“Father,” said Ruth, “do you think that our prayers are heard? I know that God does not vouchsafe the visible signs of His presence in His Temple as He did in the days of old, and that He does not touch with fire from heaven the sacrifice that He accepts. But yet He sometimes seems to answer, and we feel in our hearts that He will give us what we ask. Has it been so to-day with you, father?” There was a touching eagerness in her manner, as she put the question. Not Miriam, not Deborah, had loved their country with a sincerer passion than did she; and then she had a husband and a brother in the camp, and she knew that before another sun had set, their fate and the fate of their country would be decided. The priest shook his head. “My daughter,” he said, “I can give you no comfort, for no comfort has been given to me. My heart was cold within me while I prayed, for I could not forget that the servant of the Lord had touched the accursed thing when he sought the alliance of the Romans.” “O sir,” broke in Huldah, who had been eagerly listening, “he did not do it for his own gain or advancement. He did but seek the peace of Israel.” “Daughter,” said the old man, solemnly, “there are that cry ‘Peace! Peace!’ when there is no peace; and that is no peace which can be got only by unlawful dealing with the heathen. It is God, and God only, that can give this blessing to His people. And He has greater blessings in store than this. Does Judas seek to be honoured and to make us honoured by the nations round about? If he would be in truth the servant of the Lord let him rather be content with the lot of which Isaiah the prophet speaks: ‘He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ So only shall he make many righteous; so only shall he be exalted of God. This is the lot of the chosen people: not to live at ease among the nations.” CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST BATTLE. It was the night before the battle. Day by day and hour by hour the contagion of doubt and disaffection had been spreading through the little army that followed Judas. He had had three thousand men when he pitched his camp at Eleasa, and the three thousand had now dwindled down to less than one. Judas was sitting by one of the camp-fires with Azariah and Seraiah, when two soldiers came up, bringing bound between them a man who had endeavoured, they said, to make his way into the camp. He wore his hat drawn down over his forehead, and little of his face could be seen, but there was something in his figure that seemed familiar to Azariah. “Who are you?” said Judas, “and what want you in the camp? Are you for us or for our enemies?”