"I dare not command you, Deborah, for you are closer to God than I, and know His will more perfectly. But this thing meets not my judgment. Only do not follow the men over the heights. Yet I think we shall succeed on the morrow. General Seron is making a mistake as clearly as did Apollonius. When his host attempts to pass over Bethhoron it must keep to the highway. With his horsemen and armament he cannot climb the ledges, nor can his footmen march through the tangles of brush and swamp. They must follow the zigzagging of the road, and move in a long and twisting file like a string crumpled in one's hand. His line may be twenty furlongs in length, but it will all be within five furlongs' reach of us. Our men can cross these thickets and stone fields as swallows skim the ground. Behind the rocks and brushwood one of our archers will have a score for his target. Besides, we will have the advantage of fighting from higher ground. I have no fear. Our onslaught will be sudden; they have as yet no dream of opposition. One is tempted to make a night attack upon their camp. But it is better to wait; for, if I mistake not, to-morrow they will move up the Heights like a line of captives to the headsman's block. Yonder is the valley of Ajalon, above which the sun stood still until Joshua had gotten the victory. Pray with us, Deborah, that the sun may not set to-morrow until we too have been victorious. If the sun will not lengthen the day for us, we will so crowd it with valorous deeds that we shall make it like many days in one. Farewell! Do not venture beyond the Heights." Before noon of the following day, the advance of Seron's troops was well up the ascent by the winding road, in exactly the order which Judas had anticipated. For miles the army stretched away, almost to Lydda; the glare of clustered spear-heads showing like the golden spots on a python. In places detachments which were far removed from one another in the marching order were brought close together by the loops of the road, while intervening fields of boulders separated them, so that they were not in helpful proximity. But no danger was visible to the Greeks. Helmets were thrown off and piled on wagons with the baggage. There were songs in which the men from one province tried to drown the voices of men from other parts of the King's realm with their strange melodies. The only precaution shown was by the very foremost of the army of invaders, who, obeying their General's order of discipline, sent out scouts. These threaded their way slowly between the boulders near the crest of Bethhoron; leisurely feasting themselves upon the berries which glowed blue and red at their fingers.