was furious alike at what he termed the insolence of a
handful of outlaws, and the cowardice of his picked troops, who had
flaunted their banners and gone forth as if to assured victory, and had
then fled like some gay-plumed bird before the swoop of the eagle. Not
only the oppressed inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs had cause
to tremble at the rage of the tyrant, but his own Syrian officers and
the obsequious courtiers who stood in his presence. And none more so
than Pollux, once the chosen companion and special favourite of the
Syrian king. Pollux had been so loaded with wealth and honours by his
capricious master, as to have become an object of envy to his
fellow-courtiers, and especially so to Lysimachus, a Syrian of high
birth, who had seen himself passed in the race for royal favour by a
rival whom he despised. But there was little cause for envying Pollux,
the wretched parasite of a tyrant. Alas, for him who has bartered
conscience and self-respect to win a monarch's smile! He has left the
firm though narrow path of duty, to find himself on a treacherous
quicksand, where the ground on which he places his foot soon begins to
give way beneath him!

A few months before the time of which I am writing, Pollux, after a
long sojourn in Antioch, then the capital of the Syrian dominions, had
rejoined Antiochus in Jerusalem, where the monarch was holding his
court in a luxurious palace which he had caused to be erected. It was
here that Pollux first experienced the fickleness of royal favour. The
courtier had been present at the trial of Solomona and her brave sons
without making the slightest effort to save them, though their fate had
moved him to something more than pity. But though Pollux could to a
certain extent trample down compunction, and force his conscience to
silence, he had not perfect command over his nerves. He might consent
to the perpetration of horrors, but he could not endure to witness
them; and, as we have seen, he had quietly, and, as he hoped, without
attracting notice, quitted the chamber of torture.

The keen eye of jealousy had, however, keenly watched the movements of
Pollux, and Lysimachus had not failed to make the most of the weakness
betrayed by his rival.

"Pollux has sympathy with the Hebrews," observed Lysimachus to the
tyrant, when Antiochus was chafing at being baffled by the fortitude of
his victims. "Pollux may wear the Syrian garb, and he loaded with
favours by th