"It matters not," said Deborah. "Did you hear my Caleb's dream? It was of a little hole in the sandy beach which drank up the sea." "The Lord grant that this Wady be the hole," responded Judas. "If He forsake us not, few of the Greeks will come out at the other end. But to your rest, my daughter! You will need great strength of body and soul to comfort those in the Fort of the Rocks, who will mourn for many of us to-morrow. God watch between us!" Deborah went a little way in the direction of the Fort of the Rocks. Jonathan accompanied her until she insisted upon lying down to rest in a secure spot, feeling too fatigued to resume her journey before to-morrow. But no sooner had Jonathan's form disappeared through the night than she rose. "I cannot stay away from the battle," she said to herself. "Many of these, my brothers, will fall. My place is among them. But this blood, this blood! God, must it be? Yet I, a woman, have helped prepare this slaughter." She fell upon her knees. "Lord, spare Thy people. If blood must flow let it be of those only who have destroyed Thy altars, and blasphemed Thy Holy Name. Spare Judas and Jonathan, and--all these Thy people! Avenge Thou our cause! As the sun drinks the water from the pools, so may Thy vengeance drink the blood of the enemy, and Thy land be purged!" She rose and walked rapidly, not toward the Fort of the Rocks, but in the direction of the Greeks. XVI THE BATTLEFIELD OF A HEART Deborah joined a group of Greek women on the edge of the camps. These were venting their rage upon an officer in command of a contingent sent from Jerusalem. "The Captain forbids us to come among his tents; Astarte curse him! Are his men better than other men, or better than we?" "They say he was born in Athens; as if Athens were better than Antioch!" said one. "The statue of Athena, the prude, in the Parthenon, is so big that it crowds out all other gods and goddesses; and so this upstart Captain would crowd us out. And are we not goddesses? My Adonis, the one with a brass pot for a skull, called me one." "Yes, they call us heavenly, and help us to Hades." "Captain Dion would make Aphrodite herself wear long skirts," said another. "Dion!" The word rang sharp as a thunder-crash through Deborah's soul. A glare as of the lightning's bolt seemed to illumine her. In it she saw herself again a woman. Dion! Was she leading this man to slaughter? But why not? He, too, was the enemy of her land, of her religion, of her God. Had she not vowed death to Greeks of every name? Did her oath spare even Dion? Yet Dion had saved her. And that, too, in spite of his soldierly duty to his cause. Deborah staggered back into the darkness. Her strength until now had been that of a man; but it was the strength which her soul, with its tremendous resoluteness, had imparted to nerve and muscle. Now that her soul was shaken, it sent its quiver through her physical frame, and she was weak as a child. She sank upon the ground.