ds of his enemy.

"He is making his escape!" continued Lysimachus, in a louder voice;
"he's falling off to the Hebrews! but this shall stop him!" and with a
quick, unexpected movement, the Syrian plunged a dagger into the breast
of Pollux, then himself fell heavily rolling over into the dust!
Lysimachus had been struck down by a blow from the hand of Lycidas, who
had been but a few paces behind him!

Zarah had caught sight of the Greek, and of the venerated form of
Hadassah at that momentous crisis; her eyes riveted on them, she had
not seen the blow inflicted on her father, who, though mortally
wounded, did not instantly fall. For Pollux also beheld his mother,
and the sudden, unexpected vision of her from whom he had so long been
divided, seemed to have power to arrest even the hand of death. Parent
and son met--they clasped--they locked each other in a first--a last
embrace!

"Oh, mother," exclaimed Zarah, "he has saved me; he is your own son
again, devoted to his country--to his God!"

Did Hadassah hear the joyful exclamation? If she did not, it mattered
but little, for she had already grasped with ecstasy all that its
meaning could convey; for the last sentence uttered by Lysimachus ere
he fell had reached her ear. Her son--her beloved--was "falling away
to the Hebrews," or rather was returning to the faith which he once had
abjured; he was given back--he was saved from perdition--he was
rescuing his child from death and his mother from despair! Hadassah's
mind had received all this, conveyed as it were in a lightning flash of
joy. She needed to know no more;--her son was folded in her arms!

Pollux and Hadassah sank together on the paved way. The sight of a few
drops of blood on the stones first startled Zarah into a knowledge that
Lysimachus had inflicted an injury on her father.

"Oh, he is wounded!" she exclaimed, throwing herself on her knees
beside him.

"Dead!" ejaculated Anna, who was vainly attempting to raise the head of
Pollux.

"No--no--not dead! Oh, Lycidas!--Lycidas!" exclaimed Zarah in horror,
intuitively appealing to the Athenian to relieve her from the terrible
fear which Anna had raised.

"It is too true," said Lycidas sadly; for he could not look upon the
countenance of Pollux and doubt that life was extinct. "We must gently
separate the son from the arms of his mother."

But they who had been so long separated in life could not be separated
in death; man had now no power to