s six days before he arrived home.

"This time, my son, you have not come home unharmed," Simon said.
"Truly you are a shadow of your former self."

"I shall soon be strong again, father; and these are honorable
scars, for I had them in single combat with Titus, himself, in the
valley between Hebron and Carmelia."

"Then how is it that you live to tell the tale, my son?" Simon
asked, while exclamations of wonder broke from Mary and Martha.
"Surely God did not deliver him into your hands?"

"I wish not to boast, father, and I have told the true story to
none; but truly God did deliver him into my hands."

"And he is dead?" Simon exclaimed.

"No, father, he lives, for I spared him."

"Spared him!" Simon exclaimed. "What, you did not avenge the
miseries of our people upon the son of the oppressor?"

"No, father; and I rejoice that I did not for, had I done so,
surely the Romans would have avenged his death upon all the land.
But I thought not of that, at the time. I was sore wounded, and
bleeding, and my sense was well-nigh gone; but as I knelt upon him,
and lifted my hand to slay him, a thought--surely sent by God,
himself--came into my mind, and I said:

"'Swear by your gods that you will spare the Temple, or I slay
you;' and he swore that, so far as lay in his power, he would spare
the Temple."

An exclamation of joy burst from his hearers, and Simon said:

"Verily, my son, God has raised you up as a deliverer of his
Temple; not, as some hoped, by defeating our oppressors, but by
binding one of their mightiest ones to do it no harm."

"I pray, father, say naught of this to anyone. It is between
ourselves, and Titus, and the Lord; and I would not that any man
should know of it. Moreover, Titus behaved with the greatest
generosity to me.

"My victory over him was but a surprise. I was sorely wounded,
while he was almost unharmed, when I sprang upon him and, by the
sudden impulse, threw him to the ground, he being burdened with his
heavy armor I had but strength to hear him swear, and then I fell
as one dead. Titus might have slain me, as I lay; but he not only
did me no harm but, when his soldiers came up, he gave me into
their care, and directed me to be carried down to his camp, placed
in a tent, and tended by his own leech and, when I recovered, he
let me go free."

"Truly it is a marvelous tale, John. That you should have fallen
into the hands of the Romans, and come forth unharmed after
discomfiti