was just then outglowed by rage.
On his well-curled head was a chaplet of myrtle, for he was returning as victor in the day's sports at the new gymnasium which, as an intended insult to the religious prejudices of the people, the Governor, Apollonius, had recently built against the southern wall of the Temple plaza.
"Bravo, Dion! If you had hit the Theban boxer yesterday like that, they wouldn't have called for another round."
Dion faced the crowd, and with utmost detestation in his voice, exclaimed: "If I had been here yesterday, this crew of cowardly knaves had not hanged the babes to their mothers' necks, and thrown them from the walls. Let one of you garlic chewers dare confess any part in that beastly business, and I will heave him over the walls into Gehenna, where other carcasses rot. Who touched those women?"
As Dion looked from face to face his blue eyes flashed like the sword-point of a fencer feeling for an exposed spot in the breast of his antagonist. The challenge was not taken, one venturing to say:
"It was done at the Governor's orders."
"I pronounce that a lie. Who repeats it?" cried Captain Dion.
A fellow-officer suggested that it might have been ordered by Apollonius, since the women had plainly broken the new law and had circumcised their brats.
"Shame on you, comrade!" said Dion. "They were women and mothers, and I would say as much to the King's face."
The old Jew, hearing the reference to the scene which he himself had been compelled the day before to witness, turned boldly to the crowd of Greeks, and, with uplifted hands, repeated this imprecation from one of the Psalms of his people:
"Let your children be fatherless and your wives be widows! Let your children be vagabonds and——"
But Dion's hand was firmly laid upon the speaker's mouth.
"Nay, hold your breath, old man. If you give us much of it that way, this crowd will take the rest of it with the hangman's rope."
Dion gently took the Jew's arm. "You must go back to your house. Come, I will see you safely within doors, if you will stay there."
"No, I will go to the house of the Lord, and worship, for it is the ninth hour," replied the determined man.
"That you cannot do," said Dion, kindly. "Don't you see that the Temple gate is burned, and that soldiers are guarding the opening? Your worship is no longer permitted there. Your sort of priests are all gone."
"Then," said the patriot, "I will be my own priest. Surely the Lord will accept an old man's last worship on earth before he goes hence."
"Nay, my good man, but the priests of the new religion are at the Temple. To-morrow they celebrate the feast of Bacchus. If you go there, they will crown you with ivy, and make you drunk in honor of the god. You must go home, and stay within doors."
"Then let me go—to my own house! My God! Why was it not my sepulchre ere I saw what the Prophet foretold?"
Captain Dion led him safely along the Street of David, the crowd giving way as it gazed upon the two and remarked the contrast between the half-mummied saint and the strong-limbed, festive-crowned youth.
"Old Elkiah is about the last of this damnable race left in Jerusalem. It is a wonder that Apollonius has given him tether so long."
"Perhaps Dion knows the Jew," responded some one. "The captain is as good a Greek as ever drew sword or loved a woman, but his nose isn't straight on a line with his forehead. See, it has a Jewish twist."
"A fine observation," laughed another, "for one always follows his nose, and that may account for Dion's kindness to some of these rebels."
"Don't insult Captain Dion!" said one. "He's close in with Apollonius. Besides, he's a good fellow. He always gives a weaker man his handicap in the arena without having it ordered."
"True, or you would not have won yesterday. But I wish he wouldn't interfere with the sport of the men. I know that it is cruel, but the sooner the bigots are exterminated the sooner it will cease. Were it not for Dion's friendship for that Glaucon—as Elkiah's fool of a son now calls himself—we would soon find out what the old Jew's house has for us. They say his cellar is as good as a gold-mine."
"Better kill off Glaucon, and let the old man die himself. You saw that his life is about burned out, and his old body only like a heap of ashes with a spark in it," was the humane response.
Dion paused by the oaken door in the wall of the Jew's house. He took from a little pouch at his belt a pinch of aromatic sawdust of sandalwood, and dropped it upon a small square altar whose brazier emitted a thin curl of white smoke, clouding the entrance. This was an altar to Zeus which the Governor had commanded to be placed at all the houses which were still occupied by the Jews. Just above the altar the lintel had been torn by the destruction of the Mezuzah or wooden box which, according to the Hebrew custom, contained the sacred sentences from the Law, and through the small apertures in which a visitor to any Jewish home could see the word "Shaddai," the Almighty One, and thus make the common salutation, "Peace be to this house," into a prayer. Dion's worship at the little altar by the gate was marred by a muttered curse upon Apollonius for the needless insult perpetrated by this act of sacrilege.
The Greek had scarcely time to knock at the outer entrance when the door flew open, and with the cry "Father!" a young girl's arms were about the old man.
She drew him inside, and stood with her left arm supporting, while she raised her right hand as if it were a shield to protect him.
Captain Dion was familiar with the finest statuary in Athens and Antioch, but thought he had never seen anything to match this—the white head and beard of age shielded by the raven locks of youth and beauty. He would tell Laertes, his sculptor friend, of this pose.
The girl was apparently about seventeen years of age, tall and lithe, with sufficient muscle to give that exquisite grace which only accompanies strength. Her hair, bound about the temples with a single fillet of silver, fell in wavy profusion of jet black upon a white linen chiton. This was gathered at the shoulders, and left fully exposed a neck which might have illuminated a copy of Solomon's Song. Beneath the breasts the garment was girdled with a rope of golden threads, and thence fell below the knees. Her ankles were wound with long white sandal lacings, which were in harmony with the silver band that bound her brow. Her arms were bare. In her haste she had not put on her outer garment, and thus stood revealed in a more exquisite modelling of nature than she would have chosen had she known that she was to be beneath so critical an eye. Yet she could not have been more charming had she practised for hours before her mirror of polished brass, and passed her proud old nurse Huldah's inspection before she made her début at the gate.
Dion noted that the girl's features were perfect, but strictly on the Semitic model. Her face might be a hard one, for it well fitted the tragic feeling of the moment; or it might be sweet as any he had loved to dream about, for it also fitted the intensity of filial affection and solicitude she now displayed. The Greek seemed transfixed by her eyes. These were enlarged by her surprise, and their pupils gleamed from their deep black irises with the fire of excitement.
"A Jewish Athena!" thought Dion, as in a brief sentence or two he begged the girl to be more prudent in the care of her father. Surely there was no scorn of the Jewish race in the profound bow with which he took his departure, nor in the hasty glance he stole as the door was closing.
He plucked a leaf
