecation, there came the vision of Dion, so noble, though a Greek, with a man's heart greater than all his racial prejudice; the friend who had risked life and repute for her father's safety, though it proved unavailing; the rescuer of blind Caleb; her own friend—who loved her, she could not doubt it—whose thoughts even now, as he was moving to his death, were possibly of her.
"O, God!" she exclaimed. "Take away my life. Let me die rather than make this decision."
She waited, longing that her heart might stop beating through the violence of its own contentions. But it beat on. She drew a dagger, and pressed its point gently against her bosom, as she murmured:
"Oh, if it were but right that I should lay down my life, since God will not take it!"
The crackling of dried leaves caught Deborah's attention. A sentinel gave challenge.
Deborah instantly responded with the watchword of the Greek camp, "The sword of Apollonius," which she knew had been given for the night.
"Another woman, by Jove! One would think he had fallen upon the Grove of Daphne, or the streets of the Piræus, rather than a war camp," said one walking with the sentry.
"Come, get out of this! To the rear with you, or we will make you march in front of the first battle."
"I am not within the lines," replied Deborah. "The lines run from the twisted rock to the cypress yonder. So we were told."
"Are those the lines?" asked the officer. "Then let her stay. We ourselves have lost our bearing, but daylight is coming up yonder in the East, and we shall need no longer any lines here, for we move at dawn."
Deborah could not mistake that voice, nor the form that the dim light outlined. She thought that she was silent, enacting a tragedy back of her rigidly compressed lips; yet some word or outcry must have escaped her, for the officer turned quickly.
"Woman, did you speak?"
Now she was indeed silent, and moveless as the great rock against which she leaned. The man came nearer and tried to scan her features.
"Woman, I have heard your voice before. Have you followed from Jerusalem?"
A moment elapsed before she replied, but that moment was like one of those in which we dream, and live hours and days. She realized that there had now been forced upon her a quick decision of the question which the past hour of agonizing debate with herself had not begun to solve. She had time in that waiting moment to pray for light. She gathered up many scenes of those terrible days in the city, of her flight from Dion's help, of her vow, of her life as a spy. To these she added the imagined scenes of the coming day, the slaughter of Greeks, perhaps the annihilation of the Jewish band, and extinction of Israel's hopes. She saw all these things, and central of them all she saw the form now before her falling beneath some arrow shot from the covert of the rocks overhanging the valley he was about to enter. And then she saw herself as the accomplisher of it all.
"And this, this," she said to herself, "is to be a woman's return for a man's love!"
Deborah had often prayed that God would destroy her sense of personality, that she might be but an unfeeling agent of His will, as are the lightning and tempest; but He had not done so. Her human nature asserted itself over her faith; her individuality refused to lose itself in her nationality, or shall we say that her womanhood was stronger than both? This man and herself were for the instant as essential factors in her problem as were the Greek and Jewish armies. But she saw no clearer the solution of that problem; only that it must be solved, right or wrong, and at once. So she replied to her questioner:
"Yes, I came from Jerusalem."
The officer peered closely into her face.
"You are not Greek nor Syrian."
"God be praised, I am not. I am a daughter of Jerusalem, an outcast from my father's house, as you would make all the women and children of Israel to be."
"Deborah! Daughter of Elkiah! Do I dream? Of all the damnable things that war has brought this is the most fiendish. You, Deborah, in a soldier's camp! Good gods! Tell me you are not the daughter of Elkiah, but some black soul from Erebus which has found her dead body and entered it."
"Dion, I did not die, but it is true that another spirit has entered mine."
"Better wert thou dead than live such a life as this," cried he. "Why did you fly without my help? I had arranged for your safety. I would have given my life for yours—but—but now——"
He grasped her hands, then threw them from him as something that defiled him. "There is no god of Jew or Greek, or this could not have been. Tell me, Deborah, that what I see is not true. That you—that you are not here."
He covered his face with his hands as if to banish the vision of the reality.
"Dion, what you see is true; but what you think is false—yes, false and mean as the gods you worship. An outcast I am, as all my people are; but not an outcast from honour; not from my father's faith; not from the favour of my father's God. Your soldiers have destroyed our homes; where can we live but in the fields? How can we subsist except as the beasts and birds do, by picking up the crumbs which the army of Antiochus drops along its path of slaughter?"
She laid her hands upon her gaudy garments as if to tear them from her.
A bugle sounded. It was quickly answered from far and near. A rustle as of a sudden storm among the rocks and bushes told that the host was waking. Then followed the hum of voices, cut with the sharp words of command, the click of arms, and clashing of utensils, the neighing of horses and outcries of grooms and masters.
Dion started a step as if to obey the call.
"Stay, Dion!" she cried, losing for the instant her self-possession as she realized the fate which hung above her friend.
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.
"My dear Dion," she said, "the greatest terror that possesses me is that you think me what my presence here might suggest. Save me first of all from falling in your respect. Believe me, I am still as worthy of your care as when you saw me, a mere child, in Jerusalem—though these few months have made me a woman, I fear with a wicked heart."
"I do believe you, Deborah," cried he, grasping both her hands. "Now that the light shows you, I see the same pure soul I once loved, and never for an instant have ceased to love. But, my child, you have suffered. Pain has cut deep lines. This must cease. If there is anything in my position, my estate, any influence with those in power, any strength in my arm or sharpness in my sword, let me use it. Only tell me."
The trumpet call was repeated. Dion rose, and stood for a while looking in the direction whence it had come.
"I can overtake them," he said, hesitating.
"But how explain your absence? Will not some harm come from your failing to appear with your command? You should go."
Yet her hands were hard holding his, and her face wore an intensity of desire which he, not knowing its full meaning, thought to be only the return of his love.
"I cannot go," said he. "I will not go, my love, until you have told me how I can save you. By all the gods I swear it."
"Swear not at all," said Deborah, placing her fingers upon his lips, only to receive the kiss they tempted.
Dion's arm stole about the form of his companion. She did not resist it. Why not? Only because thus she was detaining him. Let him interpret it otherwise; it was for his life, and when he was saved they would part forever.
A distant din caught the ear. A wild scream of a bugle was answered by the blast of scores of trumpets and the shrieks of a multitude from the direction of the great Wady.
"An attack!" cried Dion, leaping to his feet.
"Then you must be gone," said Deborah, but still clinging to him as she pointed. "But see, the Jews are thronging there. They have lined the hills. An ambuscade for the Greeks! God be with His people! Stay, Dion, it is useless to seek your command. Your soldiers are in the Wady, and Judas—the sword of the Lord and of Judas is between them and us!"
Dion's trained eye took in at once the military situation.
Yet under the true soldier's impulse, he would have hastened with single sword to his post of duty, could he have seen any way thither. The hills lining the Wady were now black with the Jews; and small bands were hastening from every direction. He could not rejoin his soldiers if he would.
Deborah readily drew him back to their covert. Now and again he would start forth, but as quickly return, seeing no safe exit. Deborah herself became changed in look and manner. Her lips opened as if giving command to the distant soldiers, yet her hand on Dion's arm held him captive by the spell of its touch.
"List! The cry of the sons of Mattathias—Mi-camo-ca-ba! 'who is like unto thee among the Gods!' Judas is conquering. See! See! Our people are over the hilltops. They are rushing down into the Wady. God be praised! The sword of the Lord and of Judas!"
She seemed to forget the presence of her companion, yet at the slightest movement on his part her hand stayed him.
"I will hasten to the eastward. Surely our troops will cut their way out there upon the open road," cried Dion.
"Nay, but see! Jonathan and the men from Hebron are there."
"Then I can follow into the ravine and die with my brave soldiers."
"That way is also closed," said Deborah, "for Simon and the tribesmen from the north are pressing in after the Greeks. Look!"
"How knew you this?" cried Dion, as his trained eye saw that the woman was correct. "Are you a spirit of battle? Do you hold the armies of Antiochus as you have held me? Are you witch, or are you woman?"
"I know not," she replied, "I only know that Dion dies not to-day with the rest."
Then the Greek broke away from his captor. It was but for a moment, for all around were Jews, who sprang up as if from the ground.
"Back, back, or you are slain! These peasants never miss with the arrow or sling. Back!"
She drew him to the covert.
"For myself I care not, but you."
"For my sake then, O Dion, do not leave me. They will kill me. Save me, Dion! Back! They will see your Greek armor, and the arrows will not leave a branch on the tree if you are detected. Back!"
She had scarcely spoken when a missile clanged against the rock at her side. Deborah sprang from the covert, and stood exposed in the open. Dion heard the call of a Jew to his comrades:
"It is only a woman; forward, men!"
The group of patriots hurried by.
Deborah scanned the field far and wide. Seeing that the Jews had all entered the ravine, she turned to her companion:
"Dion, go quickly! Once Dion was called a traitor to his people because he saved the daughter of Elkiah; to-day Elkiah's child had almost betrayed her people that she might save the life of the noblest of Greeks. Hasten away."
His arms would have retained her, but swift as a frightened fawn she ran, and, breathless in his futile pursuit, the Greek watched her agile form until it disappeared among the throngs which marked the edge of the battle. Then he sought to rejoin his forces. But it was only to be caught in a crowd of fugitives who had escaped from the Wady, and, helmetless, were making their way to the west.
The setting sun that day was not so red as the blood-stained rocks in the Wady. Thousands of corpses lay amid the broken spear-shafts and empty helmets which lined the dry bed of the brook, waiting until the next winter's storms should flood its banks and wash away the signs of one of the grandest victories of few over many that history has ever recorded.
The sublimest heroism of that heroic day was displayed by Judas himself. Heading a band of choice spirits, he leaped from rock to rock down the side of the narrow valley, as a wild beast descends upon its prey. He made straight for the spot where helmets were brightest and the banners most enriched with blazonry, denoting the body-guard of Apollonius. His voice, like a lion, roaring the war cry 'Mi-camo-ca-ba,' scarcely revealed his presence before his sword was crossing that of the famous General.
The gigantic stature of Judas, together with his tremendous strength and fury, well matched any superior skill of fence the Greek might have had. Their swords intertwined like two writhing serpents, neither daring to loosen its grip of the other. But steadily the Jew forced Apollonius to give ground until he was driven back against a rock which prevented the free use of his arm. Then the swords disentangled, and that of Judas entered the throat of his antagonist.
The conflict was over. Judas gathered his scattered bands. Laden with spoil—provisions, arms, and boxes filled with coins—they emerged from the Wady.
Upon a knoll stood the five brethren; about them the warriors, wearied with their work, and sickened with their deep draughts of blood. Judas knelt, and the little host fell prostrate upon the ground in silent prayer. Then, as they rose, a woman's voice raised the old song of Miriam by the Red Sea, and the multitude joined as in the synagogue; but with what new meaning in their faith!
"I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously. Thy right hand hath dashed in pieces the enemy."
When the shouts and psalms had died away Judas lifted the sword which he himself had wrested from the death-clutch of Apollonius. It was a slender weapon; its handle of fretted gold, its blue steel blade etched with representations of the labors of Herakles.
"Listen, my brave men! This sword belongs to the daughter of Elkiah. Her prowess and her prophecy have won it."
None but he and she knew his meaning, for she had told him of the scene in Apollonius' house in Jerusalem.
Deborah looked upon the blade. She took it into her hand a moment. One near enough might have heard:
"It is the same. I thank thee, O Lord, that a more fitting hand than mine has done this deed."
She then bound the sword of Apollonius upon the thigh of Judas.
"So the Lord gird thee with strength!" she said.
As, according to Jewish tradition, David wore the sword of the fallen Goliath through all his glorious wars, so Judas carried the sword of Apollonius, until five years later it was buried in the grave of the founder of the Maccabæan dynasty of Jewish patriots.