The City of Delight

He ceased then to attempt to stop her. Curiosity to know what brought

her out into danger at night impelled him to follow near enough to

protect her, but unsuspected until she had revealed her mission to

him.

A hungry dog, probably the last one to escape the execution which had

been meted out to all useless consumers of food, barked at her heels

and brought her up sharply.

The beast in his siege of her circled in the dark around near enough

to the Maccabee hidden in the darkness for him to deliver a vindictive

kick in the staring ribs of the brute. When the howl of the surprised

dog faded up the black ravine, Laodice ran on. The Maccabee, silently

pursuing, heard with a contracting heart that she was crying softly

from terror and bewilderment. Not yet, however, had she approached the

danger of Jerusalem, which John had kept far removed from the

precincts of Amaryllis' house.

She was entering Akra. The heap of grain, yet burning, showed a dull

black-red mound over which towered a column of strong incense. Here,

for the night was cool, lay in circles many of the unhoused Passover

guests. Here, also, was wakefulness and the hatchment of evil.

The running girl was upon them before she knew it. One of the figures

that sat with its back to the dull glow saw her approaching. Instantly

he rose upon one knee and snatched her dress as she ran.

Jerked from her balance, she screamed and threw out her hands to keep

from falling upon the shoulders of her assailant. One or two others

with unintelligible sounds struggled up, and as she fell, the Maccabee

leaped from the darkness, wrenched her from the grasp of her captor,

and warding off attack with his knife, fled with her into the

darkness.

The transfer of control over her had been made so swiftly that in her

stupor of terror she hardly realized it. She was struggling silently

and strongly in his hold, when he clasped her to him with a firmer

impulsive embrace and whispered to her: "Comfort thee, dear heart! It is I, Hesper!"

She ceased to resist so suddenly and was so tensely still that he knew

the shock of immense reaction was having its way with her.

He knew without asking that she had been forced to leave the shelter

of the Greek's roof, and though his rage threatened to rise up and

blind him he was not entirely unaware of the benefit the inhospitality

of others had given him. At last she was with him; entirely in his

care.

It was a safe shelter into which she was brought, but no luxurious

one. There was light enough from the single torch stuck in a crevice

in the ancient rock to show that it was habitable. The immense floor

was packed hard by the trampling of many feet; overhead, lost in

gloom, there must have been a rocky roof, but it was invisible. On the

ledges of rocks were belongings by heaps and collections, showing that

this was an abiding-place for great numbers. In the far shadows she

distinguished long, silent, mummied windrows of men wrapped in

blankets, sleeping. Huge gloomy piles of provisions filled up shadowy

corners; about under the light was the litter left in the wake of

human counsel; over all was the air of repose and occupancy that made

a home out of the burrow.