"There is naught to keep an astronomer from planning a rearrangement of the stars," he said. But the Maccabee rode on calmly. Julian sighed. After a while he spoke. "Well, how do you proceed? You tell me that these very visionaries whom you would succor have never laid eyes on you. What marks you as royal--as a sprig of the great, just and dead Maccabee?" "I bear proofs, Roman documents of my family and of my birth. Certain of my party are already organized in Jerusalem and are expecting me, and I wear the Maccabaean signet. Is not that enough?" "Nothing of it worth the security of private citizenship and a whole head!" "No? Not when there is a dowry of two hundred talents awaiting my courage to come and get it?" "Ha! That wife! But will you enter that sure death for a woman you do not know?" "And for a fortune I have not possessed and for a kingdom that I never owned." "She will not be there! Old Costobarus is not so mired in folly as to send his daughter into the Pit to provide you with money to--pay Charon." "Aquila sent me a messenger at Cæsarea," Philadelphus continued calmly, "saying that Costobarus was transfigured when he had my summons. He feels that his God has been good to him to choose his daughter to share the throne of Judea. Hence, by this time my lady awaits me in Jerusalem." Again Julian sighed. "And there is none in Jerusalem who knows your face?" he asked after a silence. "None, except Amaryllis, and she has not seen me since I was sixteen years old." "And there also is an obstacle which I had forgotten to enumerate," Julian said argumentatively. "You have put your trust in a frail woman." "Amaryllis may be frail," the Maccabee admitted, "but she is sufficiently manly to have all that you and I demand of a man to put faith in him. She is a good companion and she will not lie." "Impossible! She is a woman!" Julian exclaimed. "Even then," the Maccabee returned patiently, "her own ambition safeguards me. She can not succeed except as I am successful, and her purposes are of another kind than mine. She helps herself when she helps me. Therefore I am depending on her selfishness. It is usually a dependable thing." "What does she want?" "The old classic times of the _heterae_ in Greece. She wants to be the pioneer of art in Jerusalem. It is a fertile and a neglected field. She had rather be known as the mother of refinement in Judea than as the queen of kings over the world." "A modest ambition!" "A great one. How many monarchs are forgotten while Aspasia is remembered! Who were the reigning kings during Sappho's time?" "But go on. You repose much on her influence. Perhaps she has the will but not the power to help you." "Power! She is the mistress of John of Gischala and actual potentate over Jerusalem at this hour." "Unless Simon bar Gioras hath taken the upper hand within the last few days. Remember the fortunes of factionists are ephemeral."