ent; replying briefly to the boy's
questions. He felt the danger of the enterprise upon which he had
embarked, and his responsibility as leader; and the thought of the
grief which his father and mother would feel, did ought befall him,
weighed on his mind. Presently, however, he roused himself.

"Now, Jonas, you must keep a sharp lookout round for, if we see any
Roman soldiers in the distance, I must hide my sword and buckler
before they discover us, and you must stow away your sling and
pouch; then we will walk quietly on. If they question us, we are
going to stay with friends at Capitolias and, as there will be
nothing suspicious about us, they will not interfere with us. After
they have passed on, we will go back for our arms. We are not
traveling in the direction of Gamala, and they will have no reason
to doubt our story."

They did not, however, meet any of the parties of Roman horse who
were scouring the country, carrying off grain and cattle for the
use of the army; and they arrived, in the afternoon, on the bank of
the Hieromax. Upon the other side of the river rose the steep
slopes of Mount Galaad, high up on whose side was perched the
little town of Abila.

"Here we can wait, Jonas. We are nearly opposite the town. The
others will, doubtless, soon be here."

It was not long before the band made their appearance, coming along
in twos and threes as they had met on the river bank. By sunset the
last had arrived, and John found that each of his first recruits
had brought two others.

He looked with satisfaction at the band. The greater part of them
had been fishermen. All were strong and active; and John saw that
his order that young men, only, should be taken had been obeyed,
for not one of them was over the age of twenty-three and, as he had
laid it down, as an absolute rule, all were unmarried. All were,
like himself, armed with sword and buckler; and several had brought
with them bags with javelin heads, to be fitted to staves, later
on. All their faces bore a look of determination and, at the same
time, of gladness.

The massacre on the lake had excited the inhabitants of the shore
to fury, and even those who had hitherto held back from the
national cause were now eager to fight against the Romans; but many
shrunk from going to Gamala--which was, indeed, already as full of
fighting men as it could hold--and John's proposal to form a band,
for warfare in the mountains, had exactly suited the more
adv