"What mean ye, Hebrews--friends? Slay me not unheard!" cried Lycidas, raising on high his voice and his hand. "I am a proselyte; I renounce my false gods,--" "He has their very effigies on his arm!" yelled out Jasher, pointing with frenzied action to the silver bracelet of Pollux worn by the Greek, on which had been fashioned heads of Apollo and Diana encircled with rays. Here was evidence deemed conclusive; nothing further was needed. "He dies! he dies!" was the almost unanimous cry. The life of Lycidas had not been in greater peril when he had been discovered at the midnight burial, or when he had wrestled with Abishai on the edge of the cliff. In a few moments the young Greek would have lain a shapeless trampled corpse beneath his murderers' feet, when the one word "Forbear!" uttered in a loud, clear voice whose tones of command had been heard above the din of battle, stayed hands uplifted to destroy; and with the exclamation, "Maccabeus! the prince!" the throng fell back on either side, and through the ranks of his followers the leader strode into the centre of the circle. One glance sufficed to inform him sufficiently of the nature of the disturbance; he saw that he had arrived on the spot barely in time to save his Athenian rival from being torn in pieces by the crowd. "What means this tumult? shame on ye!" exclaimed Maccabeus, sternly surveying the excited throng. "We would execute righteous judgment on a Greek--an idolater--a spy!" cried Jasher, pointing at Lycidas, but with less impassioned gesture; for the fanatic quailed in the presence of Maccabeus, who was the one man on earth whom he feared. "He is a Greek, but neither idolater nor spy," said the prince. "He is one of a gallant people who fought bravely for their own independence, and can sympathize with our love of freedom. He has come to offer us the aid of his arm; shame on ye thus to requite him." "I doubt but he will play us false," muttered one of the warriors, giving voice to the thoughts of the rest. "We shall soon have an opportunity of settling all such doubts," said Maccabeus; "we shall attack the enemy at noon, and then shall this Greek prove in the battle whether he be false man or true." The prospect of so soon closing with the enemy was sufficient to turn the attention of every Hebrew warrior present to something of more stirring interest than the fate of a solitary stranger. Jasher, however, would not so easily let his intended victim go free. "He's an Achan!" exclaimed the fanatic; "if he fight amongst us, he will bring a curse on our arms!" "He is a proselyte," replied Maccabeus in a loud voice, which was heard to the farthest edge of the crowd; "our priests and elders have received him--and I receive him--as a Hebrew by adoption, companion in arms, a brother in the faith!"