"We were not followed and our hiding-place was not discovered. In fact, their resistance was a complete success. Whereupon, they were ready to unite and take Jerusalem! No--it was not strange! It is the nature of men. I never saw a wine-merchant in Ephesus, who, after clearing his shop of brawlers single-handed, was not ready thereupon to march upon Rome and besiege Cæsar on the Palatine! So it was with these Bezethans. "I, with my voice, expressed the yearnings that they felt in their victorious breasts, and plotted for them. After council and organization we went forth by night and finding Idumean patrols by the score sleepy and inert from overfeeding we robbed them of that which was our own. Then we sought out hungry Bezethans and fed them when they promised to become of our party. Nothing was more simple! By dawn we had a hundred under our ruin, bound to us by oath and the enticements of our larder, and hungry only for fight! Will you believe me when I boast that I have an army in Jerusalem?" She heard him with a strange confusion of emotions. In her soul she was excited and eager for his success; but here was a strong and growing enemy to Philadelphus, who was reluctant to become a king! Her impulsive joy in a forceful man struggled with her sense of duty to the man she could not love. "Why do you tell me these things?" she said uneasily. "It is perilous for any one to know that you are constructing sedition against these ferocious powers in Jerusalem." "Ah, but you fear for me; therefore you will not betray me. None else but those as deeply committed know of it." He had confided in her, and because of it his ambitions took stealthy hold upon her. "But--but is there no other way to take Jerusalem, except--by predatory warfare?" she hesitated. "No," he laughed. "We are fighting thieves and murderers; they do not understand the open field; we must go into the dark to find them." "Then--then if your soldiers have the good of the city and the love of their fellows in their hearts, and if you feed them and shelter them--why shall you not succeed?" she asked, speaking slowly as the sum of his advantages occurred to her. He dropped his hand on hers. "It lacks one thing; if I have discouragement in my soul, it will weaken my arm, and so the arm of all my army." Intuition bade her hesitate to ask for that essential thing; his eyes named it to her and she looked away from him quickly that he might not see the sudden flush which she could not repress. "Tell me," she said, "more of that night--"