The following day the excitement in Jerusalem was intense and clamorous. As band after band of the Jewish heroes returned from the pursuit of the Greeks they were met at the city walls with such cheers that the Kedron valley echoed as if the generations of the dead entombed along its rocky sides had awakened to greet the valor of the living. Companies vied with one another in relating the marvels of prowess they had performed; but through all the boasting ran a vein of reverent recognition of the heavenly leading of affairs, and almost as worshipful praise of the strange man by whose hand Jehovah had wrought this new deliverance. Those who had captured Dion at the spring of Bethzur gave full credit to their own shrewdness and courage in that exploit. "All Greeks are treacherous," was one comment. "Judas is so true himself that he suspects no one else; but he ought not to have allowed the Macedonian to remain in the city after the rest of his kind had been chased out by their own heels." "Think of his impudence! He even asked for a command. To command us--us! Jonathan was for trusting him; but Simon, the Wise, advised caution. No doubt this Greek traitor had planned an ambush for us. The other Greek is of high rank; his face would show that without the gold in his sword-hilt." "But Captain Dion fought splendidly," interjected another. "I myself saw him make five Greeks bite the dust." "That is true," observed one, "and but for his advice at one time it might have gone hard with my company. We were wedged in between the hills, and the Greeks were about to link shields--and when they do that they will move through the gate of hell--but Captain Dion gave me the hint, and himself posted us so that we took them on the flank, and buried them under their own metal. But, as I have thought of it since, I remember that I didn't move our men exactly as Dion advised me, or we might have come out right in front of the phalanx and been trampled to pieces. It must have been a trick on the part of the traitor." "No doubt," was the response. "The Greek has been playing us false throughout; but his toes are in the trap now." This popular estimate of Dion was repeated in higher places. Judas took no part, except as a listener, in the council of his brethren as they debated the matter. Simon repeated his former warnings, which now seemed justified. Eliezar recalled several other instances in which Dion's actions might have had a sinister intent. John attributed to him some secret advice which he must have sent to Lycias, and which led the Greek General to make the assault upon Jerusalem from the south, the only direction in which Judas had looked with any fear. That plan was shrewdly laid, and but for the swiftness with which Judas made his counter plan, and the rapid succession of his blows upon the enemy before they got through the hills of Bethzur, the Greeks had surely taken the city.