een run down by his hounds. One
who--albeit, of the weaker sex--had been venturesome enough to keep the
Passover feast, might make sufficient resistance to his arbitrary will
to afford him a little amusement, when none more exciting could be had.
The monarch, therefore, after he had enjoyed his noonday siesta, gave
command that the Hebrew prisoner should be brought into his presence in
his grand hall of audience.

There sat the tyrant of Syria on an ivory throne, his footstool a
crouching silver lion, over his head a canopy of gold. In front of the
king was a splendid altar, on which fire was constantly burning before
a small image of Jupiter; and the luxurious fragrance of incense,
frequently thrown on this fire, filled the magnificent hall. Many
courtiers, in splendid apparel, clustered on either side below the dais
which raised the throned monarch above them all. Behind these were
numerous slaves, mostly Nubians, richly and gaudily dressed, some of
whom held aloft large fans of the peacock's many-tinted plumes. The
whole scene was one of gorgeous magnificence, the pomp and glory of the
world throwing its false halo of beauty over guilty power.

Antiochus himself wore a robe crusted over with sparkling jewels, worth
the tribute of a conquered province. He was, as his appearance has
been handed down to us on coins, a kingly-looking man, with short
curled hair, and regular, strongly-marked features, but a receding
forehead, and an expression cold and hard. No one would expect from
him "the milk of human kindness." Antiochus looked what he was--a
stern, merciless tyrant. There was at this period no premonitory sign
in the appearance of the king of that frightful disease which, within a
year's time, was to render him an object of horror and loathing to all
who approached him--a disease so exquisitely painful, that it seemed to
combine and exceed all the tortures which the tyrant had made his
victims endure. Antiochus, glittering on his ivory throne, appeared to
be in the prime of health as well as the zenith of power; none guessed
how brief was the term of mortal existence remaining to the despot, on
the breath of whose lips now hung fortune or ruin, whose angry frown
was a sentence of death.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MAIDEN'S TRIAL.

Before this gorgeous assembly--before this terrible king--stood,
surrounded by guards, a trembling, shrinking girl, wrapping closer and
closer her linen veil around her slight