ord to your country! God would receive you; and
Hadassah," continued Zarah, her enthusiasm kindling into rapture as she
went on, "Hadassah, in her joy, her ecstasy, would forget all her
grief--the thought of her long-lost son being with Maccabeus would
enable her almost to rejoice at her Zarah being--with God."

"Impossible, impossible," muttered Pollux, rising from his seat as if
to depart; but Zarah detected indecision in his tone. She threw
herself at his feet, she clasped his knees, she pleaded with passionate
fervour, for she deemed that a parent's life and soul were at stake.

"Oh, father, if you would but consent to leave for ever this horrible,
horrible place, to return to your people, your mother, your God, I feel
as if I could die happy, so happy; we should then meet again in a
brighter world, all, all re-united, and for ever!"

It was as the voice of his guardian angel--as if his once fondly-loved
wife had been suffered to visit Abner in mortal form, to counsel, warn,
entreat; to tell him that there yet might be mercy for him if he would
but turn and repent! There was a terrific struggle in the renegade's
mind. He could not at once decide on taking so bold and sudden a leap
as that to which he was urged, though conscious of the peril as well as
misery of his present position at the court. As the deer, driven by
wolves to the precipice's brink, hesitates on making the plunge
down--though it give him the only chance of escape from the ravening
jaws of his fierce pursuers--so hesitated the wretched Pollux.

He would have felt no indecision had he known that, at the very time
when Zarah was pleading in tears at his feet, Antiochus was signing, in
the presence of the exulting Lysimachus, a warrant for the execution of
Pollux on the morrow. His rival had succeeded in working his ruin; the
only door of safety yet open to the apostate was that towards which his
child, with fervent entreaties, was trying to draw him; shortly--little
dreamed Pollux how shortly--that door of safety would be closed.
Unable to form a sudden resolution, to come to a prompt decision,
seeing difficulties and dangers on every side, fearing to remain where
he was, yet afraid to fly, Pollux wasted the precious time yet given
him, he let the golden moments escape. In a state of strong
excitement, he at length quitted his daughter's presence, to seek that
solitude in which his perturbed mind might become sufficiently calm to
form a judg