"I hear the words they are saying," said Caleb. "'Lord, Lord, what shall we do with these things since the heathen have broken down thine altars?' Shall we go and pray with them, sister?" "Let us pray here," said Deborah. Long time they bowed to the earth, the lad kneeling by her side, his arm thrown about her, and the blind eyes flashing with his imagination of armies and victories. "Come, let us go!" said Deborah, rising. "Where shall we go?" "To Jerusalem." "Why, sister! Not again to the city. Dion is gone, and our brother Benjamin too, and only Greek soldiers are waiting to kill you." "Yes, child, to the city, to our father's house. I believe--Lord help my faith!--that on the morrow Israel will triumph, and we will welcome Judas the Deliverer, perhaps as the Messiah--for such he seems to me. But if we triumph not, there will be no need to flee elsewhere. The sons of Mattathias will first perish in the battle, and all the hosts of Israel with them; and we will perish too. But let it be in our father's house. Yet whether we live or die I owe it to our friend, the good Dion, to go back to Jerusalem. He is in peril for our sakes. The Greeks may slay him for letting me go. But if I show them that I have not escaped, Dion may be saved." "Then let us go to Jerusalem," said Caleb, grasping his sister's hand. "Let us go." They went a little way in silence except for the murmur of the multitude at worship, which at length died away in the distance. They sat down to rest amid the gray stones of the hillside. "Hark!" said the lad, "that's Meph!" "I hear nothing," replied Deborah. Caleb put his fingers to his mouth, and imitated the three notes of the quail. "He hears. He is answering. There he has stumbled and dropped his crutch. He's up again now." "I hear nothing," repeated Deborah; but in another moment a sun-faded mat of hair was projected from over an adjacent rock. "I thought that would bring you," shouted the lame boy, "that is, if you were anywhere on the outside of your stone cage--that's what I call Jerusalem. I have been whistling for an hour, like a bird left behind when the flock has flown southward, and I couldn't call up a mate. But my! it's good to see you, Caleb, and to-morrow Judas is going to whack the Greeks again. He knows how to fight. Did you ever see--of course you didn't, but I did--a little red ant fight a big black ant? Before black ant can turn, red ant rushes at him and bites him in two in the middle where his back is as thin as his legs; then he falls to and eats up the pieces. That's the way Judas fights. You'll see to-morrow or next day; for the Greeks are coming, sure; and Judas is lying for them, just as he did at Bethhoron." So Meph's tongue and his crutch rattled on for an hour.