"I know not, Deborah." For a long time Judas sat with his head bowed upon his hands. Neither spoke, but worshipped silently by the altar of their grief. At length Judas said: "But I know that He shall come. I too 'shall see Him, but not now. I shall behold Him, but not nigh.' Of whom the words are spoken God knows. It is enough for us that we be found faithful." Dion stood by. He looked from the champion to the heroine as they spoke thus together. Then he, too, kissed the dead child, and without a word went away. That day, as the sun was going down, a long procession wound its way through the streets, and out of the north gate to the rock-hewn tomb where lay many generations of the house of Elkiah. There they placed the body of the "little Prophet of Israel," as the people fondly called him. As they rolled the stone back in its groove, and thus covered the mouth of the sepulchre, the multitude gazed upon the giant form of their chieftain. But Judas turned away, and laying his hand upon the shoulder of Dion, as they walked together back to the city, said: "Captain Dion, have you anything in your Greek books so beautiful as this from our prophet Esaias? He is speaking of the days of Messiah, days to come, when such peace shall fall upon the earth that the 'wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid--and a little child shall lead them.'" "In Messiah's days?" responded Dion. "It is already fulfilled, for this little child has led us both; both you and me." XLI A STRANGE VISITOR There were strange visitors in Jerusalem during these days--Sheikhs from beyond the Dead Sea, with turbans as big as cartwheels, which might furnish linen, if not enough for a tent to live in, at least for one's winding-sheet when dead; chiefs from beyond the Lebanons, with silken head-housing of flaming colors, bound about the temples with ropes of wool inwoven with silver and gold threads; men wearing helms of leather, which capped closely their thick, short hair, and having short tunics bound about their loins with belts of hide from which hung heavy half swords--these last from the west, where Rome was challenging both Alexandria and Antioch for the mastery of the world. Such persons were drawn to Jerusalem by the fame of Judas; for men wondered if a new star had appeared which would change the shape of the constellation of the nations. Very different in bearing from these warlike and courtly visitors were two persons who one day accompanied Judas on the street, going toward the house of Elkiah--a lame lad clattering on his crutch and an old man tottering on his staff. "I found him a day's journey--for a fox--to the north--nigh on to Bethel," said Meph, his sentences broken by the slipping of his crutch from projecting stones into mud-holes, of which things in about equal proportion the pavement of the streets of Jerusalem then consisted. "I treed him----"