The City of Delight

"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!