V
A FLOWER IN A TORRENT
It is Benjamin! Benjamin is hurt!" cried Caleb, leaning an instant over the parapet. While Deborah was looking into the street he felt his way to the steps leading down from the roof into the open court around which the house was built. He darted across this as quickly and silently as a flash from the brass mirror, not even waking Ephraim, the servant, who had fallen asleep watching the ripples in the great basin of the fountain that stood in the centre of the court. In another instant the boy had raised the crossbar from the lintels and was hasting down the narrow street. Extending his hands he guided himself through the crowds, keeping always in the centre of the way as infallibly as a stick floats in the middle of a wild rushing torrent. In vain did Deborah, as she saw him, call him from the parapet. She flew down the stone stairway and out into the street.
"What haste, my black-eyed beauty?" said an impudent soldier, blocking her way.
By a quick movement Deborah eluded him, but only to be stopped scarcely twenty paces beyond by another, who stretched out his arms and seized her by the wrists. She stood as if paralyzed by her wrath at this indignity, for never before had a rude hand touched her; then, with sudden agility and strength which seemed beyond a woman's, she wrenched herself from her captor. Taking time and breath for one indignant cry, "You coward!" she ran on, while the crowd was temporarily diverted by their jeers at the discomfited soldier.
"The eunuchs are stronger than you, man, for they can keep the women from running away from the harems."
"Her fire-eyes burnt out your heart, did they? Open your corselet, and let's see if it be charred."
Deborah turned into the Cheesemakers Street. Here she met a company of officers.
"Catch the gazelle! She is my spoil!" shouted the leader.
Her arms were instantly seized from behind.
"Apollonius has captured the very Daughter of Jerusalem that the Jews talk about," remarked one.
"Apollonius?" cried Deborah, looking at one whose gorgeous plumage indicated that he was the chief officer.
He was a man of prepossessing appearance. His brow was broad, features finely proportioned; a man evidently trained to think and govern. In younger days he must have been exceedingly handsome, but middle life showed the effects of dissipation. A furtive flicker in his eyes belied his assumption of self-command. His lips were swollen from too frequent communion with the spirit of the vine.
"Apollonius!" cried Deborah. "Does Apollonius dare to break his own orders? Is it true, then, as men say, that there is neither honor nor mercy in a Syrian?" fixing her gaze unflinchingly upon the Governor's face.
"Ah! and who is my charmer? Beautiful as a leopard at bay, or Aphrodite herself is a hag. Come, can you leap as high as my arms?" said the Governor, amid the laughter of his attendants.
"I am the daughter of Elkiah," said Deborah, "whose house you have given your sworn word to spare, if you be indeed General Apollonius."
"By all the nymphs this side of Olympus! I am sorry to hear it," replied he. "If I had known that the old bigot had so fair a daughter, I would have qualified my order. But let her pass, my men. We must keep our word, of course."
A counter commotion was heard down the street.
"Way for the litter! Way for the litter!" shouted those coming.
With a sharp outcry, Deborah darted from the soldiers about her and ran to the side of the wounded man.
"It is Benjamin!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about the insensible form which the bearers had for the moment put down. "Speak to me, my brother!"
The girl's grief at first seemed inconsolable. But suddenly she was transformed into a Fury. She stood straight but trembling, with hands clenched, and glared upon the bystanders. For a little her passion prevented speech. Then she broke forth, with tone and gesture and look which fitted her words:
"A curse upon his murderer! Who struck this cowardly blow?"
She raised her hand as if to smite any one who dared confess the deed.
"It was but an accident, fair daughter of Elkiah," responded Dion, with a manner that disarmed her rage. "Your brother is not dead. See, he lives."
He bent over his friend with evident joy as the Jew opened his eyes and gazed, at first with stupidity and then curiously, at the Greek and his sister. The glance at Dion was with the flicker of a smile; that upon his sister brought an expression of pain. The next moment he put his hand to his head, and, uttering a sharp cry, lapsed into unconsciousness.
Deborah and Dion stood one on either side of the litter. Their hands touched as they stroked the forehead of the sufferer. They looked into each other's faces. With her it was only the recognition of a common sympathy.
But Dion had other thoughts. The vision of the face he had seen at Elkiah's doorway had not faded for an instant from his imagination. Now his impression of her beauty was reinforced by the revelation of her soul. What courage! what audacity! yet not beyond a woman's right! Had he struck a wilful blow at Glaucon, he thought that her wrath would have killed him, so just would it have been, and so imperious was her voice and action. Yet what love this woman was capable of! She seemed to him like some goddess weeping at her own altar which had been despoiled; for surely Glaucon was not worthy of this outpouring of her affection. Dion thought that he knew women. To him the most were but as stagnant pools, with surface glistening in the sunlight, while the depths—if there were any—were soiled. But he imagined that this woman's soul was transparent, limpid, and infinitely deep; pouring itself out spontaneously, with as little self-consciousness as that of a fountain when it throws aloft its white spray.
Yet he had injured this woman—unintentionally, it was true; but his hand had thrown the fatal disc which cut its way into her soul, as really as into the flesh of her brother. How could he atone for this?
There came also to Dion a deeper anxiety. Glaucon would recover; but what of this girl's coming life? A Jewish maiden left alone amid the license of Antiochus' soldiers! A dove in the serpent's nest would be as safe. Glaucon could not protect her. With Elkiah's death the renegade son would—as he had heard frequently in the camp—quickly "be cashed," and another estate rattle as coin in Apollonius' belt. Then what of this girl? Dion felt as if a hand from the sky was ordaining him her protector. Yet what power had he?
Upon hearing the commotion about the litter Apollonius turned back. As if to redeem his repute for the dastardly insult of a few moments before, he now made most respectful salaam to the young woman, and, with the semblance of kindly solicitude for Glaucon, gave orders detailing Captain Dion to act as guard for the wounded man. Thus, having assumed by his manner the credit for what Dion had already done, he rejoined his suite.
The men were about to lift the litter when Deborah startled them with the cry:
"But Caleb! Where is the blind boy? Surely he came this way."
"We have seen none such. He must have passed by another street. Doubtless he has gone home," was the Greek's response.
"Oh, I must find him!"
There was a maternal depth in the girl's tones.
"Where could he have gone? Help me, good sir, and the blessing of the Lord will be upon you."
"We could not find him in these streets," said Dion. "Let us go first to your home. If he is not there we will search elsewhere. And I think that my name will open any place where he may be detained."
"Quick, then; let us haste!"
The girl in her eagerness led the way. Reaching the house, she opened the outer door, which had not been fastened after her exit a little while before, and sped across the open court. Elkiah was calling.
"Here am I, father!" and in an instant more she was beside him on the roof.
"My daughter, where have you been? Have the Gentiles bewitched even my Deborah, that she should go out of doors to gaze at them? Nay, veil your face with shame, child. Henceforth you must abide strictly in the house. It may be our sepulchre, but I would rather my daughter died here, than that the same sun should greet her eyes and theirs, except that she hated them. But for a daughter of Jerusalem to so much as look upon their garments is to play the wanton."
"Speak not such words, my father," cried Deborah, kneeling by his side, and placing his hands upon her forehead in claiming his blessing.
"It is Benjamin, father. They have brought him back to us, and——"
"Benjamin!" cried the old man, his voice failing in utterance until it became almost a hiss. "Benjamin! I have no son Benjamin. He has disowned his name; I disown his blood. What does the traitor Glaucon do in the house of Elkiah? Let him be gone! I charge thee, Deborah, if thou be a true daughter, banish him from our house."
"But, father——"
"Nay, let him be gone!"
"But, father, Benjamin is harmed; wounded; it may be he is killed."
The venerable man raised himself on his arm, and stared about him. Deborah laid him gently back upon the pillows.
"Oh, father, do not curse him. It may be he will not live. Do not curse him."
He gazed at her, taking her face between his hands and drawing it close to his.
"Aye, my Miriam again! Would God, Deborah, you had been my son!"
"But, father, pity our Benjamin. He is grievously hurt."
A change passed over the features of Elkiah. Suddenly the tears dimmed his sight, and he said:
"Benjamin hurt? My boy? The child of Miriam harmed? Where is he? Help me, that I may go to him."
He vainly tried to rise. His hands clenched as he muttered:
"The Lord avenge the house of Elkiah upon the heads of the heathen! The Lord spare my child! Benjamin! Benjamin! Would God I had died for thee!"
When she had seen the wounded man brought safely into the lower chamber, Deborah quickly searched every part of the house, and her cry for Caleb rang from the roof to the court.
"He is not here. I will go again to the street."
The strong, but kind, hand of Dion blocked the way: "Nay, good maiden, you cannot return to the city. I will go where you could not. I swear to search the streets and camps if you will but pledge me to abide here."
"A pledge to a Greek!"
But the look of scorn passed quickly from her face, as she saw the solicitude in his. After a little thought, in which her agitated manner told that she could keep such a promise only with her body, and that her whole soul would go with Dion in his search, she replied:
"It is well. I see it is my duty to stay here, sir. But hasten! Hasten, and I will pray for you every step. The Lord bless you, good sir!"
"Your own blessing were enough," said Dion, as he ran down the steps.