w unconscious smile that had worked such perfect transformation
that first morning grew in his eyes. It was comfort, compliment and
protection all in one. Then he went away into the moonlight.

Within a few feet he came upon Julian of Ephesus with immense rancor
written on his face. The Maccabee was disturbed. It was not well that
this conscienceless man should have discovered that they were
traveling near this girl and her old servant. Much as the young man
wished to loiter along the road to Jerusalem to keep her in sight
while he could, he saw plainly that to defend her from Julian he must
ride on and leave her.

"Your meal," said Julian, "is as cold as Jugurtha's bath."

"I have lost my appetite," the Maccabee said carelessly. "Saddle and
let us ride on."

At his words, a picture of his own comfortable progress to Jerusalem
compared to her long foot-weary tramp for days over the inhospitable
hills appeared to him. The instant impulse did not permit himself to
argue the immoderation of his care of her. Julian clung to his side
until they were ready to depart. Then the Maccabee, using subterfuge
to give him opportunity to escape the vigilant eyes of the Ephesian,
suddenly clapped his hand to his hip, exclaiming that he had left his
weapon at the camp.

Before Julian's sneer reached him, he mounted quickly and rode up the
hill, meaning to offer his horse to the girl.

The bed of coals still glowed cheerily, but the shelter of sheepskins,
the old servant and the girl in the tissue of woven moonbeams were
gone.

He stood still, vexed, disappointed and resentful.

"The old incubus has made her go on, purposely, to get rid of me!" he
decided finally. "Perpol! He won't!"

Chapter VI

DAWN IN THE HILLS

It was a night that the Maccabee did not readily forget. Since the
girl had moved on to avoid him, he had become alive to a delinquency
that was more of a sensation than an admission. His thought of her,
that had been a diversion before, now seemed to be a transgression. An
incident of this nature during the fourteen years of his life in
Ephesus would have engaged his conscience only a moment if at all, but
at this last hour it amounted to a deflection from his newly resolved
uprightness.

Julian rode in a constant air of expectancy and increasing irritation.
The slightest sound from the haunted hills elicited a start from him
and his intense attention until the origin of the sound proved itself.
Many