She shrank from Dion's touch as he laid his hand upon hers, but it was only for an instant; his interest in her was evidently too sincere for her to resent. Jew and Greek, of races divided by eternal hatred, yet, as beneath the deepest sea the land connects the shores, they were two human creatures. Need and helpfulness--they are the two lobes of one heart, and beat from common impulses. She allowed him to take her hand in his, as even her blind brother would have done. She said nothing of Apollonius' insolence. Had she told that, our story would have been different, for Dion's hot blood would surely have anticipated the great Avenger who was to come. As they walked toward her home, the Greek studied furtively the face of his companion. How changed! He assigned for it but one occasion, her loving anxiety for her father and brother. He had known but little of such emotions, for his own life had been from childhood among the friends whom rank or chance had brought him; love was to him only a closer good comradeship. But now, through Deborah's eyes he seemed to be looking into unknown depths, fathomless places of the soul, while heretofore in his intercourse with women and men, he had sounded only the shallows. As they neared the house of Elkiah, Deborah with the frankness of a child said: "The Lord reward you, sir, for your kindness to me and to my father's house!" "Will not your God reward me by letting me serve still further one whom, before all the gods, I have learned to love?" She surely heard his words, but did not take in their meaning. Love? Yes, for her brother Benjamin; the love which a valiant soul has for doing any chivalric deed; the love which is respect and sympathy for one in distress--this was all she took from his words. How could a Greek mean more when speaking of love to a daughter of the race he was commissioned to destroy? With these thoughts--or was it with lack of real thought about the significance of Dion's words?--she entered her house, and the Greek went slowly back to his camp. IX THE NASI'S TRIUMPH It was the twenty-fifth day of the month Chisleu, which answers to the Roman December. Ten days before, Apollonius, by order of King Antiochus, had erected in the Temple court an altar to Jupiter Olympus. This day the crowning of the blasphemy was to be perpetrated by the destruction of the ancient altar of the Jews, and the pollution of the great rock where it stood--the rock sacred in the reverence of the nation since Abraham had there bound his son Isaac for the sacrifice; the loadstone of the people during the years of captivity, toward which they prayed when they hung their harps upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon.