The Maccabee hurried to the top of the declivity to gain whatever aid that point of vantage might offer and from that height saw below him to the west a single nook shaped of rock and hummock and a tree out of which rose a blue thread of smoke.  He dropped down the farther slope at a pace little short of a run.

He mounted the slight ridge that overlooked the depression in time to see Julian of Ephesus appear over the opposite side.  Within, with her mantle laid off, her veil thrown back, the girl knelt over a bed of coals, baking one of the Maccabee’s Milesian ducks.  Julian had made a sound; the Maccabee had come silently.  She looked up and saw the less kindly man first, flashed white with terror, sprang to her feet with a cry, and whirled to flee up the other side.  There she confronted the Maccabee with hands extended to ward off the encroachment of his cousin.  Without an instant’s hesitation she flew into the Maccabee’s arms.  His clasp closed around her and she shrank against him, clinging to the folds of his tunic over his breast with hands that were tremulous.

Her flight to him for refuge achieved an instant change in the Maccabee.  The fear of defeat, the primal hate of a rival, died in him.  All that remained was big wrath at the presumption and effrontery of Julian of Ephesus.  He had no definite memory of what followed, because of the rush of blood in his veins, the whirl of pleasurable sensation in his brain and the weight of a sweet frightened figure pressed to him.  The Ephesian went, leaving an impression of a most vindictive threat in the glittering smile and the motion of his shapely hand clenched at the victorious Maccabee.  The girl drew away hastily.  The veil was over her face and through its silken meshes he saw the glow on her cheeks and the sweep of her lowered lashes down upon that bloom.

She was faltering her thanks and her apologies.

“It is mine to ask pardon,” he exclaimed, still smoldering with wrath.  “I had no part in this, except to interfere with this bad companion of mine.  I did not follow you; believe me.”

It confused her to know that he had guessed why she had moved from their encampment the night before.  As necessary as old Momus had made it seem to her then, it seemed now to have been ungrateful.  She could make no reply to that portion of his speech.

“My servant went to the well,” she said.  “He will return presently.  I am not afraid now.”

“I am; you ought to be.  I shall wait till your extraordinary servant returns.”

At this decided speech Laodice showed a little panic.

“No, no!  I am not afraid.  He—­”

But the Maccabee ignored the implied dismissal.

“I owe him both a reproof and thanks for leaving you here alone for any wayfarer to approach—­and for me to discover.  I wish,” gazing abroad over the broken horizon, “there were no well between here and Jerusalem, and that he were as thirsty as Tantalus.”