Hebrew Heroes Part 23

Who would mount them, who would be the first to climb upwards through the death-shower of darts, the first to meet the fierce downward blows and thrusts of those who stood to the defence of the beleaguered fortress?

Lycidas had borne himself bravely in the battle, he had well maintained the honour of the land that had withstood the gigantic power of Xerxes; now his foot was the first on one of the ladders. It was a perilous moment. The rough spar, with branches fastened transversely at intervals across it, on which Lycidas was mounting (for the ladder was little more than this), swayed backwards and forwards with the struggle between those above to fling it down, and those below to sustain it, and it was with extreme difficulty that the climber could keep his footing. Stones and arrows rattled on the shield which the young Greek held with one arm above his head, as he used the other in climbing; but Lycidas neither flinched nor paused.

"Well done--bravely done!" shouted the Hebrews who were rushing on from behind.

"He is no Gentile, though he be a Greek!" cried the wild shrill voice of Jasher; "onwards, upwards, warriors of Judah! one struggle more, and Bethsura is ours!"

Almost at the top of the ladder, almost close to the wall, gasping, straining, bleeding, struggles on the young Greek. A stone strikes his shield, smashes it, stuns, disables the left arm which upheld it; slain by a dart, the Hebrew just behind him falls crashing from the ladder!

The brain of Lycidas is dizzy, his ears are filled with wild clamour, he is conscious only that honour and most probably death are before him, still he mounts, he mounts! Two powerful Syrians have seized the upper end of the ladder; with an effort of gigantic strength they thrust it back from the supporting wall with its living burden of clambering men, all but one, the foremost! Lycidas feels the ladder beneath him failing, with a tremendous effort of agility he springs as it falls at the wall, catches hold of it with his right hand, and flings himself up on the parapet. But not one moment's breathing-s.p.a.ce is given him to start to his feet, or grasp the sword which he has carried hung round his neck. He cannot rise, he cannot resist; swords are gleaming above him; those who have thrown down the ladder seize the Greek to hurl him after it! A thought of Zarah flashes across the reeling brain of the young man, is it not his last?--no, a broad shield is suddenly thrust between Lycidas and his a.s.sailants, they shrink back from the sweep of a terrible sword; up the other ladder the strong and brave have pressed with irresistible force; Judas Maccabeus himself has planted his foot on the bulwarks, has driven back step by step their defenders before him, and has arrived at this crisis in the fate of Lycidas to preserve for the third time the life of his rival!

The banner of Maccabeus is planted on the highest tower of Bethsura, and as it waves in the light of the evening sun, such a loud wild shout of triumph rises from the victors, as might be heard for miles around!

It reaches Zarah in her hut, and sends a thrill of hope and exultation through her heart, for she knows the shout of her people, and none but conquerors could have rent the air with such a cheer as that! It is followed by the cry "Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" as from the Hebrew heroes, in that their hour of success, bursts that name of all earthly names most dear to the sons of Israel! Jerusalem, their mother, will be free, her liberty from a galling yoke will be the crowning reward of their labours and perils, no foe will now dare to oppose the conqueror's onward march towards the holy city.

Maccabeus joins in the shout, and shares in the exultation; he tramples his own private griefs under his feet, that they may cast no gloom over the triumph which G.o.d has vouchsafed to the arms of his people. The prince raises his helmed head and his victorious right arm towards heaven, and cries aloud, not with pride, but with glad thanksgiving, "Behold! our enemies are discomfited! Let us go up to cleanse and dedicate the sanctuary of Zion!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

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 of Lycidas and Zarah when they first met after the battle of Bethsura.

The maiden had her happiness tempered indeed with something of anxiety and 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, but her mind was soon relieved, for Lycidas had sustained no serious or permanent injury. The young proselyte was rather glad than otherwise to carry on his person some token of his having fought under Judas Maccabeus, and been one of the foremost of those who had stormed Bethsura.

With Zarah and her attendant for his deeply interested listeners, Lycidas gave a graphic and vivid description of the fight. Zarah held her breath and trembled when the narrator came to that thrilling part of his account which described his own position of imminent peril, when he would have been precipitated from the top of the wall, had not Judas Maccabeus come to his rescue.

"I deemed that all was over with me," said Lycidas, "when the prince suddenly flashed on my sight! Had I not long since given to the winds the idle fables that I heard in my childhood, I should have deemed that Mars himself, radiant in his celestial panoply, had burst from the cloud of war. But the hero of Israel needs no borrowed l.u.s.tre to be thrown around him by the imagination of a poet, he realizes the n.o.blest conception of Homer."

"And Maccabeus was the one to save and defend you! generous, n.o.ble!"

murmured Zarah.

"Ay, it seems destined that I should be overwhelmed with an ever-growing debt of obligation," cried Lycidas, playfully throwing a veil of discontent over the grat.i.tude and admiration which he felt towards his preserver. "I would that it had been my part to play the rescuer; that it had been _my_ sword that had shielded his head; and that Maccabeus were not fated to eclipse me in everything, even in the power of showing generosity to a rival But I must not grudge him the harvest of laurels," added the young Athenian, with a joyous glance at Zarah, "since the garland of happiness has been awarded to me."

On the morning after the battle of Bethsura, Simon and Eleazar, the Asmoneans, both visited their youthful kinswoman in the goat-herd's hut, where she and Anna had remained during the night. They regarded her still as their future sister, and offered her their escort to the house of Rachel, which was at no great distance from the fortress of Bethsura. As Zarah desired as soon as possible to place herself under the protection of a female relative, she gladly accepted the offer.

The horse-litter was brought to the door of the lowly hut; and with the curtains closely drawn, the maiden and her attendant proceeded to the dwelling of old Rachel, who joyfully welcomed the child of Hada.s.sah.

Zarah, on that morning, saw nothing of Lycidas, and Judas Maccabeus avoided approaching her presence. The chief could not trust himself to look on that sweet face again.

Through the Hebrew camp all was bustle and preparation. Tents were struck--all was made ready for the coming march to Jerusalem; the tired warriors forgot their weariness, and the wounded their pain, so eager were all to gather the rich fruits of their victory within the walls of Zion.

But amidst all the excitement and confusion, with so many cares pressing upon him from every side, the mind of the prince dwelt much upon Zarah. He felt that she was lost to him--he would have scorned to have claimed her hand when he knew that her heart was another's; but he resolved at least to act the part of a brother towards the orphan maiden. Painful to Maccabeus as was the sight of his successful rival, the chief determined to have an interview with Lycidas, that he might judge for himself whether the stranger were indeed worthy to win a Hebrew bride. Lycidas had proved himself to be a brave warrior--he had won the admiration even of the fanatic Jasher; but would the Greek stand firm in his newly-adopted faith when fresh laurels were no longer to be won, or fair prize gained by adhesion to it?

"The most remote hope of winning Zarah," mused Maccabeus, "were enough to make a man espouse the cause of her people, and renounce all idolatry--save idolatry of herself. I must question this Athenian myself. I must examine whether he have embraced the truth independently of earthly motives, and, as a true believer, can indeed be trusted with the most priceless of gems. If it be so, let him be happy, since her happiness is linked with his. Never will I darken the sunshine of her path with the shadow which will now rest for ever upon mine."

It was with no small anxiety that Lycidas obeyed the summons of the prince, and entered his presence alone, in one of the apartments of the fortress which he had aided to capture. The Greek could not but conjecture that his fate, as regarded his union with Zarah, might hang on 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 between himself and the man whose earthly happiness he had wrecked. As the Greek pa.s.sed forth from the presence of Maccabeus, he met Simon and Eleazar, who had just returned from escorting their young kinswoman to the dwelling of Rachel.

The Asmonean brothers frankly and cordially greeted the stranger whom they had seen for the first time in the thick of the conflict of the preceding day. The bandage round his temples, the sling which supported his left arm, were as credentials which the Athenian carried with him--a pa.s.sport to the favour and confidence of his new a.s.sociates in 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 my foot on the lowest. I could fain envy you the honour you have won."

Eleazar, accompanied by Simon, then pa.s.sed on into the presence of Maccabeus, while Lycidas pursued his way. The smile with which the young Hebrew had spoken was still on his lips when he entered the apartment in which the prince sat alone, but the first glance of Eleazar at Judas banished every trace of that smile.

"You are ill!" he exclaimed anxiously, as he looked on the almost ghastly countenance of his brother; "you have received some deadly hurt!"

The chief replied in the negative by a slight movement of the head.

"The weight of responsibility, the lack of sleep, the exhaustion of yesterday's conflict, are sapping your strength," observed Simon gravely. "Judas, you are unfit to encounter the toils of the long march now before us."

"I was never more ready--never more impatient for a march," said Maccabeus, rising abruptly, for it seemed to him as if violent physical exertions alone could render life endurable.

"I marvel," said Eleazar, "if our graceful young proselyte will bear hardships as bravely as he has proved that he can encounter danger.

Methinks he shows amongst our grim warriors as a marble column from Solomon's palace amongst the rough oaks that clothe the hill-side. If Lycidas is to be--"

"He is to be--the husband of Zarah," interrupted Maccabeus. His voice sounded strange and harsh, and he turned away his face as he spoke.

"The husband of Zarah!" re-echoed Eleazar in amazement; "why"--Simon's warning pressure on the young man's arm prevented his uttering more.

The brothers exchanged significant glances. That was the last time that the name of Zarah was ever breathed by either of them in the hearing of Maccabeus.

Zarah found that her residence in her new home would be but a brief one, and that she was likely to return to Jerusalem far sooner than she could have antic.i.p.ated when she had set out on her night journey so short a time before. Rachel--a woman who, though well stricken in years, had lost none of the energy and enthusiasm of youth--was filled with triumphant joy at the victory of Bethsura, and declared to Zarah her 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 the maiden. "Long have I mourned over the desolation of Zion; and I have promised to the Lord that if ever holy sacrifices should again be offered 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 myself to the holy city, and make there with my own hands wafers anointed with oil, to eat with the sacrifice of thanksgiving. The time for keeping my vow has arrived. We will go up together, my daughter, and my bondsman shall drive the white heifer before us. My soul cannot depart in peace till I have looked upon the sanctuary in which my ancestors worshipped, and with a thankful heart have performed this my vow to the Lord."

Zarah made no opposition to the wishes of her relative, which, indeed, coincided with her own. Arrangements for the proposed journey were speedily made. The horse-litter in which Zarah had travelled to Bethsura would avail for the accommodation of both the ladies on her return to the city. The faithful Joab would resume his office of attendant, and Anna join company with the handmaidens of Rachel. It was under joyful auspices that the travellers would set forth on their way to the city of David.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

THE VICTOR'S RETURN.

Is there a more glorious, a more soul-stirring sight than that of a brave nation bursting from foreign bondage, casting from her the chains that bound and the sackcloth that covered her, rising victorious and free--free to worship the one G.o.d in purity and truth? Even so, when the shadow of the eclipse is over, the moon bursts forth into brightness, to shine again in beauty in the firmament of heaven.

It was thus with Jerusalem when Maccabeus and his followers went up to the holy city which they had delivered, through G.o.d's blessing on their arms. The town was in a delirium of joy, which there was now no need to conceal. The voice of thanksgiving and rejoicing was heard in every street; women wept for very happiness; and while the younger inhabitants made the walls ring with their shouts, the old men blessed G.o.d that they had been spared to see such a day. The advanced season forbade any profusion of flowers; but on every side palm branches were waving, doors and windows were decked with evergreens, and goodly boughs were strewed in the way. Every trace of heathenism was eagerly destroyed in the streets, and the very children fiercely trampled under foot the fragments of idol or altar.

Again was the song of Miriam heard, "Sing ye unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously;" and women went forth with timbrels to welcome the warriors of Judah. Though it was the month of Casleu,[1] the sun shone with cheerful radiance and warmth, as if Nature herself shared in the general rejoicing.

Up Mount Zion they come, the brave, the true, the devout; they who through much tribulation have kept the faith; they who have never bowed the knee to idol, nor forsaken the covenant of G.o.d. Maccabeus is foremost now in glory as once in danger. Press ye to see him, children of Judah! shout to welcome him, sons of the free!

A group of matrons and maidens surrounded the entrance to the Temple.

Zarah and Rachel were amongst them.

"You should stand foremost, my daughter, to greet the conquerors,"

cried Rachel to her fair young companion, who was rather inclined to shrink back. "The Asmonean blood flows in your veins; you are kinswoman to our prince; and you have yourself n.o.bly suffered persecution for the faith. What! tears in your eyes, maiden, on such a morning as this!"