"But I--I am the son of Agathocles," fairly shouted Dion. "I am not son of any Ctesiphon." The old man rose. He attempted to speak, but his throat gave no utterance. His face twitched as if pulled by strings. He sank back upon the couch. His eyes followed Dion; otherwise he was motionless. "He would tell us more," said the Greek, and bent above him, held by a strange fascination. But the lips did not move again. An intense longing came into his eyes, as if the soul would speak without need of voice. "It is a stroke of God," said Samuel. "He will tell us no more. I surely thought he had you, Dion, for as good a Jew as the rest of us." "But for my father, Agathocles', memory I had not cared," replied Dion. "If my sword be Jew, why not the hand that holds it?" "I will send my servants," said the physician, "and have Gideon removed. He is taken in dumb palsy, a disorder I would study. In my house he shall have comfort while life abides in his frame, which will not be long; although I have known such to live for many moons." "He shall remain here," commanded Deborah. "He is a true Jew, servant to my father's friend." XLIII BATTLE OF BETHZUR Little thought was given to Sirach or his story during the next few weeks. The nation was summoned to a sudden life-and-death-struggle with the Syrian Empire. Lycias, the Governor, menaced the Sacred City with sixty thousand men. Profiting by the failure of his predecessors in the three "Battles of the Passes"--the Wady on the north, the Heights of Bethhoron, and the slopes of Emmaus on the west--this cautious General passed to the south, and then swung his armies eastward to the neighborhood of Hebron. It was a masterful stroke, since from that region there were many roads which converged to a point not far from the city. Upon any one of these open ways the invaders might mass, or with their greater numbers they might advance in force by all of them. The choice of approach being with the invaders, the defender was forced to abide an attack very near the city walls, unless by strategic insight he could divine his antagonist's plan almost before he began to execute it. Judas was therefore compelled to sentinel every spot of ground from Bethshemesh on the west to Hebron on the south. His sharp-eyed peasant soldiers signalled by flying arrows in the day and fire-flashes at night the slightest change in the disposition of the Greek forces. The instant Lycias' advance turned into the open valley of Elah, and began its wary movement northward, the Jewish leader saw that the enemy would essay the narrow pass between the rocky slope of Bethzur and the cliff of Halhul, some twelve miles from the city. He therefore gathered his men secretly a little north of that gateway of the hills and waited. Judas was mindful that these slopes and wadies through which the Greek legions would have to approach were memorials of the valor of David, the shepherd king of Judah, in his wars against the Philistines.