"How far is it to Jerusalem?" "About eighty furlongs." "Then if we continue, we shall approach the gates after nightfall." "We shall not continue," Philadelphus remarked. "We shall halt at Emmaus." "Do you think it would be better for us to camp here in the hills rather than to stop without the walls of Jerusalem between the city forces and the winter garrison of Titus and await the opening of the Gates?" Julian asked after thought. "We shall wait in Emmaus," the Maccabee repeated, his soul too filled with dream to note the change in his companion's manner. "You have already lost three days," Julian charged him irritably. "Jerusalem may be besieged; it may be long before I can ride in the wilderness again," the Maccabee answered. "Right; your next journey through this place may be afoot--at the end of a chain," Julian averred. The Maccabee raised his brows. "Losing courage at the last end of the journey?" he inquired. "No! I never have believed in this project," Julian declared. "Why?" "Who believes in the prospects of a man determined to leap into Hades?" But the Maccabee was already riding on with his head lifted, his eyes set upon the blue shadows on the western slopes of hills, lifted against the early morning sun. Julian went on. "You go, cousin, on a mission mad enough to measure up with the antics of the frantic citizens of Jerusalem. It will not be even a glorious defeat. You will be swallowed up in an immense calamity too tremendous to offer publicity to so infinitesimal a detail as the death of one Philadelphus Maccabaeus. Agrippa has deserted the city and when a Herod lets go of his own, his own is not worth the holding. The city is torn between factions as implacable as the sea and the land. The conservatives are either dead or fled; pillage and disorder are the main motives of all that are left. And Titus advances with four legions. What can you hope for this mob of crazed Jews?" Julian's words had been more lively than the Maccabee had expected. He was obliged to give attention before his kinsman made an end. "You are fond of summaries, Julian," he said, "dealt in your own coin. Look you, now, at my hope. You confess that these Jews lack a leader. They have lacked him so long that they hunger and thirst for one. Also they have suffered the distresses of disorder so intensely that peace in any form is most welcome to them. Titus approacheth reluctantly. He had rather deliver Jerusalem than besiege it. I am of the loved and dethroned Maccabaean line--acceptable to every faction of Jewry, from the Essenes to the Sicarii. Titus is my friend, unless he suspects me as coming to undermine his better friend, the pretty Herod. I shall help Jerusalem help herself; I shall make peace with Rome; I shall be King of the Jews!--Behold, is not my summary as practical as yours?" Julian laughed with an amusement that had a ring of contempt in it.