He
was obliged to give attention before his kinsman made an end.
"You are fond of summaries, Julian," he said, "dealt in your own coin.
Look you, now, at my hope. You confess that these Jews lack a leader.
They have lacked him so long that they hunger and thirst for one. Also
they have suffered the distresses of disorder so intensely that peace
in any form is most welcome to them. Titus approacheth reluctantly. He
had rather deliver Jerusalem than besiege it. I am of the loved and
dethroned Maccabaean line--acceptable to every faction of Jewry, from
the Essenes to the Sicarii. Titus is my friend, unless he suspects me
as coming to undermine his better friend, the pretty Herod. I shall
help Jerusalem help herself; I shall make peace with Rome; I shall be
King of the Jews!--Behold, is not my summary as practical as yours?"
Julian laughed with an amusement that had a ring of contempt in it.
"There is naught to keep an astronomer from planning a rearrangement
of the stars," he said.
But the Maccabee rode on calmly. Julian sighed. After a while he
spoke.
"Well, how do you proceed? You tell me that these very visionaries
whom you would succor have never laid eyes on you. What marks you as
royal--as a sprig of the great, just and dead Maccabee?"
"I bear proofs, Roman documents of my family and of my birth. Certain
of my party are already organized in Jerusalem and are expecting me,
and I wear the Maccabaean signet.
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