She halted suddenly on the edge of tears. The Maccabee, astonished and
moved, looked at her in silence. This, then, was what even the women
of the shut chambers of Palestine expected of him--if he freed Judea!
If such spirit prevailed over the armies of men assembling in the Holy
City, what might he not achieve with their help! The Maccabee felt
confidence and enthusiasm fill his heart to the full. He rose.
"Our blows will never weaken nor our hearts grow faint," he said, "if
we have such eloquence and such beauty to inspire us."
She drew back a little. His persistent happiness of mood fell cruelly
on her flinching heart at that moment. He noted her sudden relapse
into dejection, with disappointment.
"Do not be sad," he said. "Discomforts do not last for ever."
"It is not that," she said in a low voice. "I have buried beloved dead
on this journey and I have surrendered all my substance to a
pillager."
There was the silence of arrested thought. The Maccabee was taken
aback and embarrassed. He felt that he was an intruder. But even the
flush on her face in restraining emotion made her loveliness more than
ever winsome. He let his hand drop softly on hers. But in the
genuineness of his sympathy he was not too moved to feel that her hand
warmed under his clasp.
"The difference between a fool and a blunderer," he said contritely,
"is that the blunderer is always sorry for his mistakes. I will go.
None has a right to refuse another his hour to weep."
He hesitated a moment, as if he would have kissed her hand. She
glanced up at him with eyes too filled with the darkness of grief for
words.
The slow unconscious smile that had worked such perfect transformation
that first morning grew in his eyes. It was comfort, compliment and
protection all in one. Then he went away into the moonlight.
Within a few feet he came upon Julian of Ephesus with immense rancor
written on his face. The Maccabee was disturbed. It was not well that
this conscienceless man should have discovered that they were
traveling near this girl and her old servant. Much as the young man
wished to loiter along the road to Jerusalem to keep her in sight
while he could, he saw plainly that to defend her from Julian he must
ride on and leave her.
"Your meal," said Julian, "is as cold as Jugurtha's bath."
"I have lost my appetite," the Maccabee said carelessly. "Saddle and
let us ride on."
At his words, a picture of his own comfortable progress to Jerusalem
compared to her long foot-weary tramp for days over the inhospitable
hills appeared to him. The instant impulse did not permit himself to
argue the immoderation of his care of her. Julian clung to his side
until they were ready to depart. Then the Maccabee, using subterfuge
to give him opportunity to escape the vigilant eyes of the Ephesian,
suddenly clapped his hand to his hip, exclaiming that he had left his
weapon at the camp.