cing his rounds, paused to listen to wild bursts
of merriment, the loud oath and light song from some gay pavilion,
where young Syrian nobles were exchanging jests, and indulging in deep
carousals. Yonder, in the glaring torch-light, sat a group of
officers, engaged in some game of chance, and their stakes were the
captives whom they were to drag at their chariot-wheels on the morrow.
Each throw of the dice decided the fate of a Hebrew; at least, so
deemed the merry gamesters.

But the destined slaves were coming to the market sooner than their
expectant masters dreamed or desired, and the price for each Hebrew
would be exacted, not in gold, but in blood. Suddenly the gamesters at
their play, the revellers at the board, the slumberers on their
couches, were startled by the blare of trumpets and a ringing war-cry,
"The sword of the Lord and Maccabeus!" The full goblet was dashed from
the lip, the dice from the hand; there were wild shouts and cries, and
rushing to and fro, soldiers snatching up weapons, merchants flying
hither and thither for safety, stumbling over tent-ropes in the
darkness. There were confused noises of terror, trampling of feet,
snorting of horses, calls to arms, clashing of weapons, with all the
horrors of sudden panic spreading like an epidemic through the mighty
host of Syria. The few remained to oppose the unseen assailants, the
many took to flight; the ground was soon strewn with treasure, dropped
by terrified fugitives, and weapons thrown down by warriors who had not
the courage to use them. Tents were speedily blazing, and horses,
terrified by the sudden glare and maddened by the scorching heat,
prancing, plunging, rushing wildly through the camp, added to the
fearful confusion. Maccabeus, with the sword of Apollonius in his
hand, pressed on to victory over heaps of prostrate foes. Terror was
sent as a herald before him, and success followed wherever he trode.
It seemed as if the Lord of Hosts were fighting for Israel, as in the
old days of Gideon.

Hot was the pursuit after the flying Syrians; Maccabeus and his
warriors followed hard on their track to Gazora, Azotus, and Jamnia,
and that southern part of Judaea lying between the Red Sea and Sodom,
to which, from its having been colonized by Edomites, had been given
the name of Idumea. For many a mile the track of the fugitives was
marked by their dead.

But as the morning dawned after that terrible though glorious night,
the trump