hosen name!" cried Hadassah. "Let the Asmonean be
called _Makke-baiah_ (a conqueror in the Lord), for doubtless the God
whom he serves will give to him the victory!"

The triumphant joy of the patriotic Hadassah received a painful check
when she heard some time afterwards from Abishai of the grievous
sacrifice of the lives of a thousand faithful Hebrews, who had taken
refuge in a cave at no great distance from Jerusalem. Being attacked
there on the Sabbath-day by the Syrians, these Hebrews had actually let
themselves be slaughtered without resistance, rather than incur sin (as
they thought) by breaking the Fourth Commandment! Grieved at this
waste of precious life, it was a relief to Hadassah to learn that such
a sacrifice to a mistaken sense of duty would not be repeated; for when
the tidings had reached Mattathias and his sons, they had bitterly
mourned for their slaughtered countrymen, and had said one to another,
"If we all do as our brethren have done, and fight not for our lives
and laws, against the heathen, they will quickly root us out of the
earth." A decree, therefore, was sent forth from the camp in the
mountains, that to Hebrews attacked on the Sabbath-day, self-defence
was lawful and right.

In the meantime, under the care of Hadassah, the wounds of Lycidas were
gradually healing. Never to any man had confinement and suffering been
more sweetened, for was he not near to Zarah; did he not hear the soft
music of her voice, breathe the same air, even see her light form
gliding past the entrance of his hiding-place, though the maiden never
entered it? The necessity of concealing the presence of Lycidas, above
all from the blood-thirsty Abishai, compelled the closing during the
daytime of the door at the back of the dwelling which opened on the
small piece of ground behind. Peasants or travellers would
occasionally, though rarely, come to fill their pitchers or slake their
thirst at the little fountain gushing from the hill, and had the door
of what Lycidas playfully called his "den" been open, there would have
been nothing to prevent strangers from seeing or entering within. The
whole ventilation of the confined space occupied by the invalid
depended therefore during the day-time on its communication with the
front room, which might be called the only public apartment, and in
which not only food was now prepared and taken, and the occasional
guest received, but in which the Hebrew ladies pursued their