XXXIV
QUICK LOVE: QUICK HATE!
It was the fifth day since Deborah's disappearance. No tidings had come to make even a rift in the cloud on Judas' brow. Toward noon scouts, who had been sent to the Jordan to discover any possible trace of kidnapping by the tribesmen, returned with the reports that the camps, which had rapidly formed in the valley, had as suddenly broken up, the Sheikhs retiring east or north to their separate pasture lands.
"The Lord be praised!" said Judas. "It can only have been by the interposition of an angel; for Yusef the Arabian, I know, had sworn to assail us, and for this and this only the tribes were gathered. Let us hope for the maiden."
"How does this portend her safety?" asked Simon. "If the tribesmen have gone, may they not have taken her with them or slain her?"
"True," replied Judas, "but if the Lord will that we shall be delivered from their menace, then He has not deserted our cause, as I confess my sins made me fear; and why should He spare us, and allow harm to come to the maiden?"
Simon mused anxiously a moment before he answered:
"Does Judas love the daughter of Elkiah? Has the sentiment of swains turned her skirts into those of an angel? Beware, my brother. Every man has his vulnerable spot. It is not timely for our Samson to be shorn of his locks."
Judas' face blazed with rage. His lips were clenched as if their resolute keeper could with difficulty bar the egress of lawless words. But slowly the color faded from his countenance. He turned away, addressing only himself:
"She will come yet!"
Scarcely had he spoken when, over the shoulder of the hill of Gibeah, appeared the familiar outline of the Bedouin steed and the thread-like lance. But from the uplifted point floated the pennant denoting the peaceful intent of the comer, who rode leisurely on. Judas himself went to meet him.
"Peace be to you!"
"Peace!"
The rider dismounted, and, planting his lance, bowed low to the ground.
"I am Nadan, son of Yusef. My father bids me say, 'Let there be peace between him and the son of Mattathias."
"Let there be peace!" responded Judas.
He picked from the ground a round stone, broke it in twain upon a rock, and gave the half to Nadan.
"Nay, let me give better pledge of our covenant," said the young man. "The highway from Jericho is this hour filled with the herds of Ben Aaron of Masada, and ten score men are coming to you."
"The road is dangerous for so few," interjected Judas.
"Not so," replied Nadan, "since this——"
He held in his hand a piece of stone not dissimilar to that Judas had given him.
"Ben Aaron holds the other half. Is it enough?"
Judas' face revealed an instant of incredulity; but the eager frankness of the young man dispelled it.
"It is enough," he replied. "When Masada falls of its own weight into the sea then the covenant of the son of Yusef may be broken."
"My thanks," said Nadan, "and since I have found some favor, I would ask for more."
"You have but to speak it."
"Son of Mattathias, the house of Elkiah in Jerusalem is in alliance with the Greeks."
"It is true."
"That may be broken."
"How?"
"Elkiah's daughter is fair, and she pleases me," said Nadan, a blush blending finely with his proud mien.
"You have seen her?"
"She has been in my power."
"Where is she?"
Had not Nadan's eyes been upon the ground he would have detected something in Judas which would have halted his proposal; but he continued:
"She has been in my power. I could have carried her to my tent, yet I delivered her to her kinsman. She comes with his men."
A sunburst could not have changed Judas' aspect more than did the glad news. Nadan quite naturally misinterpreted it as an evidence of the favor with which the Maccabæan received his proposal, and he enthusiastically pursued his scheme.
"I could have taken her to my tent, for she was mine. But, son of Mattathias, I have wider thoughts for us both. With the tribesmen as your allies you can hold this land. Quickly the city will fall. Two thousand spears will follow the call of Yusef or his son. These you may have if you give me the daughter of Elkiah to wife, and assure me of the property of that house as her dowry."
"The woman is not mine to give," said Judas.
"Then the easier it is to give her," was the Arab's response. "When she was in my power I could have made the alliance of the tribesmen with the Greek on the same condition, for they have offered us ten times the amount of Elkiah's estate for our aid against you. Why did we not accept it? Because, son of Mattathias, the tribesmen prefer to live in fellowship with the Jews, for a thousand years our neighbors in the land, bound to us by the ties of intermarriage since the Moabite Ruth wedded the ancestor of your great King David. The Greeks are foreign to us. To make my marriage with this fair woman the seal of perpetual peace with the Jews by helping them reconquer this land, for this I gave up the daughter of Elkiah as my spoil that I might have her as a gift from your hands. I have already the consent of her kinsman, Ben Aaron, waiting only upon that of the son of Mattathias."
Nadan awaited Judas' answer with bowed head, an attitude of obsequious courtesy, which, however, did not conceal the hauteur of the man, or his reserved purpose of swift and vengeful retaliation if his scheme were not acceded to.
Judas pondered, and after some moments replied slowly:
"Son of Yusef, the tribesmen have been of old both the foes and friends of my people. I would make them only friends, that in peace we might both continue to possess these lands our God gave to our fathers. You have my pledge—if—if the woman shall consent."
"Of that I have no fear," replied the young man, grasping Judas' hand. "Within a week I will return, a hundred of my young men with me, to escort the fairest of women to the wedding tent by the bank of the Jordan. And then, son of Mattathias, I will come again with thousands of our bravest; aye, all the Moab and the north men from as far as Bosrah and Bashan will come at the call of Yusef and Nadan."
The rhapsodic speech of the young Sheikh was broken by the clatter of a crutch and an outcry:
"They're coming! The men of Masada, and Deborah—Deborah's with them!"
Over the hill appeared the head of an advancing company of men.
The Jews ran in crowds to meet them.
Ben Aaron was received with wild ovation. Every man in his following was greeted with huzza and embrace.
For Deborah the reception was as reverent as it was joyous. The little mule upon which she was seated could hardly keep his feet as the multitude thronged about her, seeking her hand, patting the beast, and gazing with tearful eyes upon the woman whom they had learned almost to worship as an impersonation of their nation's cause.
Nadan stood far aside, perplexed by this scene. "This woman," he said to himself, "cannot be the person she claimed to be. No Elkiah's daughter, no fugitive from Jerusalem is she. A spy of the Maccabæans! I see it all."
When Deborah recognized him, her manner was so warmly and frankly grateful to her protector that the Arab became bewildered, and reversed his thoughts. He deemed it impossible that one so fair, with those eyes lustrous with sincerity, could be aught else than what she said. Who? What was she?
Nadan's indecision was ended quickly when Judas saluted her. While the champion observed due formality, he was also as familiar as her father or a lover might have been in the presence of others. Nadan's own sense of enchantment by her beauty made him keen to detect what he thought to be the same feeling in Judas.
"Well did the wily Jew leave the choice to the woman herself, for he knew her decision," Nadan thought almost aloud. "Why did I not test the success of my errand by casting some gift into the spring of Dûk? The sacred dragon of the waters would have drifted it away, and thus I should have known of the deceit."
The Arab leaped upon his horse. With almost the celerity of a whirling simitar he turned Emir about in a circle. Rising in his stirrups, he twirled the spear around his head, and hurled it.
"Death to the Maccabæan!"
The weapon sped like a gleam of light to the spot where Deborah and Judas stood together. Before the crowd were fully aware of his movement the Arab had dashed through them, and was in flight. A single arrow close to his head sang its reply to his taunt.
Judas had seen the launching of Nadan's spear, and thrust Deborah behind him. He fended the missile by instantly bending, and with his arm diverted its direction. The spear glanced upward from his cuirass, and, curving like a swallow in the air, fell with broken shaft amid the rocks a hundred cubits beyond.