"I shall see," said the Maccabee, and followed the men at once.
Without he saw the night sky overhead crossed by dark stones flying
over the wall to the east. Warfare had begun.
But the attack was simply preliminary and desultory. It ceased while
he waited. Presently it began farther toward the north. The catapult
had been moved. The Maccabee hesitated in the colonnade.
The beautiful girl in the house of Amaryllis was in no further danger.
The interruption had saved him at a critical moment.
He walked down the steps and out into the night.
"Liberty!" he whispered with a sigh of relief. "Now what to do?"
Chapter XIV
THE PRIDE OF AMARYLLIS
The night following the wounding of Nicanor, John spent on his
fortifications expecting an attack. It was one of the few nights when
the Gischalan kept vigil, for he refused to contribute fatigue to the
prospering of his cause.
Sometime in mid-morning he appeared in the house of Amaryllis and sent
a servant to her asking her to breakfast with him. The Greek sent him
in return a wax tablet on which she had written that she was shut up
in her chamber writing verse, but that she had provided him a
companion as entertaining as she.
When he passed into the Greek's dining-room, the woman who called
herself wife to Philadelphus awaited him at the table.
When he sat she dropped into a chair beside him and laid before him a
bunch of grapes from Crete, preserved throughout the winter in casks
filled with ground cork.
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