Hebrew Heroes Part 22

"Never! never!" yelled out a hundred fierce voices. And one of the crowd shouted aloud, "I would rather slay her with my own hand, were she my own daughter!"

"I cannot believe Lycidas false!" cried out Joab, at the risk of drawing the tempest of rage upon himself.

"You cannot believe him false, you son of the nether millstone!"

screamed out the furious Jasher, stamping with pa.s.sion; "as if you were a match for a wily Greek, born in that idolatrous, base, ungrateful Athens, that banished her only good citizen, and poisoned her only wise one!" The fierce prejudices of race were only too easily aroused in that a.s.sembly of Hebrew warriors, and if Jasher were blamed by some of his auditors, it was for allowing that any Athenian could be either wise or good.

"Yet hear me for a moment--I must be heard," cried Joab, straining his voice to its loudest pitch, yet scarcely able to make his words audible; "Lycidas has been admitted into the Covenant by our priests; he can give proofs--"

"Who talks of proofs?" exclaimed Jasher, stamping again on the earth.

"Did you never hear of the proofs given by Zopyrus? Know you not how Babylon, the golden city, fell under the sword of Darius? Zopyrus, minion of that king, fled to the city which he was besieging, showed its defenders his ghastly hurts--nose, ears shorn off--and pointed to the bleeding wounds as _proofs_ that Darius the tyrant, by inflicting such injuries upon him, had won a right to his deathless hatred.[1]

The Babylonians believed the proofs, they received the impostor, and ye know the result. Babylon fell, not because the courage of her defenders quailed, or famine thinned their numbers; not because the enemy stormed at her wall, or pestilence raged within it; but because she had received, and believed, and trusted a traitor, who had sacrificed his own members to gain the opportunity of destroying those who put faith in his honour! Hebrews! a Zopyrus has now come into our camp! Will ye open your arms, or draw your swords, to receive him?"

A wild yell of fury arose from the listening throng, so fierce, so loud, that it drew towards the spot Hebrews from all parts of the encampment. It drew amongst others the young proselyte, who came eager to know the cause of the noise and excitement, quite unconscious that it was in any way connected with himself. As Lycidas made towards the centre of the crowd, it divided to let him pa.s.s into the immediate presence of Jasher, his accuser and self-const.i.tuted judge, and then ominously closed in behind him, so as to prevent the possibility of his retreat.

Lycidas had come amongst the Hebrew warriors with all the frank confidence of a volunteer into their ranks; and the Greek's first emotion was that of amazement, when he found himself suddenly the object of universal indignation and hatred. There was no mistaking the expression of the angry eyes that glared upon him from every direction, nor the gestures of hands raising javelins on high, or unsheathing keen glittering blades.

"Here he is, the traitor, the Gentile, led hither to die the death he deserves!" exclaimed Jasher.

"What mean ye, Hebrews--friends? Slay me not unheard!" cried Lycidas, raising on high his voice and his hand. "I am a proselyte; I renounce my false G.o.ds,--"

"He has their very effigies on his arm!" yelled out Jasher, pointing with frenzied action to the silver bracelet of Pollux worn by the Greek, on which had been fas.h.i.+oned heads of Apollo and Diana encircled with rays.

Here was evidence deemed conclusive; nothing further was needed. "He dies! he dies!" was the almost unanimous cry. The life of Lycidas had not been in greater peril when he had been discovered at the midnight burial, or when he had wrestled with Abishai on the edge of the cliff.

In a few moments the young Greek would have lain a shapeless trampled corpse beneath his murderers' feet, when the one word "Forbear!"

uttered in a loud, clear voice whose tones of command had been heard above the din of battle, stayed hands uplifted to destroy; and with the exclamation, "Maccabeus! the prince!" the throng fell back on either side, and through the ranks of his followers the leader strode into the centre of the circle. One glance sufficed to inform him sufficiently of the nature of the disturbance; he saw that he had arrived on the spot barely in time to save his Athenian rival from being torn in pieces by the crowd.

"What means this tumult? shame on ye!" exclaimed Maccabeus, sternly surveying the excited throng.

"We would execute righteous judgment on a Greek--an idolater--a spy!"

cried Jasher, pointing at Lycidas, but with less impa.s.sioned gesture; for the fanatic quailed in the presence of Maccabeus, who was the one man on earth whom he feared.

"He is a Greek, but neither idolater nor spy," said the prince. "He is one of a gallant people who fought bravely for their own independence, and can sympathize with our love of freedom. He has come to offer us the aid of his arm; shame on ye thus to requite him."

"I doubt but he will play us false," muttered one of the warriors, giving voice to the thoughts of the rest.

"We shall soon have an opportunity of settling all such doubts," said Maccabeus; "we shall attack the enemy at noon, and then shall this Greek prove in the battle whether he be false man or true."

The prospect of so soon closing with the enemy was sufficient to turn the attention of every Hebrew warrior present to something of more stirring interest than the fate of a solitary stranger. Jasher, however, would not so easily let his intended victim go free.

"He's an Achan!" exclaimed the fanatic; "if he fight amongst us, he will bring a curse on our arms!"

"He is a proselyte," replied Maccabeus in a loud voice, which was heard to the farthest edge of the crowd; "our priests and elders have received him--and I receive him--as a Hebrew by adoption, companion in arms, a brother in the faith!"

The words of the prince were received with respectful submission, if not with satisfaction. Maccabeus was regarded with enthusiasm by his followers, not only as a gallant and successful leader, but as one whose prudence they could trust, and whose piety they must honour. No man dare lay a finger upon him over whom the chief had thrown the s.h.i.+eld of his powerful protection.

Lycidas felt that for the second time he owed his life to Judas Maccabeus. There was a gush of warm grat.i.tude towards his preserver in the heart of the young Athenian; but something in the manner of the prince told Lycidas that he would not listen to thanks, that the expression of the Greek's sense of deep obligation would be regarded as an intrusion. Lycidas therefore, compelled, as it were, to silence, could only with fervour ask Heaven for an opportunity of showing his grat.i.tude in the coming fight by actions more forcible than words.

"Now, sound the trumpets to arms," exclaimed Maccabeus, "and gather my troops together. If G.o.d give us the victory to-day, the way to Jerusalem itself will be open before us! Here will I marshal our ranks for the fight." Maccabeus strode to the summit of the rising ground from which Jasher had just been addressing the crowd, and beckoned to his standard-bearer to plant his banner behind him, where it could be seen from all parts of the camp. Here, with folded arms, Maccabeus watched the movements of his warriors as, at the signal-call of the trumpet-blast, they hastened from every quarter to be marshalled in battle-array, by their respective captains, under the eye of their great commander. With rapid precision the columns were formed; but before they moved on to the attack, Maccabeus, in brief but earnest supplication, besought the Divine blessing on their arms.

[1] The student of history need not be reminded that the fall of Babylon through the stratagem of Zopyrus was quite distinct from and subsequent to its conquest by Cyrus. (See Rollins's "Ancient History.")

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

THE BATTLE-PRAYER.

Lycidas was a native of the very land of eloquence; he had been, as it were, cradled amidst "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." He had studied the philippics of Demosthenes, and felt the spirit of the dead orator living in them still. Lycidas had listened to the eloquence of the most gifted speakers of his own time, expressing in the magnificent language of Greece thoughts the most poetic. He had experienced the power possessed by the orator on the rostrum, the tragedian on the stage, the poet in the arena, to stir the pa.s.sions, subdue by pathos, or excite by vehement action. But never had the Athenian listened to any oration which had so stirred his own soul, as the simple prayer of Judas Maccabeus before the battle of Bethsura.

There was no eloquence in it, save the unstudied eloquence of the heart; the Hebrew but uttered aloud in the hearing of his men the thoughts which had made his own spirit as firm in the hour of danger as was the steel which covered his breast.

There was much in the scene and in the congregation to add to the effect of the act of wors.h.i.+p on the mind of Lycidas. He beheld adoration paid to no image formed by man's art, no fabled deity, capricious as the minds of those in whose imaginations alone he had existence, but to the holy, the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity, "whose robe is the light, and whose canopy s.p.a.ce." And it was in no building raised by mortal hands that Maccabeus bent his knee to the Lord of Hosts. He knelt on the soil of the glorious land which G.o.d had given to his fathers--the one spot chosen out from the expanse of the whole mighty globe to be the scene of events which would influence through eternity the destinies of the world! On the verge of the southern horizon lay Hebron, where had dwelt the father of the faithful, where the ground had been trodden by angels' feet, and the feet of the Lord of angels, with whom Abraham had pleaded for Sodom.

It was that Hebron where David had reigned ere he was hailed king over all Israel. And the nearer objects were such as gave thrilling interest to the prayer of the Asmonean prince: the view of the towers of Bethsura which he was about to a.s.sail, the hosts of the enemy whom he--with far inferior numbers--was going to attack; this, perhaps, even more than a.s.sociations connected with the past, made every word of Maccabeus fall with powerful effect on his audience.

And that audience was in itself, probably, the n.o.blest that could at that time have been gathered together in any laud, not excepting Italy or Greece. It was composed of men whom neither ambition nor the l.u.s.t of gold had drawn from their homes to oppose an enemy whose force greatly exceeded their own. In face of the trained warriors of Syria were gathered together peasants, artizans, shepherds, animated by the purest patriotism, and the most simple faith in G.o.d. Every man in that kneeling army knew that he carried his life in his hand, that in case of defeat he had no mercy to expect, and that victory scarce lay within the verge of probability according to human calculation; yet not a countenance showed anything but undaunted courage, eager hope, firm faith, as the weather-beaten, toil-worn Hebrews listened to and joined in the supplications of their leader.

But it was the character of that leader himself which gave the chief force to his words. If Maccabeus the Asmonean received the lofty t.i.tle of "Prince of the sons of G.o.d," it was because his countrymen acknowledged, and that without envy, the stamp of a native royalty upon him, which needed not the anointing oil or the golden crown to add to its dignity. Any nation with pride might have numbered amongst its heroes a man possessing the military talents of a Miltiades, with the purity of an Aristides; one whose character was without reproach, whose fame was unstained with a blot. Simple, earnest faith was the mainspring of the actions of Maccabeus. The clear, piercing gaze of the eagle, energy like that with which the strong wing of the royal bird cleaves the air, marked the n.o.ble Asmonean; for the soul's gaze was upward toward its Sun, and the soul's pinion soared high above the petty interests, the paltry ambition of earth. As there was dignity in the single-mindedness of the character of Judas, so was there power in the very simplicity of his words. I will mar that simplicity by no interpolations of my own, but transfer unaltered to my pages the Asmonean's battle-prayer.

"Blessed art Thou, O Saviour of Israel, who didst quell the violence of the mighty man by the hand of Thy servant David, and gavest the host of strangers into the hand of Jonathan, the son of Saul, and his armour-bearer! Shut up this army in the hand of Thy people Israel, and let them be confounded in their power and hors.e.m.e.n; make them to be of no courage, and cause the boldness of their strength to fall away, and let them quake in their destruction. Cast them down with the sword of them that love Thee, and let all those that know Thy Name praise Thee with thanksgiving!"

When the tones of the leader's voice were silent, there was for a moment a solemn stillness throughout the martial throng; then from their knees arose the brave sons of Abraham, prepared to "do or die."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

BETHSURA.

Her brief but momentous interview with Maccabeus had left a very painful impression upon the mind of Zarah. It had disclosed, to her distress as well as surprise, the depth of the wound which she was inflicting upon a loving heart; for Zarah had none of that miserable vanity which makes the meaner of her s.e.x triumph in their power of giving pain. Zarah's apprehensions were also awakened on account of Lycidas; she could not but fear that very serious obstacles might arise to prevent her union with the Greek. Generous as Maccabeus might be, it was not in human nature that he should favour the claims of a rival; and determined opposition from her kinsman and prince must be annihilation to the hopes of the maiden. There would be in many Jewish minds prejudices against an Athenian; Zarah was aware of this, though not of the intense hatred to which such prejudices might lead. The short interview held with Maccabeus had sufficed to cover Zarah's bright sky with clouds, to darken her hopes, to distress her conscience, to make her uneasily question herself as to whether she were indeed erring by giving her heart to a stranger. Had she really spoken truth when she had said, "Hada.s.sah would not have blamed us?"

But when Anna, pale with excitement, brought tidings to her young mistress that the Hebrews were marching to battle, when Zarah heard that the decisive hour had come on which hung the fate of her country, and with it that of Lycidas, all other fears yielded for a time to one absorbing terror. On her knees, with hands clasped in att.i.tude of prayer, yet scarcely able to pray, Zarah listened breathlessly to the fearful sounds which were borne on the breeze--the confused noises, the yells, the shouting--which brought vividly to her mind all the horrors of the scene pa.s.sing so near her. It was not needful for her to look on the raging torrent of war; imagination but too readily pictured the streams of opposing warriors, like floods from opposite mountains, mingling and struggling together in a wild whirlpool of death; chariots dragged by maddened horses over gory heaps of the slain--the flight of hurtling arrows--the whirl of the deadly axe--the crash--the cry--the rush--the retreat--the rally--the flas.h.i.+ng weapons, now dimmed with blood;--Zarah in thought beheld them all, and covered her eyes with horror, as if by so doing she could shut out the sight.

For hours this agony lasted. The excitement of conflict may bear brave hearts through a battle with little sense of horror and none of fear; warriors, even the generous and humane, can see and do things in hot blood, from which their souls would revolt in calmer moments; but the woman whose earthly happiness is on the cast of the die, who cannot s.h.i.+eld the being dearest to her upon earth from the crus.h.i.+ng blow or the deadly thrust, to her the day of battle is one of unmixed anguish; suspense is agony, and yet she dreads to exchange that suspense for knowledge which might bring agony more intolerable still.

The maiden found some slight alleviation of her distress in the occupation in which she and her handmaid engaged, that of making such preparations as circ.u.mstances permitted for the comfort of the wounded, though they knew too well that if the Syrians should win the day, there would be no wounded Hebrews to tend--the conqueror's sword would too thoroughly do its hideous work.

Judas Maccabeus had displayed his accustomed judgment in choosing to be himself the a.s.sailant, instead of awaiting the a.s.sault of the myrmidons of Syria. His sudden, unexpected attack threw the enemy into some confusion, and gave an advantage in the commencement of the battle to the slender forces of the Hebrew prince. His men rushed to the conflict as those a.s.sured of success. Had they not measured swords with the warriors of Apollonius and Seron, and more recently those of Bacchides? Had they not scattered the thousands of Nicanor, and made Giorgias seek safety in ignominious retreat? Was not Maccabeus their leader, and saw they not the light flas.h.i.+ng from his helmet in the fore-front of the battle? Yet was the struggle obstinate; and when the Syrians were at last forced to retire before the Hebrew heroes, a number of the troops of Lysias threw themselves into the fortress of Bethsura, to rally their forces behind its walls, and gather strength to renew the combat on the following day.

But it was no part of the plan of their active adversary to leave such a rallying-point to the Syrians, or suffer them from thence to hara.s.s his rear, should he press onwards towards Jerusalem. His victory must not be incomplete, Bethsura must be his ere darkness should put an end to the conflict.

"See you yon Syrian banner waving from the tower," cried Maccabeus,--"who will be the first to tear it down?"

He was answered by a shout from his men. "To the walls! to the walls!"

as the Hebrews pressed hard upon their retreating foes.

Bethsura was not a place of much strength, though the height of its towers gave to their defenders the power to annoy and distress a.s.sailants with a shower of arrows and other missiles as they rushed to the a.s.sault. Maccabeus, foreseeing that Bethsura itself must become the scene of the closing struggle, had had scaling-ladders in readiness, roughly constructed by his own men from trees hewn down by their battle-axes. With cries and shouts these were now borne onwards towards the bulwarks of Bethsura, and notwithstanding the fierce opposition of the Syrians, two of them were planted against the wall.