L
THE VENGEANCE OF JUDAS
It required no especial acuteness on the part of Judas to discern the meaning of that tableau he had witnessed in the court of Elkiah's house, when Deborah stood hand in hand with Dion. It was clearly as significant to him as the fabled scene in which Eros awakens Psyche with a kiss would have been to Agathocles. He had also overheard enough of the General's story to discover that, if Dion were his rival for the affection of Deborah, he himself, though of the blood of Mattathias, which had been kept pure from foreign taint through all generations, had in this respect no advantage over his competitor. As Gershom ben Shattuck, Dion could satisfy the strictest interpreter of the Law. The Prophet Nehemiah himself could have found no flaw in Shattuck's line, with all that Reformer's zealotry against mixed marriages.
Strong man that Judas was, the keen eyes of Meph, who had watched him as he came out of Elkiah's doorway that day, noted that the giant staggered a little, just for an instant. Others remarked that the great man seemed unusually absorbed with his own thoughts, and did not return their salutation as was his custom.
"A big raid, doubtless, to clean out the tribesmen from around Hebron; or a campaign in the direction of Antioch itself," a captain of the guard was overheard to say.
"Or something as momentous," was the reply of a comrade, "for it takes a heavy project to press Judas' head that far down upon his shoulders."
Judas shut himself up in his private chamber.
The building and the great court before the old palace on Sion were thronged with people. Many of these had been especially summoned by the Messiah Malhamah, the "Anointed for War," as the nation were content to call their leader until such time as he was disposed to take the crown. Here thronged priests, some greatly renowned for wisdom and piety, but who had been long in hiding. They came wearing the rich robes of their office which they had treasured with their lives; though some of these were in ragged semblance of their former estate, having lost everything while they were enrolled in the patriot army. There were also in the crowd learned rabbis, who had been summoned to give their counsel regarding the reorganization of the state, restoring the Temple and reordering the grades of priests according to the ancient ritual. The bravest of the captains were there, for Judas had announced his intention of widening the scope of army operations, since he foresaw that the defence of Judea depended upon the possession of far larger areas of territory on every side.
Hours passed, and Judas did not appear, to meet those whom he had summoned.
Simon and Jonathan at length ventured into his presence. The champion sat by his table—an affair of ebony and gold, once the writing-desk of the Syrian commandant, now but a fragment of its former elegance. Its dilapidation was not out of keeping with the aspect of the man who leaned upon it. The powerful frame of Judas was bent as if he had lost some thought and was seeking to rediscover it somewhere amid the scratches on the ebony polish. He gave his guests no greeting. One might have imagined him a dead man but for the intent look upon his face, and that his clenched hand now and then beat upon the table.
The coming even of his brethren was an evident intrusion, and they withdrew.
"What now?" said Jonathan. "I have not seen our brother so distraught in his moodiness since the old days in the Fort of the Rocks. There was need of his brooding then, but not now when all things are coming our way, as when the quails were blown by the east wind and covered the land to feed our fathers in the desert."
"But have you not noted?" asked Simon, "how Judas comes out of his black clouds? He is always brighter afterward, and shows us something that none but he could have thought of. He will accept the kingship."
"Brother Simon," replied Jonathan, "I like not the look of Judas' face. He is not meditating as is his wont. He is struggling with some rage. I once before saw that same look on him. It was when he crushed the skull of a Greek spy who had got within our lines at Mizpah. A word in your ear, Simon."
"It will be as safe as under an altar."
"A man has crossed his path."
"Who?"
"Dion."
"Faugh! A feather crossing the rush of a torrent! A partridge flitting through the lair of a lion! What cares Judas for the Greek?"
Jonathan took playfully the beard of Simon. "You are called the Wise; and yet methinks you are dull-witted. We have insisted that Judas should be King. That is well. But you have blocked the way of the project by insisting that he should marry the daughter of Elkiah. This, have I not said, he will never do."
"And you believe, Jonathan, that that Greek stands in his way?" replied Simon. "This I would not credit unless you should tell me that you yourself had caught them in dalliance."
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders. "Listen!" said he, "ears open and teeth tight, for I have never breathed this to living man before. The night before the battle in the Wady I followed her, for I feared that her daring would bring her to harm. I tracked her into the very camp of Apollonius. May the rising moon there shatter my wits forever if I speak not the truth! I saw this Dion come to her. I would have slain him and her. But when I drew to strike I overheard their words. I saw that she was stealing this man out of the fight, lest in the vengeance we were about to take on Apollonius he, too, should fall. She risked her life to give us the victory—that we know; and I know that she risked her life for this man at the same time. If ever woman loved a man, she loves him. I saw that she accepted his love from the touch of his lips."
Simon turned fiercely upon the speaker. "Jonathan, dare you impugn the loyalty of the daughter of Elkiah? She is not a Glaucon, though she has his blood."
"Her loyalty?" replied Jonathan. "I laud it. This woman is so true to us and our people that not even her love for this man made her swerve. And why should she not love the Greek? He is as good a fellow as any since the day when Father Abraham was himself a heathen in the land of the Chaldees. I have mingled much with the Greeks in Jerusalem without giving them a chance to cut my throat. I have been more than once, as you know, in this palace when Apollonius was its master. I have learned much of Dion from the lips of his fellows in camp and field. He was the pride of the Greek service; could have had high rank, but he risked it all for the safety of Deborah. He won her gratitude by saving her from foul dealing. I say, Jew that I am, Deborah ought to love Dion. And, further, I will say that Deborah ought not, and will not, marry Judas. It was not alone for the benefit of foreign alliance that I spoke of our brother seeking a wife from the courts of other nations; I foresaw that he could not marry within Judaism, since he would marry none save Deborah; and she is an impossibility, unless I know nothing of the soul of this woman. Now mark me further, my over-wise Simon. Did you not note that when Judas was brooding over the kingship he went to the house of Elkiah? And since his return he has been behind what you call his thunder-cloud. I tell you that when Judas' lightning flashes, it will not be with the light of statecraft, but against Dion. Judas, generous, self-yielding, patriotic, is one man; Judas in love is a different man. I would that the Greek were far away from Jerusalem."
Judas still sat by his table. The light faded in the high window beneath the cedar rafters of the great chamber. A star gleamed through the aperture, then floated on to look into a million other chambers where men and women sat with bowed heads or lay upon restless couches. The moon looked in, and hung her white veil on this wall of the chamber, and then on that, but evoked no response from Judas, except an occasional smile that relieved the harshness of his features.
By and by the sun rose. Jonathan came and saw him fast asleep with his head resting on his clasped hands. When his brother woke him, his face showed the marks of suffering. Years seemed to have put wrinkles about his eyes and mouth, as time cracks timber and lime walls and almost everything else. Why not a man's face?
Judas ate a little of the meal which the servants brought, responding only in briefest words to their questions. Then, as if a spring had uncoiled somewhere within his body, he suddenly rose.
"Brother Jonathan, bring the Captains here at the sixth hour—and the Priests at the ninth; for we have pressing business to-day."
Without another word he passed through the great doorway into the palace plaza, and thence into the street.
"What news?" asked a guard. "Maccabæus is as wrathful this morning as a starved lion. Are the Syrians marching again upon the city?"
"If not, then the devil has broken loose, and challenged our Goliath to fight. The Lord have mercy on the man he runs against this time! Look at him! The very stones shake under his feet."
Judas turned into a by-street. He stopped before a small building. He did not wait to have his heavy rap on the door answered from within, but entered, and went straight to a side chamber.
"Captain Dion!" he thundered out.
He was confronted by both Agathocles and Dion. The presence of the Greek General seemed to remind him of his forgotten courtesy.
"Your pardon, sirs! But I would talk to this man alone."
Agathocles withdrew, but not without a wondering glance at their unceremonious visitor and a look of inquiry at Dion, who, however, was as amazed as his companion.
When they were alone, and the door closed, Judas said:
"Dion, I once took your oath of allegiance at the gate."
"True. And the oath has not been broken," replied the young man, with some resentment in his tone excited by the apparent suspicion in Judas' abrupt manner.
In loud voice Judas exclaimed: "As Dion the Greek you have kept your oath; but that is no longer binding; for you are not Dion, but Gershom ben Shattuck. As a Jew you have sworn no allegiance."
"Do the Jews swear allegiance to their commander?" replied he. "Are we like the Romans? Is it not enough that our allegiance is to the Lord, who is over us all? Did Judas ever before ask an oath of any Jew to serve him?"
"From no other man," said Judas; "but from the son of Shattuck I would require it. The Jews would make me King of Jerusalem."
"And rightly," responded the other. "And to King Maccabæus I will swear to be loyal in everything that man should do for man."
Judas repeated his words, "'Everything that man should do for man.' A wise and well-turned oath. I like it. Shattuck, they would make Elkiah's daughter the Queen of Jerusalem."
Dion staggered as if the Maccabæan had smitten him. But he quickly recovered his self-possession. He spoke slowly:
"Maccabæus, I will swear loyalty to Elkiah's daughter as Queen,—when she shall ask it of me. But until she herself speaks that word no man, though he be Maccabæus, shall exact it from me. At her feet I will take the vow, but not under any man's hand. You have my answer."
Shattuck's form seemed swollen with his wrath until it matched that of the giant who confronted him. Judas looked at his challenger as a lion-tamer might have returned the wild glare of his beast which he knows must succumb to his own dominant will. Yet there was in his eyes the flicker as of a light that came from some deeper recess of his soul than that of his present passion. A smile quickly overspread his features. He laid his great hand on the shoulder of his competitor.
"Dion—Ben Shattuck—though I be King, as man to man, we stand on equal footing. Your challenge proves it. But, if you had sworn allegiance to me in putting the crown upon the head of Elkiah's daughter without her command, I would have felled you in your tracks. Here we stand—man and man; and that woman is the queen of us both. You have been her protector. I know all the story of these years. Protect her still from Greek and from Jew. I swear with you, Shattuck, that no will but her own shall be over her. Come with me to her."
The two men went together into the Street of David, and entered the house of Elkiah. As Deborah glanced from one to the other, Judas seized her hand and placed it in Dion's,
"The God of Israel bless you both!" he said.
Before they could find voice to reply Judas was gone.
As he came out into the street Meph met him with the great news.
"Dion is a Jew! Dion is a Jew! My old Sirach was right. Deborah herself told me. And, Judas, she was as glad as I was to find it out, almost."