ets of Maccabeus sounded to call his troops together. The
leader had not forgotten--though some of his eager followers might have
done so--that Giorgias, with an army of chosen warriors, doubling their
own in number, and comparatively fresh, was yet to be encountered.
With stern displeasure Maccabeus saw his own men, grim with blood and
dust, loading themselves with the rich plunder which lay on the road;
like fruit under orchard trees after a wild tornado.

"Be not greedy of the spoils," cried the leader, "inasmuch as there is
a battle before us; but stand ye now against our enemies, and overcome
them, and after this ye may boldly take the spoils."

It is a more difficult task to call hounds off the prey that they have
run down, than to let them slip from the leashes when the quarry first
is in sight. It needed such moral influence over his men as was
possessed by Maccabeus to enforce instant obedience when wealth was at
their feet, and needed but the gathering up.

It was speedily seen, however, that the warning of the Asmonean chief
had not been unnecessary. But a few minutes elapsed after the
utterance of that warning, when the vanguard of the forces of Giorgias
appeared on the crest of a hill at some distance, the live-long night
having been spent by them in a vain attempt to discover the camp of the
Hebrews. After a long, tedious march, Giorgias found himself on a
commanding height, from whence at dawn he had an extensive view of the
surrounding country.

"The slaves have fled--they have made their escape to the mountains,"
exclaimed Giorgias, as he dismounted from his weary war-horse, when the
first bar of golden light appeared in the orient sky.

"Then they have left marks of their handiwork behind them," said a
horseman, pointing in the direction in which lay what had been the camp
of Nicanor, now suddenly visible to the Syrians from the summit of the
hill. "See you yon smoke arising from smouldering heaps? There has
been a battle at Emmaus. The lion has broken through the toils.
Maccabeus has not been sleeping through the night."

"Nay, my Lord Pollux; it is impossible. The Hebrews would never dare
to attack a force so greatly outnumbering their own," exclaimed
Giorgias, unwilling to believe the evidence of his own senses. But as
the light more clearly revealed the tokens of flight and disaster in
the far distance, where the smoke of ruin was rising into the calm
morning air, conviction of the t