When he awoke rested sufficiently to think, he recalled that he had
been twice stabbed by Julian of Ephesus by the marsh on the road to
Jerusalem. He had probably been carried to this place and nursed back
to life by the householder.
Then he remembered. In his search after cause for his cousin's attack
upon him, he readily fixed upon Julian's rage at the Maccabee's
preëmption of the beautiful girl in the hills. Instantly, the disgrace
of violence committed in a quarrel between himself and his cousin over
the possession of a woman, appealed to him. And even as instantly, his
defiant heart accepted its shame and persisted in its fault. It is an
extreme of love, indeed, if no circumstance however impelling raises a
regret in the heart of a man; for he flung off with a weak gesture any
chiding of conscience against cherishing his dream, and abandoned
himself wholly to his yearning for the girl in the tissue of
moonbeams.
There was a quiet step on the earth at the threshold. Joseph, the
shepherd, stood there. The two looked at each other; one with inquiry
and weakness in his face; the other with good-will and reassurance.
"Boy," said the Maccabee feebly, "I have been sick."
"Friend, I am witness to that. I am your nurse," the boy replied.
After a little silence the Maccabee extended his hand. The boy took it
with a sudden flush of emotion, but feeling its weakness, refrained
from pressing it too hard, and laid it back with great care on his
patient's breast. The Maccabee looked out at the door, away from the
full eyes of his young host.
He was touched presently, and a cup of milk was silently put to his
lips. He drank and turning himself with effort fell asleep.
When he awoke again, after many hours, it was night. In the door with
his head dropped back between his shoulders gazing up at the sky
overhead, sat the boy.
"Where," the Maccabee began, "are the rest of you?"
The boy turned around quickly, and answered with all seriousness.
"I am all here."
"Did you," the Maccabee began again, after silence, "care for me
alone?"
"There has been no one here but us," the boy said, hesitating at the
symptoms of gratitude in the Maccabee's voice.
"Us?"
"You and me."
After another silence, the Maccabee laughed weakly.
"It requires two to constitute 'us' and I am, by all signs, not a
whole one!"
"But you will be in a few days," the boy declared admiringly. "You are
an excellent sick man."
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.