hope to see you again soon,” he nodded with apparent foreknowledge.
Singing seabirds entered so conspicuously into Yeshua’s dream that they carried him rudely out of it. He sat up in bed as the voice of Yudah echoed along the corridor. “Boys, hope you’re fully rested.”
The brothers left Yudah’s home with his best wishes and ample food and water to see them through the remaining two days’ journey south to the Mediterranean port of Joppa. The northern wall of Narbata formed a boundary of Yudah’s property, and the brothers lowered themselves carefully down the rope that brought their feet into contact with the dusty earth. They bowed their heads in gratitude towards Yudah, who saluted them from the town wall. Within seconds they had disappeared from his sight, into the bumpy terrain that stretched towards the north and east.
The early morning landscape was enlivened by the nighttime humidity that still clung to the ground. “So, you think we’ll make it to Joppa?” asked Theudas.
“Who knows, but if we’d stayed around those guys long enough we certainly wouldn’t have.”
The brothers pushed south for half an hour, deliberately staying off the main track towards the town of Aphek so as to avoid any attention from the town’s sentries. As they sank further into the wilderness, they appeared to be borne hopelessly along with the tide of circumstance. The small, steep hills and dips of the landscape became a hostile ocean, as though the waves of a stormy sea had solidified into rocky mounds coated in sand. The young girl’s screams echoed through Yeshua’s mind as he walked, and he tried to expel them by whispering to himself the number of steps he took to climb each rise.
Half an hour’s hurried march had carried the brothers less than a mile south and left them panting for breath. They joined the main road before the shadow of the mountains had retreated eastwards across it. The relative ease of the road made their journey infinitely more agreeable. As their nerves began to settle and their breathing became lighter, they resumed their conversation.
Theudas was relieved at having escaped Narbata, but for the first time voiced his anxiety about making it to Joppa. “Have you worked out how we’re going to get into Aphek yet if it’s guarded?” he asked, with no expectation of a worthy reply.
“No. But we can’t let ourselves be drawn any further into this. You saw what kind of people these were. I don’t know if you were aware of the danger we were in.”
“Well, we’re certainly in danger now.”
“At least we’re free to deal with our own problems. At Yudah’s we would have found ourselves sucked into something beyond our control.”
“Yeshua! This whole thing is beyond our control.” Yeshua offered an expression that conceded the point. “We had no idea what we were starting when we came here. And Yudah was right. We didn’t think it . . .”Noise from the road behind silenced the brothers. A bottomless pit opened up in the depths of Yeshua’s stomach. The brothers turned to see two armor-clad horsemen followed by a small dust cloud. The Greek command could be heard clearly enough as it thundered across the four hundred paces that stretched out between them. “Wait!”
“I think it’s time to run,” said Theudas as the brothers walked backwards with increasing speed towards the cover offered by the hills. Dropping their packs at the foot of a nearby palm tree, they broke into as much of a sprint as the bumpy terrain would allow. They scrambled up the first sand hill in full sight of their pursuers, sliding down the other side to leave a column of dust confirming their position. Ahead of them, the hills only got taller and they realized that they were not going to outrun the cavalrymen unless the terrain forced them to dismount.
The sound of beating hoof was closing in at an alarming rate. Yeshua pointed towards the route where they would be unable to follow. A near impossible climb for the brothers would bring them again within full view of the soldiers. As they neared the top, Yeshua glanced behind him. As he had planned, the soldiers had dismounted and were now continuing the chase on foot. They were a good twenty seconds behind and nicely laden with armor and sword. He and Theudas disappeared over the second ridge. Now that the horses had been abandoned, they made for the shallowest route through the rocky ocean.
Yeshua gestured left and so the brothers doubled back, racing through the deep hollows between the tiny hills. Staying out of sight also kept the soldiers out of theirs, but the Egyptians took the absence of sound as a good sign. A mere three minutes of running through these foothills had left the brothers battling for breath. Having climbed a ridge facing back towards the road, they tried to conceal themselves in the long, thin grass and locate the soldiers. Nothing.
Looking south, the ground flattened into a patch of greenery that crowded around a small stream. The priceless cover of trees was a hundred paces away, just a few seconds of sprinting. The brothers remained motionless. They heard no sound above their own heavy breathing. Had the soldiers given up the chase? Surely they could not have escaped so easily. From the top of their hill they expected to see the cavalrymen come into view at any moment. Yeshua’s breath returned, but the fearful pounding in his ears remained. The brothers lay quietly, scanning all directions. The soldiers could have given up the chase and returned to the road, or they could be within fifty paces. They waited.
Theudas gestured towards the open ground ahead of them with a face that wore a question. The brothers looked towards the trees, then back at each other with an unexpected grin, scanned the horizon again for soldiers and rising dust, nodded at each other and moved. But as they slid down the steep slope, they fell helplessly towards and in full view of the approaching cavalrymen.
The soldiers had returned to their horses and emerged from the small ravine on the brothers’ left, fuelled now with arrogant superiority. The horses trotted forward with ease to arrive at the foot of this hill at the same moment that the brothers ground to a halt on their backsides.
“Good morning,” said Theudas, reclining on his elbows in the midst of a sandy haze, looking up at the soldiers with a defiant smile.
“Not for you,” came the soldier’s reply as he drew his sword and prepared to dismount. That heart-stopping metallic chime had lost none of its terror for the brothers, but Yeshua’s heart had ceased pounding. So this is how it was destined to end, he thought. Death at the hands of Roman cavalry, who finally would have taken seven lives in return for only two troops assassinated in Caesarea. He felt for his dagger. The slim chance of fighting his way out consumed him. He did his best to look compliant to the soldier, whose superiority remained unquestionable.
The arrest was interrupted by the sound of a loud hammer blow, the dull thud of metal striking metal. The soldier’s arrogant air was displaced by a look of sheer confusion, as he leaned forward involuntarily. What was that noise? What had robbed the soldier of his superiority? Within two heartbeats there was another blow, again the identical sound of a heavy, muffled metallic strike. This time it was followed immediately by a deep but distant belch from the western ridge. The second soldier fell from his horse, a long wooden shaft protruding from his back. A third metallic thud struck his hunched-over companion from the saddle to join him on the ground. Again, a belch echoed from the western ridge.
5
Amram hurried down from the ridge. Still amused by the audacity of Theudas, he looked him in the eye, “Good morning?” he laughed. “Best you boys make for that there hill while I clear up this little mess.” He did not wait for the brothers’ consent before setting about his fallen victims as though it were his daily routine. On seeing that one of them was not dead he adopted a more serious tone. “Go!” he growled, nodding
