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Zarah's apprehensions were also awakened on account of Lycidas; she could not but fear that very serious obstacles might arise to prevent her union with the Greek. Generous as Maccabeus might be, it was not in human nature that he should favour the claims of a rival; and determined opposition from her kinsman and prince must be annihilation to the hopes of the maiden.

"I will go with my uncle Abishai," said Zarah. "To rejoice and give thanks," cried Hadassah. But Zarah's sinking heart could not respond to any accents of joy. She bowed her head on he clasped hands, and faintly murmured, "To pray for you, for myself, and " No human ear could catch the word which pale lips inaudibly framed. "Go to our young Greek guest, Anna," Hadassah.

And the very last day that we were together" tears flowed fast from under Zarah's long drooping lashes as she went on "on that fatal day, ere I left her to attend the Passover feast, Hadassah charged me, by the love that I bore to her, never to take any important step in life without at least consulting him in whom she felt assured that I should find my best earthly protector."

When winter was drawing near, when the bursting cotton-pods had been gathered, and the vintage season was over, when the leaves were beginning to fall fast, and the cold grew sharp after sunset, circumstances occurred which compelled a change in Zarah's quiet routine of existence.

The rhymes might be rude, and altogether unworthy of their theme; but when softly warbled by Zarah's melodious voice, they appeared to the aged listener like the very breathing of hope. Lycidas, in the meantime, was chafing in wild impatience under the trial of Zarah's almost perpetual absence.

Lycidas felt that danger was on all sides; he knew not whether to advance or to retreat; responsibility weighed heavily upon him, and he almost envied the stolid composure with which the hardy Joab trudged on his weary way. The Athenian would not disturb the serenity of Zarah's mind by imparting to her the anxious cares which perplexed his own.

Those words had told her that Pollux was a doomed man; that apostasy on her part could not have saved his life; that had he not fallen by the Syrian's dagger, he would have been but reserved for the headsman's axe. And had Pollux perished thus, there would have been none of that gleam of hope which, at least in Zarah's eyes, now rested upon his grave.

The tears were flowing fast down Zarah's cheeks as she sobbed forth her almost inarticulate prayer: "I ask not to be saved from death not even from torture if it be Thy will that I should endure it; but oh, save me from falling away from Thee; save me from denying my faith, and breaking the heart of my mother! -And I shall surely be saved!" said Zarah more calmly, her faith gaining strength from the exercise of prayer.

There was one subject of thought, and that a distressing one, to which Zarah's mind most readily reverted when she would turn it from the channel into which it was ever naturally flowing. This was the mystery connected with the fate of Abner her father.

Fear was scarcely the predominating feeling. A cloud for a few moments darkened the face of the moon, but through the shadow he could see the stately dark figure of Hadassah as she crossed over the javelin, and the flutter of Zarah's white veil. As the silver orb emerged from the cloud, the women were followed by the two Hebrews who had once been servants to Hadassah.