CHAPTER XXXVII.
AFTER THE BATTLE.
There are joys as well as sorrows into which the stranger cannot enter,and which baffle the attempt of the pen to describe; such was that ofLycidas and Zarah when they first met after the battle of Bethsura.The maiden had her happiness tempered indeed with something of anxietyand even alarm, for she beheld the young Greek pale with loss of blood,exhausted by excessive fatigue, and with his left arm in a sling, buther mind was soon relieved, for Lycidas had sustained no serious orpermanent injury. The young proselyte was rather glad than otherwiseto carry on his person some token of his having fought under JudasMaccabeus, and been one of the foremost of those who had stormedBethsura.
With Zarah and her attendant for his deeply interested listeners,Lycidas gave a graphic and vivid description of the fight. Zarah heldher breath and trembled when the narrator came to that thrilling partof his account which described his own position of imminent peril, whenhe would have been precipitated from the top of the wall, had not JudasMaccabeus come to his rescue.
"I deemed that all was over with me," said Lycidas, "when the princesuddenly flashed on my sight! Had I not long since given to the windsthe idle fables that I heard in my childhood, I should have deemed thatMars himself, radiant in his celestial panoply, had burst from thecloud of war. But the hero of Israel needs no borrowed lustre to bethrown around him by the imagination of a poet, he realizes the noblestconception of Homer."
"And Maccabeus was the one to save and defend you! generous, noble!"murmured Zarah.
"Ay, it seems destined that I should be overwhelmed with anever-growing debt of obligation," cried Lycidas, playfully throwing aveil of discontent over the gratitude and admiration which he felttowards his preserver. "I would that it had been my part to play therescuer; that it had been _my_ sword that had shielded his head; andthat Maccabeus were not fated to eclipse me in everything, even in thepower of showing generosity to a rival But I must not grudge him theharvest of laurels," added the young Athenian, with a joyous glance atZarah, "since the garland of happiness has been awarded to me."
On the morning after the battle of Bethsura, Simon and Eleazar, theAsmoneans, both visited their youthful kinswoman in the goat-herd'shut, where she and Anna had remained during the night. They regardedher still as their future sister, and offered her their escort to thehouse of Rachel, which was at no great distance from the fortress ofBethsura. As Zarah desired as soon as possible to place herself underthe protection of a female relative, she gladly accepted the offer.The horse-litter was brought to the door of the lowly hut; and with thecurtains closely drawn, the maiden and her attendant proceeded to thedwelling of old Rachel, who joyfully welcomed the child of Hadassah.Zarah, on that morning, saw nothing of Lycidas, and Judas Maccabeusavoided approaching her presence. The chief could not trust himself tolook on that sweet face again.
Through the Hebrew camp all was bustle and preparation. Tents werestruck--all was made ready for the coming march to Jerusalem; the tiredwarriors forgot their weariness, and the wounded their pain, so eagerwere all to gather the rich fruits of their victory within the walls ofZion.
But amidst all the excitement and confusion, with so many carespressing upon him from every side, the mind of the prince dwelt muchupon Zarah. He felt that she was lost to him--he would have scorned tohave claimed her hand when he knew that her heart was another's; but heresolved at least to act the part of a brother towards the orphanmaiden. Painful to Maccabeus as was the sight of his successful rival,the chief determined to have an interview with Lycidas, that he mightjudge for himself whether the stranger were indeed worthy to win aHebrew bride. Lycidas had proved himself to be a brave warrior--he hadwon the admiration even of the fanatic Jasher; but would the Greekstand firm in his newly-adopted faith when fresh laurels were no longerto be won, or fair prize gained by adhesion to it?
"The most remote hope of winning Zarah," mused Maccabeus, "were enoughto make a man espouse the cause of her people, and renounce allidolatry--save idolatry of herself. I must question this Athenianmyself. I must examine whether he have embraced the truthindependently of earthly motives, and, as a true believer, can indeedbe trusted with the most priceless of gems. If it be so, let him behappy, since her happiness is linked with his. Never will I darken thesunshine of her path with the shadow which will now rest for ever uponmine."
It was with no small anxiety that Lycidas obeyed the summons of theprince, and entered his presence alone, in one of the apartments of thefortress which he had aided to capture. The Greek could not butconjecture that his fate, as regarded his union with Zarah, might hangon the result of this interview with his formidable rival.
The interview was not a long one: what occurred in it never transpired.Not even to Zarah did Lycidas ever repeat the conversation betweenhimself and the man whose earthly happiness he had wrecked. As theGreek passed forth from the presence of Maccabeus, he met Simon andEleazar, who had just returned from escorting their young kinswoman tothe dwelling of Rachel.
The Asmonean brothers frankly and cordially greeted the stranger whomthey had seen for the first time in the thick of the conflict of thepreceding day. The bandage round his temples, the sling whichsupported his left arm, were as credentials which the Athenian carriedwith him--a passport to the favour and confidence of his new associatesin the field.
"You have leaped into fame with one bound, fair Greek!" cried Eleazar."You had reached the highest round of the ladder ere I could plant myfoot on the lowest. I could fain envy you the honour you have won."
Eleazar, accompanied by Simon, then passed on into the presence ofMaccabeus, while Lycidas pursued his way. The smile with which theyoung Hebrew had spoken was still on his lips when he entered theapartment in which the prince sat alone, but the first glance ofEleazar at Judas banished every trace of that smile.
"You are ill!" he exclaimed anxiously, as he looked on the almostghastly countenance of his brother; "you have received some deadlyhurt!"
The chief replied in the negative by a slight movement of the head.
"The weight of responsibility, the lack of sleep, the exhaustion ofyesterday's conflict, are sapping your strength," observed Simongravely. "Judas, you are unfit to encounter the toils of the longmarch now before us."
"I was never more ready--never more impatient for a march," saidMaccabeus, rising abruptly, for it seemed to him as if violent physicalexertions alone could render life endurable.
"I marvel," said Eleazar, "if our graceful young proselyte will bearhardships as bravely as he has proved that he can encounter danger.Methinks he shows amongst our grim warriors as a marble column fromSolomon's palace amongst the rough oaks that clothe the hill-side. IfLycidas is to be--"
"He is to be--the husband of Zarah," interrupted Maccabeus. His voicesounded strange and harsh, and he turned away his face as he spoke.
"The husband of Zarah!" re-echoed Eleazar in amazement; "why"--Simon'swarning pressure on the young man's arm prevented his uttering more.The brothers exchanged significant glances. That was the last timethat the name of Zarah was ever breathed by either of them in thehearing of Maccabeus.
Zarah found that her residence in her new home would be but a briefone, and that she was likely to return to Jerusalem far sooner than shecould have anticipated when she had set out on her night journey soshort a time before. Rachel--a woman who, though well stricken inyears, had lost none of the energy and enthusiasm of youth--was filledwith triumphant joy at the victory of Bethsura, and declared to Zarahher intention of starting for the city in advance of the army.
"I have a vow upon me--a solemn vow," said the old Jewess to themaiden. "Long have I mourned over the desolation of Zion; and I havepromised to the Lord that if ever holy sacrifices should again beoffered up in the Temple at Jerusalem, my heifer, my fair white heifer,should be the first peace-offering. I have vowed also to go up myselfto the holy city, and make there with my own hands wafers anointed withoil, to eat with the sacrifice o
f thanksgiving. The time for keepingmy vow has arrived. We will go up together, my daughter, and mybondsman shall drive the white heifer before us. My soul cannot departin peace till I have looked upon the sanctuary in which my ancestorsworshipped, and with a thankful heart have performed this my vow to theLord."
Zarah made no opposition to the wishes of her relative, which, indeed,coincided with her own. Arrangements for the proposed journey werespeedily made. The horse-litter in which Zarah had travelled toBethsura would avail for the accommodation of both the ladies on herreturn to the city. The faithful Joab would resume his office ofattendant, and Anna join company with the handmaidens of Rachel. Itwas under joyful auspices that the travellers would set forth on theirway to the city of David.