“I, who saw the candor of perfect trust in his eyes, once, I can not behold their reproach—­I, who love him, and sold him—­for a handful of gold!”

The old Christian laid his hand on the other’s arm.

“Another Judas?” he said.  The apparition made no answer.

“Nay, then; tell it me,” the Christian urged.  But the other shrank away from him, while distrust collected in his eyes.

“I fear thee; the evil man fears the good one, even more than the good man fears the evil one.  I will not tell thee.”

“But thou hast thy bread from this Hesper; thou hast thy shelter from him.  He will not injure thee.”

“Injure me!  Not with his hands, perhaps.  But he would look at me, he would kill me with his eyes!  Thou canst not dream what evil I have done him!”

The old Christian looked at him for a time, but with the hopefulness of the spiritually confident.

“Christ spare thee, till thou hast the strength to do right!” he exclaimed.  But the palsied man covered his face with his hands and groaned.  The old Christian took him by the arm and led him down from the wall and back to the cavern under the ruins.

“In thy good time, O Lord,” he said to himself, beginning with that incident a ministry that should not end.

It was dark when the Maccabee came down into the ravine in which the Greek’s house was builded.  In the shadow the house cast before it he saw some one pass the sentry lines.  The soldiers looked after that figure.  Presently, emerging into the lesser darkness of the open streets, it proved to be a woman.  The Maccabee stopped.  By the movements, now hurried, now slow, he believed that the night was full of apprehension for this unknown faring into the disordered city.  She was coming in his direction.  He stepped into shadow to see who would come forth from shelter at such an hour.

The next instant she hurried by his hiding-place and the Maccabee saw with amazement that it was the girl he loved.  He sprang out to speak to her, but the sound of his footsteps frightened her and she ran.

The whole hilly foreground of Jerusalem was lifted like a black and impending cloud over her, a-throb with violence and strife.  Here and there were lights on the bosom of the looming blackness, but they only emphasized the darkness pressing on the outskirts of the radiance.  Every area way and alley had its sound.  The air was full of footsteps; behind her a voice called to her.  She dashed by yawning darkness that was an open alley, hurried toward lights, halted precipitately at signals of danger and veered aside at unexpected sounds.  Once she stumbled upon the body of a sleeper who had come down into the darkness of the ravine to pass the night.  At her suppressed cry the Maccabee sprang forward, but she caught herself and ran faster.

He ceased then to attempt to stop her.  Curiosity to know what brought her out into danger at night impelled him to follow near enough to protect her, but unsuspected until she had revealed her mission to him.