XXVI
TO UNMASK THE PRINCESS
The panic in Jerusalem soon gave place to a sense of security. This was due not only to the fact that the Maccabæans had not followed up their victory and attacked the city, but also in large measure to the quieting counsel of Captain Dion.
"The defeat at Bethhoron," he declared, "was owing not to any superior force of the Jews, but to the folly of General Seron in marching his army so as to invite assault. Indeed, when the forward phalanges recoiled upon those coming after, the Greeks defeated themselves. That disaster might have occurred had no enemy attacked us. But the force that Judas has, while sufficient to start a panic by its sudden irruption under such circumstances, is too small to attempt the capture of the city. His men are only peasants, and without armaments of siege. Upon the walls one man could withstand many assailants; and from within the citadel a woman might resist a company of men. Beside this, intelligence has come that Lysias, the new Governor, has despatched our most noted generals, Ptolemy, Nicanor, and Gorgias, with a force of forty thousand footmen and seven thousand horse to utterly exterminate the Maccabæans. If the rebels elude our new armies, it will be only by leaving Judea, and taking refuge across the Jordan in the mountains of Moab, where they will be as harmless to Jerusalem as are the beasts which infest those wilds."
Under such counsel the people were calmed. As the terrible Judas did not appear at the gate of the city—nor, as some imagined, like a bat as big as a cloud, scale the walls with armed men under his wings—life resumed its usual course among the inhabitants.
The reaction from fright did not even stop with a general sense of security. The pleasure-loving people sought to recompense their days of abstinence by extravagant indulgence.
In this they were charmingly led by the Princess Helena, whose grief for Apollonius had been completely healed, if rumor were correct, by the attentions of Glaucon. The enamored man had purchased her favor by a relinquishment to her of his interest in the estate of Shattuck. This transaction, told by Helena in confidence to Lydia, had come to the knowledge of her husband Menelaos, the High Priest, who, claiming to be partner with the renegade Jew in all ventures that paid, insisted upon Glaucon's turning over to him, as through former agreement, one-half the estimated prospective value of the estate. An open breach between the two men was prevented by a stroke of business shrewdness manipulated by the two women. Glaucon was induced to repurchase the claim by payment to the Princess of a sum of ready money; which money, it is needless to say, was shared by that gracious lady with the High Priest himself, who still retained his half interest in the Shattuck property.
Glaucon was readily reconciled to his loss through this deal, not only by the affectionate rewards of his mistress, but by new discoveries relative to the estate of Shattuck. Its value was greater than he had at first surmised, embracing heavy mortgages upon adjacent property.
All this time Glaucon's relations with the Princess were an offense to Deborah which, with all her art, she could scarcely conceal. She must tear the fair veil from this hideous creature. But how could she do so without confessing her own double life, since it was in the spy's disguise she had discovered all that she really knew of the woman? In her remonstrances with Glaucon she dared not go beyond interrogations and insinuations, which her brother resented with warmth.
"If we have not known her, others have," said he. "Her coming to meet Apollonius in Samaria was an event in the camp."
"And excited no scandal?"
"Scandal? Hera, the wife and sister of Jove, did not escape the taunt of tongues. The fairer the flower the fouler the insect that stings it. You yourself, Berenice, have had unsavory things said of you; but who would believe them?"
"Still," interposed Deborah, "you know for a certainty nothing about her lineage."
"She has told me all," replied Glaucon. "The blood of the great Alexander is in her veins, mingled with that of the Ptolemies. But do you not see her royalty in her very look and form and manner? The gods do not make such caskets except for priceless gems."
"The hetæræ of Greece are the fairest women," suggested Deborah, with a tone of contempt.
"But have you not seen how choice she is in the selection of her friends?" argued he. "In Jerusalem she receives to her intimacy only those of the most dignified position, like the house of Menelaos—and the house of Glaucon."
"But tell me, brother, how many talents has she picked from your purse?"
Glaucon colored, but smiled, as he replied: "Well, is not that, too, a princely habit?"
He quickly diverted the conversation from the uncomfortable direction it was taking. The Princess had humiliated him in his own eyes by outwitting him in the Shattuck matter; and as a marred mirror avenges itself by marring the reflection cast upon it, so the image of Helena's virtue had now at least one fault in Glaucon's judgment. She was over sharp for him; an offense which at brief moments fretted his love. But he was too proud to admit that Deborah had touched a spot in him already sensitive through irritation, and quickly resumed the praise of the Princess.
"How divinely she speaks! and upon what themes! Only courts have such instructors as she has had. Alexander was not better taught by Aristotle."
"Perhaps she sings and dances as well. Has she exhibited these accomplishments also?" asked Deborah.
"How should I know of these things? My little sister, educated as you have been in the narrowness of our former Jewish life, you have not learned that a free-born Greek woman, much more one of aristocratic family, is never allowed to reveal to the other sex such accomplishments as you mention, even if she possesses them. These arts of singing and dancing, beautiful as they are, are left to the slave caste for performance. Athena is not Terpsichore. But, by the way, there are some fine artists of that sort in Jerusalem. Several women noted for their beauty of voice and limb came from Antioch with the officers of Seron. They were nearly trodden to death in the flight. They were found near Bethhoron, and brought to the city, where we need entertainment. Meton, the chief of the city garrison, had them at the castle last night; and I can get them here. Our Princess Helena and Lydia, with Menelaos, will make a company before which they will be proud to display their parts."
"Not here, Benjamin, in our father's house, not here."
"Then in the house of Menelaos."
"Not there, I beg you; for Menelaos bears the name of High Priest. Let us at least respect the customs of Israel, if we no longer have its faith."
"Let it then be in the Princess' house. She has no such silly scruples," replied Glaucon petulantly. "It is the custom of the aristocracy of Greece to hire their entertainers; poets to recite, orators to declaim, pantomimists, dancers, players on instruments and singers. Helena will arrange it all, if I ask her."
"And if you pay for it?" suggested Deborah, as Glaucon hurried away to carry out his new conceit.
Deborah watched the curtain through which he had passed. Dark shadows were flung upon her face from darker thoughts within. She paced the floor as restively as a caged panther. The convulsive movement of her fingers was as if they were clutching and stifling some hideous insect which defiled them, and which she would fling away when she had killed it.
"How long is this to be?" she murmured. "But that by my abiding here Jerusalem will be the sooner rid of all this abomination, I would go to the camp—or to the desert. But here I can best serve Judas. Patience! Patience! But this impostor, this Princess, forsooth! She must be unmasked."