ore forever shall an eye be given for an
eye or one sword-thrust for another, for God is love."

"Love? No longer a sword for a sword? Thou dost speak a strange
language! Shall naught be paid to robbers and murderers and despoilers
of women but _love_? Yet until the time of the great Brotherhood, vain
is the sword, for while the oppressed do rise here and there in small
revolt, swift and terrible is their cutting down. Slow grows the
Brotherhood. Yet since the mighty Solomon did weld into one whole his
stone-cutters and builders, hath those of like kind in toil and poverty
come together; fruit sellers, wool carders, perfume makers,
fortune-tellers, linen weavers, patch workers, wash women, dyers, image
makers, ivory carvers, bridge builders, poets and singers, dwarfsmiths,
sea-farers, wonder workers, hunters for the amphitheatre, brothel
keepers, all these and many others shall be gathered into one great
society and in that day--" The words of the _kurios_ were stopped
suddenly by the sound of three quick knocks on the roof over their
heads.

"The enemy is upon us!" James exclaimed. "Mary, bring the roast kid
with great haste! Let every man be gathered about the table ready for
a feast--and be merry."

A steaming kid was hurriedly brought and the men moved quickly to their
places except Jael, who stepped behind the door and drew from his
mantle, his long keen knife. When the soldiers entered shortly, with
steps as stealthy as those of a cat, he moved out where their faces
might be seen and scanned them swiftly, concealing his knife under his
skirt.

"What goeth on?" one soldier shouted, while the other walked across the
room and looked into the kitchen.

"I have a guest," James replied. "A kinsman whose father is my
father's father. With him we feast."

"Feast?" and the soldier turned his attention to the table. "They do
feast! Ha! Ha! Come hither."

The second soldier came, saying, "A banquet they give--Ho! Ho! For a
better one would I take me to the stables of Herod."

"A kid have they that shineth with grease."

"Is it a kid? Methought it a sparrow."

"By its size, its bones will but breed a quarrel."

"Let us be keepers of the peace--for this hath Herod not appointed us?"
and lifting his sword he brought it down on the roast kid severing it
in two halves. "A sharp blade cutteth clean!"

"And a stiff leg maketh a good handle." And with the words each
soldier seized with his left h