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Updated: June 9, 2025
The Maccabee looked at him meditatively. "I am merely perverse," he said darkly; "I knew it would be so much pleasure to my murderer to know that I died, duly." The shepherd repressed his curiosity, as the best thing for his patient's welfare, and suggested another subject rather disjointedly. "I have been thinking," he said, "about Jerusalem. I was there once upon a time."
If you must make way with a man," the Maccabee advised, "stab him in the back. It is sure for you. Ha! Is this Emmaus we see?" They had ridden up a slight eminence and below them was a disorder of fallen or decrepit Syrian huts in the hollow place in the hills. It had been the history of Emmaus for centuries to be known.
Somewhere beyond the highest of the blue hills to the east, the white walls of the city of David were receiving all this. Somewhere to the west the four brassy legions of Titus were marching down upon all this. About the Maccabee were assembling all the circumstances that govern a tremendous struggle.
"I have lost my appetite," the Maccabee said carelessly. "Saddle and let us ride on." At his words, a picture of his own comfortable progress to Jerusalem compared to her long foot-weary tramp for days over the inhospitable hills appeared to him. The instant impulse did not permit himself to argue the immoderation of his care of her. Julian clung to his side until they were ready to depart.
I fought at the side of Leonidas, and the Maccabee who stabbed the Sultan's elephant, and saw him crushed beneath its falling bulk. Now I was a hunter in tropic forests I heard the parrots scream, and saw the humming birds flit on from gorgeous flower to flower.
"What had he to do for Jerusalem; what did he fear would win him away from that labor for Jerusalem, that he took that vow? It was easy enough to revile Babylon, the oppressor, that stood between him and Jerusalem; but what if he had been the captive of beauty, and chained by the bonds of lovely hair!" The boy turned now and looked at the Maccabee. The eyes of the two met fair.
"I seek Amaryllis, the Seleucid," he said. The eye of the Jew traveled over him, with some disapproval. "The mistress of the Gischalan?" was the returned inquiry. The Maccabee assented calmly. The young man indicated a broad street moving with people which led with tolerable directness toward the base of Moriah.
She thanked him and there was a moment's silence. Under his lashes the impostor saw that he had not filled her fancied picture of the Maccabee made from long years of correspondence. She was disappointed; her intuition was perplexed. He would complete his work and get away in time. "My wife is here?" he asked. "She came yesterday," Amaryllis responded, clapping her hands in summons.
The Maccabee, steadily training his picked Gibborim, saw these lulls as signs that Titus was still in the hope that the city would submit to occupation and spare him the repugnant task of slaughtering half a nation. In his soul he knew that at no time would Titus be unwilling to receive the voluntary capitulation of the city.
He stepped into shadow to see who would come forth from shelter at such an hour. The next instant she hurried by his hiding-place and the Maccabee saw with amazement that it was the girl he loved. He sprang out to speak to her, but the sound of his footsteps frightened her and she ran.
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