They were afraid she would get them blasted
along with her sometime for her sacrilege. I know all this because
Aquila declared she attached herself to him in sheer poverty in
Ephesus and swore to follow him to the ends of the earth."
The Maccabee smiled.
"Nevertheless, he told me that he was afraid of her, but that she was
a woman and in need and he could not reject her."
Julian's eyes grew insinuating.
"How much then your behavior this morning would have shocked him!" he
murmured.
The smile died on the Maccabee's face. Reference to the girl in the
hills seemed blasphemy on this man's lips.
"And you do not recall your wife's face?" Julian persisted.
The Maccabee's face hardened more. But he shook his head.
"Fourteen years can change a woman from a beauty to--a--a Christian,
ugly and old and cold," Julian augured.
The Maccabee turned his head away from his tormentor and Julian's
laughter trailed off into a half-jocular groan.
"How much you harp on beauty!" the Maccabee said deliberately. "Are
you then going to regret the actresses you left behind when I tore you
from your exalted calling as the forelegs of the elephant in the
theaters at Ephesus?"
Julian's face blackened. A foolhardy daring born of rage resolved him
at that instant. He flung himself out from his saddle and raised his
hand with a knife clenched in it.
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