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DEBORAH




By James M. Ludlow


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[Illustration]




                                DEBORAH

                          A TALE OF THE TIMES

                                 _of_

                           JUDAS MACCABAEUS

                                 _by_

                            JAMES M. LUDLOW

                              _AUTHOR OF
                    THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES_

                                 _ETC_

                            [Illustration]

                 NEW YORK      CHICAGO        TORONTO

                 FLEMING       H. REVELL      COMPANY




                          Copyright, 1901, by
                       FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY


                      New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
                     Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
                     London: 21 Paternoster Square
                     Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                                  PAGE

  I.--THE CITY OF PRIDE,                                     11

  II.--THE CITY OF DESOLATION,                               22

  III.--THE LITTLE BLIND SEER,                               32

  IV.--THE DISCUS THROW,                                     39

  V.--A FLOWER IN A TORRENT,                                 46

  VI.--A JEWISH CUPID,                                       54

  VII.--IN THE TOILS OF APOLLONIUS,                          63

  VIII.--DEBORAH DISCOVERS HERSELF,                          71

  IX.--THE NASI'S TRIUMPH,                                   79

  X.--JUDAS MACCABÆUS,                                       91

  XI.--THE PRIEST'S KNIFE,                                  106

  XII.--THE FORT OF THE ROCKS,                              111

  XIII.--THE DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE,                         120

  XIV.--THE SPY,                                            130

  XV.--THE BATTLE OF THE WADY,                              140

  XVI.--THE BATTLEFIELD OF A HEART,                         146

  XVII.--A FAIR WASHERWOMAN,                                160

  XVIII.--HIGH PRIEST! HIGH DEVIL!                          171

  XIX.--THE RENEGADE,                                       179

  XX.--A FEMALE SYMPOSIUM,                                  185

  XXI.--BATTLE OF BETHHORON,                                193

  XXII.--A PRELUDE WITHOUT THE PLAY,                        200

  XXIII.--THE GREED OF GLAUCON,                             205

  XXIV.--LESSONS IN DIPLOMACY,                              209

  XXV.--A JEWESS TAKES NO ORDERS FROM THE ENEMY,            215

  XXVI.--TO UNMASK THE PRINCESS,                            221

  XXVII.--THE QUEEN OF THE GROVE,                           227

  XXVIII.--A PRISONER,                                      234

  XXIX.--A RAID,                                            243

  XXX.--FOILED,                                             250

  XXXI.--THE SHEIKHS,                                       258

  XXXII.--THE CASTLE OF MASADA,                             266

  XXXIII.--WITH BEN AARON,                                  276

  XXXIV.--QUICK LOVE: QUICK HATE!                           282

  XXXV.--WORSHIP BEFORE BATTLE,                             289

  XXXVI.--THE TEMPTRESS,                                    298

  XXXVII.--"IF I WERE A JEW,"                               304

  XXXVIII.--THE POISONER,                                   309

  XXXIX.--BATTLE OF EMMAUS,                                 313

  XL.--"A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM,"                    321

  XLI.--A STRANGE VISITOR,                                  327

  XLII.--A CLOSE CALL FOR DION,                             332

  XLIII.--BATTLE OF BETHZUR,                                339

  XLIV.--A WIFE?                                            346

  XLV.--THE TRIAL,                                          354

  XLVI.--DISENTANGLED THREADS,                              363

  XLVII.--A QUEEN OF ISRAEL?                                367

  XLVIII.--A BROKEN SENTENCE FINISHED,                      377

  XLIX.--THE HIDDEN HAND,                                   386

  L.--THE VENGEANCE OF JUDAS,                               392

  LI.--A KING, INDEED,                                      401

  AUTHOR'S NOTE,                                            407




DEBORAH


I

THE CITY OF PRIDE

King Antiochus, self-styled Epiphanes, the Glorious, was in a humor
that ill-suited that title. He cursed his scribe who had just read to
him a letter, kicked away the cushions where his royal and gouty feet
had been resting, and strode about the chamber declaring that, by all
the gods! he would make such a show in Antioch that the whole world
would be agog with amazement.

The letter which exploded the temper of his majesty was from Philippi,
in Macedonia, and told how the Romans, those insolent republicans of
the West, had made a magnificent fête to commemorate their conquest of
the country of Perseus, the last of the kings of Greece.

Epiphanes was a compound of pusillanimity and conceit. He could forget
the insult offered by a Roman officer who drew about "The Glorious" a
circle in the sand, and threatened to thrash the kingship out of him
if he did not at once desist from a certain attempt upon Egypt; but he
could not endure that another should outshine him in the pomp for which
Antioch was famous. This Eagle of Syria, as he liked to be called,
would rather have his talons cut than lose any of his plumage.

Hence that great oath of the king. So loud and ominous was it that
the pet jackanapes sprang to the shoulder of the statue of the Syrian
Venus, and clung with his hairy arms about her marble neck. The giant
guardsmen in the adjacent court, who, half asleep, stood leaning upon
their pikes, were startled into spasmodic motion, and shouldered their
weapons, before their contemptuous glances showed that they understood
the words that rang out to them.

"By all the gods! if Rome has the power, and Alexandria the commerce,
Antioch shall be queen in splendor, though it takes all the gold of all
the provinces to dress her."

The scribe smiled blandly and bowed his appreciation of this new-coming
glory of his master. The jackanapes took heart, and, after annihilating
some of his own personal enemies with vigorous scratching of his
haunches, leaped from the statue to the arm of the King's chair. So the
grand pageant was ordered.

All the world was invited to the Syrian capital. For an entire
month such splendors and sports were seen at Daphne, the famous
pleasure-grounds near to Antioch, that ever after the capital was
called Epidaphne, the City by the Grove. The heights of Silpius, on
whose lower <DW72> Antioch lay like a jewel in the lap of a queen,
blazed by day with a thousand banners, and at night with fires whose
reflection turned the Orontes that flowed below the city into a stream
of molten gold.

One day was devoted to military display. There were fifty thousand
soldiers of many nations, from the perfectly formed Greek of the
Peloponnesus to the Persian, who made up for his lack of muscle by the
superior glitter of his spear, and the lithe and swarthy Arabs from
all the deserts between the Ægean and the Euphrates. Plumes of gold
nodded above shields of bronze and silver. Hundreds of chariots glowed
like rainbows in their parti- enamel, and were drawn by horses
buckled and bossed with precious gems. Droves of elephants armored in
dazzling steel carried upon their backs howdahs like thrones.

A stalwart young Greek stood looking at this martial display. He wore
the chiton, or under-garment, cut short above the knees, and belted
at the loins, where hung a stout sword indicating that he too was a
soldier.

"What think you, Dion?" asked a comrade.

"Why, that the body-guard of our King Perseus, though numbering but
three thousand, could have annihilated this whole mongrel horde as
readily as Alexander did the million when he won this land for his
degenerate successors. But I must not criticise the service I am
enrolled to enter."

Following the soldiery in the procession came a thousand young men,
each wearing a crown of seeming gold, clad in glistening white silk,
and holding aloft a huge tusk of ivory. These symboled the trade wealth
of Syria.

But the army having passed by, the Greek was soon wearied with the rest
of the display; and, bidding his companion farewell, with a few sage
suggestions about the temptations of the Grove at night, such as one
young fellow might give another, went into the city.

The second day's festivities were of a less valiant, though not less
fascinating sort. It was the Day of Beauty. Hundreds of fair women,
in balconies that overhung the narrow streets of the city, or grouped
upon platforms here and there throughout the Grove, flung into the air
the dust of sandalwood and other spiceries, or sprinkled the crowds
with drops of aromatic ointments. At the crossing of the paths were
great vessels of nard and cinnamon and oils, scented with marjoram and
lily, that even the paupers might delight themselves with the perfume
of princes. Tanks of wine and tables spread with viands were as free as
they were costly.

But the King himself was the most extravagant provision of the show.
In him the dignity of a king was less than the vanity of the man: his
coxcomb more than his crown. It cut him to the quick that a courtier
should outdress him, a charioteer better manage his steeds, or a
fakir set the mouths of the crowd more widely gaping. In the military
procession yesterday he had sat between the tusks of an enormous
elephant, and pricked the brute's trunk with a golden <DW8>. He had also
ridden a famous stallion,--tightly curbed, it is true, and flanked by
six athletic grooms.

His majesty's originality was especially shown on the Day of Beauty by
his riding beside Clarissa, the famous dancer, in the chariot where
she reclined as Queen of the Grove, an apparition of Astarte herself.
The extemporized divinity of love wore a moon-shaped tiara of silver,
the symbol of the Queen of Heaven; Epiphanes put on an aureole of gold
to represent the glory of the Sun. A score of women whose forms were
familiar to all the frequenters of the dancing gardens of Daphne lay at
their feet.

Dion was an onlooker. He had caught so much of the spirit of the day as
to curl his locks and drape a purple himation or outer cloak from his
left shoulder.

"That's the Macedonian," said one of Clarissa's satellites, as from her
float she spied the graceful form in the crowd.

"A perfect Apollo!" was the critical response, which drew a jealous
glance from even The Glorious, who made the un