Deborah: A tale of the times of Judas Maccabaeus. James M. LudlowЧитать онлайн книгу.
leaning with the crowd.
"Here's your chance to stick the pig of a Jew," whispered one to his neighbor, who stood just behind Glaucon.
Dion held the bright bronze in his right hand, his fingers grasping tightly the outer rim, while the weight fell upon his open palm and wrist. Raising his left arm the more perfectly to balance his weight, he pivoted himself upon his left foot, then, swinging the discus backward in almost a complete circle, and combining the muscles of arm and trunk and leg in one tremendous return motion, he flung the metal gleaming through the air.
At the same instant Glaucon was thrust by those behind him headlong into the path of the flying missile. The swift swirl of the disc together with its weight made its impact as dangerous as that of a sword blade. It struck the falling form of Glaucon, terribly bruising the base of his head, and laying open a ghastly wound in his neck and shoulder.
Dion strode down the line. He glanced an instant at the prostrate form of his friend, turned as quickly as a bear, seized two of the throng of bystanders, dashed their heads together until they were half-stunned, then flung them sprawling apart. They lay moaning and cursing on the ground amid the derisions of the crowd until the gymnasiarch ordered them under arrest.
The gymnastæ, or surgeons of the field of sports, were summoned; but the case of Glaucon was beyond the present need of their splints and unguents.
Dion bade them carry the apparently lifeless form to Elkiah's house, and himself led the way. It was this sad company which the clairvoyant mind of the blind boy detected before the searching gaze of Deborah saw the approaching litter.
V
A FLOWER IN A TORRENT
It is Benjamin! Benjamin is hurt!" cried Caleb, leaning an instant over the parapet. While Deborah was looking into the street he felt his way to the steps leading down from the roof into the open court around which the house was built. He darted across this as quickly and silently as a flash from the brass mirror, not even waking Ephraim, the servant, who had fallen asleep watching the ripples in the great basin of the fountain that stood in the centre of the court. In another instant the boy had raised the crossbar from the lintels and was hasting down the narrow street. Extending his hands he guided himself through the crowds, keeping always in the centre of the way as infallibly as a stick floats in the middle of a wild rushing torrent. In vain did Deborah, as she saw him, call him from the parapet. She flew down the stone stairway and out into the street.
"What haste, my black-eyed beauty?" said an impudent soldier, blocking her way.
By a quick movement Deborah eluded him, but only to be stopped scarcely twenty paces beyond by another, who stretched out his arms and seized her by the wrists. She stood as if paralyzed by her wrath at this indignity, for never before had a rude hand touched her; then, with sudden agility and strength which seemed beyond a woman's, she wrenched herself from her captor. Taking time and breath for one indignant cry, "You coward!" she ran on, while the crowd was temporarily diverted by their jeers at the discomfited soldier.
"The eunuchs are stronger than you, man, for they can keep the women from running away from the harems."
"Her fire-eyes burnt out your heart, did they? Open your corselet, and let's see if it be charred."
Deborah turned into the Cheesemakers Street. Here she met a company of officers.
"Catch the gazelle! She is my spoil!" shouted the leader.
Her arms were instantly seized from behind.
"Apollonius has captured the very Daughter of Jerusalem that the Jews talk about," remarked one.
"Apollonius?" cried Deborah, looking at one whose gorgeous plumage indicated that he was the chief officer.
He was a man of prepossessing appearance. His brow was broad, features finely proportioned; a man evidently trained to think and govern. In younger days he must have been exceedingly handsome, but middle life showed the effects of dissipation. A furtive flicker in his eyes belied his assumption of self-command. His lips were swollen from too frequent communion with the spirit of the vine.
"Apollonius!" cried Deborah. "Does Apollonius dare to break his own orders? Is it true, then, as men say, that there is neither honor nor mercy in a Syrian?" fixing her gaze unflinchingly upon the Governor's face.
"Ah! and who is my charmer? Beautiful as a leopard at bay, or Aphrodite herself is a hag. Come, can you leap as high as my arms?" said the Governor, amid the laughter of his attendants.
"I am the daughter of Elkiah," said Deborah, "whose house you have given your sworn word to spare, if you be indeed General Apollonius."
"By all the nymphs this side of Olympus! I am sorry to hear it," replied he. "If I had known that the old bigot had so fair a daughter, I would have qualified my order. But let her pass, my men. We must keep our word, of course."
A counter commotion was heard down the street.
"Way for the litter! Way for the litter!" shouted those coming.
With a sharp outcry, Deborah darted from the soldiers about her and ran to the side of the wounded man.
"It is Benjamin!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about the insensible form which the bearers had for the moment put down. "Speak to me, my brother!"
The girl's grief at first seemed inconsolable. But suddenly she was transformed into a Fury. She stood straight but trembling, with hands clenched, and glared upon the bystanders. For a little her passion prevented speech. Then she broke forth, with tone and gesture and look which fitted her words:
"A curse upon his murderer! Who struck this cowardly blow?"
She raised her hand as if to smite any one who dared confess the deed.
"It was but an accident, fair daughter of Elkiah," responded Dion, with a manner that disarmed her rage. "Your brother is not dead. See, he lives."
He bent over his friend with evident joy as the Jew opened his eyes and gazed, at first with stupidity and then curiously, at the Greek and his sister. The glance at Dion was with the flicker of a smile; that upon his sister brought an expression of pain. The next moment he put his hand to his head, and, uttering a sharp cry, lapsed into unconsciousness.
Deborah and Dion stood one on either side of the litter. Their hands touched as they stroked the forehead of the sufferer. They looked into each other's faces. With her it was only the recognition of a common sympathy.
But Dion had other thoughts. The vision of the face he had seen at Elkiah's doorway had not faded for an instant from his imagination. Now his impression of her beauty was reinforced by the revelation of her soul. What courage! what audacity! yet not beyond a woman's right! Had he struck a wilful blow at Glaucon, he thought that her wrath would have killed him, so just would it have been, and so imperious was her voice and action. Yet what love this woman was capable of! She seemed to him like some goddess weeping at her own altar which had been despoiled; for surely Glaucon was not worthy of this outpouring of her affection. Dion thought that he knew women. To him the most were but as stagnant pools, with surface glistening in the sunlight, while the depths—if there were any—were soiled. But he imagined that this woman's soul was transparent, limpid, and infinitely deep; pouring itself out spontaneously, with as little self-consciousness as that of a fountain when it throws aloft its white spray.
Yet he had injured this woman—unintentionally, it was true; but his hand had thrown the fatal disc which cut its way into her soul, as really as into the flesh of her brother. How could he atone for this?
There came also to Dion a deeper anxiety. Glaucon would recover; but what of this girl's coming life? A Jewish maiden left alone amid the license of Antiochus' soldiers! A dove in the serpent's nest would be