_ CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LEADER AND THE MAN
In the unsettled state of the Holy Land, where its brave sons had to maintain a kind of guerrilla warfare against the powerful enemy who held its strongholds and ruled in its capital--where communication between places not far remote from each other was difficult and dangerous, and a written letter was a thing almost unknown--the Asmonean brothers had been in ignorance of many events which have occupied a large space in these pages. Joab, therefore, on his arrival in the camp of the Hebrews, had much to tell that was to them entirely new.
Judas with thrilling interest had listened to the muleteer's account of Zarah's peril and escape from the palace of Antiochus, and the deaths of Hadassah and Pollux. The fount of tenderness which lay concealed under the chief's usually calm and almost stern exterior was stirred to its inmost depths. Grief, admiration, love, swelled his brave heart. Maccabeus could hardly wait to hear the end of Joab's narration. Zarah was near him--his beauteous, his beloved, his chosen bride--she who had so suffered and so mourned--the tender orphan maiden bereaved of all love, all protection save his own--but dearer in her poverty and desolation than she could have been had she brought him the dowry of an empire!
It was thus that Maccabeus thought of Zarah, as, with an eagerness of impatience which could not have brooked an instant's longer delay, he strode rapidly towards the hut which sheltered his treasure. He soon beheld her--could it indeed be she? No desolate, weeping, trembling fugitive met the gaze of the chief; but a maiden bright and fair as the morn, with a blush on her cheeks and a smile on her lips, her whole countenance beaming with hope, and her eyes fixed with a lingering look on a Greek who was disappearing from view in a direction opposite to that by which Judas had approached her! The depths of the leader's feelings were again stirred, but this time as by a bar of glowing red-hot iron.
"Who is yon Gentile?" was the sudden fierce exclamation which burst from the warrior's lips.
Never before had her kinsman looked so terrible to Zarah as when he startled her then by his sudden appearance. It was not because she now saw Maccabeus for the first time arrayed in the harness of battle, his tall powerful frame partly sheathed in glittering steel, and a plumed helmet on his head, giving him a resemblance to the description which she had heard from Lycidas of the fabled god of war; it was the eye, the manner, the tone of Judas that changed the smile of the maiden in a moment to a look of embarrassment and fear. Antiochus himself, on his judgment-seat, had scarcely appeared more formidable to the trembling captive before him, than did the kinsman who had come to welcome her, and who would have died to shield her from wrong!
Maccabeus repeated his stern question before Zarah found courage to reply. "That is Lycidas, the Athenian lord," she faltered; "he whom you spared by the martyrs' tomb. He has well requited your mercy. He protected and aided Hadassah to the end, and paid the last honours to her dear remains; he struck down the Syrian who slew my father. Lycidas has embraced the Hebrew faith, and has come to fight, and, if need be, to die in the Hebrew cause!"
The maiden spoke rapidly, and with a good deal of nervous excitement. She did not venture to glance up again into the face of her kinsman to see the effect of her explanation, for all the false hopes regarding his indifference with which she had buoyed herself, had vanished like a bubble at a touch. Maccabeus did not at once reply. Silently he led Zarah back into the hut, and motioned to her to take her seat upon a low heap of cushions which Anna had removed from the litter, and placed on the earthen floor for the accommodation of her young mistress. He then dismissed the attendant by a wave of his hand. The profound gloomy silence of her kinsman was by no means re-assuring to Zarah, who felt much as a criminal might feel in presence of a judge--albeit in regard to her conduct towards Lycidas her conscience was clear.
Maccabeus stood before Zarah, the shadow of his form falling upon the maiden, as he towered tween her and the light, gloomily gazing down upon her.
"Zarah," he said at last, "there must be no concealment between us. You know in what relation we stand to each other. You have told me what that Gentile has been to Hadassah, and to Abner your father; tell me now, What is he to
you?"
Zarah struggled to regain her courage, though she knew not how deeply her evident fear of him wounded the spirit of her kinsman. She did not dare to answer his question directly. "Lycidas is not a Gentile," she said; "he is, as you are, a servant of God, a true believer; he has been fully admitted into all the privileges held by our race."
"Even the privilege of wedding a Hebrew maiden?" inquired Maccabeus with slow deliberation.
Zarah fancied that his tone was less stern, and was thankful that Judas had been the one to break ground upon so delicate a subject.
"Hadassah would not have blamed us," she said simply, blushing deeply as she spoke.
Notwithstanding what had just passed, Zarah was utterly unprepared for the effect of what was in fact an artless confession. It was not a groan nor a cry that she heard, but a sound that partook of the nature of both; a sound that the last turn of the rack could not have forced from the breast that uttered it now! It was the expression of an agony which few hearts have affections strong enough to feel, fewer still could have fortitude to sustain. No death-wail, no cry of woe, no shriek of pain that Zarah had ever listened to, smote on her soul like that sound! She heard it but once--it was never heard but once--and before she had recovered from the shock which it gave her, Judas had rushed forth from the hut. He was as one possessed; so fierce were the demons of jealousy and hatred that for a space held reason, conscience, every power of mind and soul in subjection. One wild desire to kill his rival, to tear him limb from limb, seemed all that had any definite form in that fearful chaos of passion. It was well for Lycidas that he did not then cross the path of the lion!
Maccabeus plunged into the depths of a wood that was near, seeking instinctively the thickest shade afforded by evergreen trees. He would fain have buried his anguish from the sight of man in the darkest cavern--in the deepest grave! The very sunlight was oppressive!
All lost--all rent away from him for ever! What hope had clung to, what love had treasured through the long, long years of waiting, giving new courage to the brave, new energy to the weary! Youth, happiness, the cup of joy just filled to the brim by the coming of Zarah, without one moment's warning dashed from the lips of him who loved her, and the last drops sucked up by the thirsty sand! The miseries of a long life seemed to be crowded into the few minutes during which the leader of the Hebrews, the hope of Judah, lay prostrate on the earth, clinching the dust in his despair.
Hatred and jealousy raged within; and a yet darker demon had joined them, one whose presence, above all others, makes the soul as a hell! Like burning venom-drops fell the suggestions of rebellious unbelief upon the spirit of the disappointed man. "Is it for this that you have washed your hands in innocency, and kept your feet in the paths of truth? Is it for this that you have devoted all your powers to God and your country, have shrunk from no toil, and dreaded no danger? He whom you were faithfully serving hath not watched over your peace, nor guarded for you that treasure which you had confided to his care. What profit is there in obedience, what benefit in devotion? Prayer has been but vanity, and faith but self-deception!"
Such moments as these are the most terrible in the experience of a servant of the Lord. They afford a glimpse of the depths of guilt and misery to which the noblest human soul would sink without sustaining grace; they show that, like the brightest planet, such soul shines not with light of its own, but with an imparted radiance, deprived of which it would be enveloped in utter darkness. An Abraham, left to himself, could lie; a David stain his soul with innocent blood. All need the Sacrifice of Atonement, all require the grace which comes from above.
But Judas Maccabeus was not left unaided to be carried away to an abyss of crime by his own wild passions. They were as a steed accustomed to obey the rein of conscience, that, smitten with agonizing pain, has taken the bit into its teeth, and rushed madly towards a precipice. But the hand of its rider still grasps the bridle, his eye sees the danger in front, and the frantic animal beneath him has but for a brief space burst from his master's powerful constraint. If the rider cannot otherwise stop his wild steed, he will strike it down with a heavy blow, that by a lesser fall the greater may be avoided; and so he leads it back to its starting-place, quivering, trembling in every limb, the sweat on its flanks, the foam on its bit, but subdued, submissive, under command. Even so with the Hebrew chief, conscience regained its habitual sway over the passions; as soon as the anguish of his soul found vent in prayer, the crisis of danger was past. Maccabeus rose from the earth, pale as one who has received a death-wound, but submissive and calm.
"Shall one who has been so favoured, beyond his hopes, far beyond his deserts, dare to repine at the decree of Him who orders all things in wisdom and goodness?" Thus reflected the chief. "Who am I, that I should claim exemption from disappointment and loss? Shame on the leader who gives way to selfish passion, and at such a time as this! We shall shortly close in battle; and if in that battle I fall" (the thought brought strange consolation), "how shall I look back from the world of spirits on that which for a time could almost shake the trust of this unworthy heart in the God of my fathers? If I survive the perils of the day, better it is that there should be no selfish hopes, no selfish cares, to prevent me from concentrating all my energies and thoughts upon the work appointed me to do. I have been wasting my time in idle dreams of earthly enjoyment; I have been rudely awakened. O Lord of hosts, strengthen Thy servant to arise and gird up his spirit to perform fearlessly and faithfully the duties of the day!"
Then, with slower step and calmer aspect, Judas Maccabeus returned to his camp. _