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Updated: June 28, 2025
Towering over him, the very picture of retribution, was the man he had left, apparently dead by his hand, by the roadside in the hills of Judea months and months before. For an instant, Julian stood petrified. Over his lips came a faint, frozen whisper that Laodice heard that was proof enough to her, the moment after. "Philadelphus Maccabaeus!"
Momus saw with fear that Laodice on this straight inviting road would out-distance him to her peril. He shouted inarticulately after her, but her reply came back, high with desperation and terror. "The corner-stone of Israel! All his treasure! God's portion, lost, lost!" She was out of his sight.
When Laodice came to herself, she was laid upon a spot of rough grass, in the shelter of an overhanging bluff. It was not the scene upon which her sorrow-stunned eyes had closed a while before. The village was nowhere in sight; the plain had been left behind; any further view was shut off by Aquila's horse, and the two camels whose bridles were in the hands of Hiram.
The interest of the recent interview and the excitement of the night slowly died away, leaving Laodice in the dead hopelessness of weary despair. She lay down suddenly with her face against the warmed sand and wept.
The Maccabee, seeing that he had made an impression with this deception and feeling somehow a relief in making it, went on, delighted with his deceit. "He has not seen her since he married her in his childhood, but he knows full well how she will look when he meets her." Surprise paralyzed Laodice. Was the smiling and dangerous companion of this man, her husband?
Among them went the last remnants of that sect of Christians who had tarried long after their brethren had been warned away, hoping against hope. They were not missed among the numbers in Jerusalem, for the Passover hosts still poured through the gates to the south and took their places in the unhappy city. And with these that same afternoon Laodice and her old servant came into Jerusalem.
And Hector sent heralds to the city, to fetch two lambs, and to summon Priam; while Agamemnon sent Talthybius for a ram. Now Iris, in Troy, came to Helen, in the semblance of Laodice, Paris's sister, fairest of Priam's daughters, wife of Helicaon, the son of Antenor. She found Helen weaving a great purple web, on which she was embroidering the battles of the Argives and the Trojans.
"This," he said, "is Laodice, daughter of Costobarus." Laodice blazed at the insolent beauty who stared at her with curious eyes. "That!" she cried. "The daughter of Costobarus!" The fine brown eyes of the woman smoldered a little, but she continued to gaze without the least discomposure. "Who is this, sir?" she asked of Philadelphus.
He came round to her, drew up a chair and sat down beside her. She ignored him, making a feint that was not entirely successful at interest in her fruit. "Who art thou, in truth?" he asked finally. "Laodice," she answered coldly. He sighed and she added nothing more. "What can your purpose be in this?" he asked. She ignored the question.
But, she asked herself, was it not possible that this lovely girl who had shown signs of illimitable fortitude, could live in the shelter of the captivating Hesper as uprightly as she had lived under the roof of the man she called her husband? In one exigency, the hopes of Amaryllis budded; in the other, her intuitive belief in the strength of Laodice discouraged her.
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