"I am the daughter of Elkiah," said Deborah, "whose house you have given your sworn word to spare, if you be indeed General Apollonius." "By all the nymphs this side of Olympus! I am sorry to hear it," replied he. "If I had known that the old bigot had so fair a daughter, I would have qualified my order. But let her pass, my men. We must keep our word, of course." A counter commotion was heard down the street. "Way for the litter! Way for the litter!" shouted those coming. With a sharp outcry, Deborah darted from the soldiers about her and ran to the side of the wounded man. "It is Benjamin!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about the insensible form which the bearers had for the moment put down. "Speak to me, my brother!" The girl's grief at first seemed inconsolable. But suddenly she was transformed into a Fury. She stood straight but trembling, with hands clenched, and glared upon the bystanders. For a little her passion prevented speech. Then she broke forth, with tone and gesture and look which fitted her words: "A curse upon his murderer! Who struck this cowardly blow?" She raised her hand as if to smite any one who dared confess the deed. "It was but an accident, fair daughter of Elkiah," responded Dion, with a manner that disarmed her rage. "Your brother is not dead. See, he lives." He bent over his friend with evident joy as the Jew opened his eyes and gazed, at first with stupidity and then curiously, at the Greek and his sister. The glance at Dion was with the flicker of a smile; that upon his sister brought an expression of pain. The next moment he put his hand to his head, and, uttering a sharp cry, lapsed into unconsciousness. Deborah and Dion stood one on either side of the litter. Their hands touched as they stroked the forehead of the sufferer. They looked into each other's faces. With her it was only the recognition of a common sympathy. But Dion had other thoughts. The vision of the face he had seen at Elkiah's doorway had not faded for an instant from his imagination. Now his impression of her beauty was reinforced by the revelation of her soul. What courage! what audacity! yet not beyond a woman's right! Had he struck a wilful blow at Glaucon, he thought that her wrath would have killed him, so just would it have been, and so imperious was her voice and action. Yet what love this woman was capable of! She seemed to him like some goddess weeping at her own altar which had been despoiled; for surely Glaucon was not worthy of this outpouring of her affection. Dion thought that he knew women. To him the most were but as stagnant pools, with surface glistening in the sunlight, while the depths--if there were any--were soiled. But he imagined that this woman's soul was transparent, limpid, and infinitely deep; pouring itself out spontaneously, with as little self-consciousness as that of a fountain when it throws aloft its white spray.