"Berenice. And Jove help you! Farewell."
Titus rode on.
A little later, after a parley with the Roman sentries and again with
the sentries at the Gate of Hippicus, the Maccabee was admitted to the
Holy City.
About him as he passed through the gates were the soldiers of Simon.
They were not such men as he expected to see defending the City of
David. There was an extravagant, half-pastoral manner about them, a
pose of which they should not have been conscious at this hour of
peril for the nation and the hierarchy. He looked at their incomplete,
meaningless uniform, at their arms, half savage, at their faces, half
mad, and believed that he, with an army rationally organized and
effectually equipped, would have little difficulty in subduing the
unbalanced forces of Simon.
Since siege was laid, he did not expect to be met by Amaryllis'
servant in the purple turban. He approached a citizen.
"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.
"Hence to the Tyropean Bridge at the end of this street; thence down
beside the bridge into Gihon. Cross to the wall supporting Moriah and
builded against it thou wilt find a new house, of the fashion of the
Greeks. If thou canst pass her sentries, thou wilt find her within."
The Maccabee thanked his informant and turned through the Passover
hosts to follow the directions.
To a visitor recently familiar with the city, Jerusalem would have
been strange; he would have been lost in its ruined and disordered
streets. But this man came with only the four corners of the compass
to direct him and the Temple as a landmark to guide him. Therefore
though he entered upon territory which he had not traversed since
childhood he went forward confidently.
It was not simple; it was not readily done; but the darkness found him
at his destination.
When he was within a rod of the house, he was halted by a Jewish
soldier. He whispered to the man the word which Amaryllis had sent to
him, and the soldier stepped aside and let him pass.
In another moment he was admitted to the house of Amaryllis.
A wick coated with aromatic wax burned in the brass bowl on a tripod
and cast a crystal clear light down upon the exedra and the delicate
lectern with its rolls of parchment and brass cylinders from which
they had been withdrawn. Opposite, with her arms close down to her
sides, her hands clenched, her shoulders drawn up, stood the girl he
had played for and won in the hills of Judea!