“No?  But let me tell you what I have done already.  Three days ago Titus took revenge upon Coenopolis for her sortie against Nicanor by firing the suburbs.  The citizens could not spare water to fight the fire, and after futile attempts they gathered up food and treasure and fled into Jerusalem.  Now, a thousand householders in the streets of this oppressed city, with their gods and their goods in their arms, made the pillagers of Simon and John laugh aloud.  They fell upon these wandering, bewildered, treasure-laden people and robbed them as readily and as joyously as a husbandman gathers olives in a fat year.  Oh, it was a merry time for the men of Simon and the men of John!  But I in my wanderings over the city came upon a party of Bezethans, reluctant to surrender their goods for the asking, and they were fighting with right good will a body of Idumeans twice their number.  In fact they fought so well, so unanimously, so silently that I saw they lacked the essential part of the fight—­the shouting.  That I supplied.  And when they had whipped the Idumeans and had a chance for flight before reinforcements came, they obeyed my voice in so far as they followed me into a subterranean chamber beneath a burned ruin on Zion.

“We were not followed and our hiding-place was not discovered.  In fact, their resistance was a complete success.  Whereupon, they were ready to unite and take Jerusalem!  No—­it was not strange!  It is the nature of men.  I never saw a wine-merchant in Ephesus, who, after clearing his shop of brawlers single-handed, was not ready thereupon to march upon Rome and besiege Caesar on the Palatine!  So it was with these Bezethans.

“I, with my voice, expressed the yearnings that they felt in their victorious breasts, and plotted for them.  After council and organization we went forth by night and finding Idumean patrols by the score sleepy and inert from overfeeding we robbed them of that which was our own.  Then we sought out hungry Bezethans and fed them when they promised to become of our party.  Nothing was more simple!  By dawn we had a hundred under our ruin, bound to us by oath and the enticements of our larder, and hungry only for fight!  Will you believe me when I boast that I have an army in Jerusalem?”

She heard him with a strange confusion of emotions.  In her soul she was excited and eager for his success; but here was a strong and growing enemy to Philadelphus, who was reluctant to become a king!  Her impulsive joy in a forceful man struggled with her sense of duty to the man she could not love.

“Why do you tell me these things?” she said uneasily.  “It is perilous for any one to know that you are constructing sedition against these ferocious powers in Jerusalem.”

“Ah, but you fear for me; therefore you will not betray me.  None else but those as deeply committed know of it.”

He had confided in her, and because of it his ambitions took stealthy hold upon her.