"Might I not warn Dion? Not, of course, his fellow-officers. But, if I did, would not his sense of duty lead him to divulge the plot?" She prayed again for light, but no light came. The gloom deepened about her. Two spirits were tearing her soul asunder in their strife for possession. She thought of her people; of her father dashed to death by Greek hands beside the altar; then of the brave band of patriots who, unless they triumphed bloodily at the very dawn, must themselves be slaughtered before the nightfall. She felt her personality dissolving into a flame of zeal for her land and her people's God. She cried out with uplifted arms: "O God, I am no longer a woman. I am Thine; Thy Avenging Spirit! Use me as Thou dost use the lightning's bolt, the flood, the plague, that I may bring destruction to all this host!" Then, even as she stood with outstretched arms in this awful imprecation, there came the vision of Dion, so noble, though a Greek, with a man's heart greater than all his racial prejudice; the friend who had risked life and repute for her father's safety, though it proved unavailing; the rescuer of blind Caleb; her own friend--who loved her, she could not doubt it--whose thoughts even now, as he was moving to his death, were possibly of her. "O, God!" she exclaimed. "Take away my life. Let me die rather than make this decision." She waited, longing that her heart might stop beating through the violence of its own contentions. But it beat on. She drew a dagger, and pressed its point gently against her bosom, as she murmured: "Oh, if it were but right that I should lay down my life, since God will not take it!" The crackling of dried leaves caught Deborah's attention. A sentinel gave challenge. Deborah instantly responded with the watchword of the Greek camp, "The sword of Apollonius," which she knew had been given for the night. "Another woman, by Jove! One would think he had fallen upon the Grove of Daphne, or the streets of the Piræus, rather than a war camp," said one walking with the sentry. "Come, get out of this! To the rear with you, or we will make you march in front of the first battle." "I am not within the lines," replied Deborah. "The lines run from the twisted rock to the cypress yonder. So we were told." "Are those the lines?" asked the officer. "Then let her stay. We ourselves have lost our bearing, but daylight is coming up yonder in the East, and we shall need no longer any lines here, for we move at dawn." Deborah could not mistake that voice, nor the form that the dim light outlined. She thought that she was silent, enacting a tragedy back of her rigidly compressed lips; yet some word or outcry must have escaped her, for the officer turned quickly. "Woman, did you speak?" Now she was indeed silent, and moveless as the great rock against which she leaned. The man came nearer and tried to scan her features. "Woman, I have heard your voice before. Have you followed from Jerusalem?"