The Maccabaean

In his barred and silenced home, peering through a crack in the shutter, David looked out that day on the seemingly endless march of soldiers of every description through the main street of the town. There was something panicky about the appearance of those mechanically moving throughs. The whole of the previous day the rumbling and muttering of distant cannonading had been heard. Then, with the break of the new day, came the first heralds of the retreating army, announcing that a "strategic retreat" was being executed. Then followed a procession of all sorts of vehicles, most of them bearing the wounded of the latest engagement.

David stood at his window that sombre winter day—it was the first day of the Chanukah festival—and at times he could distinguish the face and forms of the wounded men. At times also he thought he recognized among them members of his own race, faces bearing the Jewish imprint even as they also bore the imprint of death. At such moments his heart beat faster, and pity and despair rose up in him and choked his breath. There they lay, his pale and mangled brothers, who had left their blood on the battlefield of the stranger.

He stood for the greater part of that day and watched the passage of the soldiery. The cannon dragged by the stumbling horses and pushed from behind by the artillerymen, the serried and ceaseless tramp of the infantry, the feverish trot and gallop of the cavalry. Instinctively he tried to discover among them the features of his own people, and many were the faces he found that answered to his search.

As the last battalions were swinging around the street towards the hills behind the town, a messenger knocked loudly at the barred door of the house, and, to the frightened inquiry, replied that orders had just been issued from the town hall that no lights were to be

lit that night in any house of the town. All knew what that meant. The enemy was expected to appear that very night.

The shadows of the early winter evening had now completely invaded the room where David found himself. The boy, already fast becoming a man, sat down in the deserted room and became lost in sombre thoughts. Those exhausted, hopeless men who had just disappeared into the hills, how were they going to spend this winter night? And his brothers among them, fighting and suffering for the stranger, what was their holiday cheer on this night of the Feast of Candles? The previous night, at his home, the first candle had been lit, the glories of the Maccabaean victories recalled. His fancy had been fired, a martial fever burned in his blood. There was fighting in the distance. Ah! those were the Maccabaean bands, hurling themselves on the oppressor, striking at the corrupt and insolent stranger, purging the land of his swinish presence. And in his ears, mingled with the sound of his father's chanting, there had risen the jubilations of victory, of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the acclamations of a freed people. How happy had he been to have poured forth his blood in such a struggle!

And now there passed before David's vision in the dusk of that room the tired and haunted faces of his brothers who were pouring their blood for the stranger. He was overwhelmed with despair. He sobbed and his heart was somewhat relieved. He roused himself and said to himself: "We still have fighters among us. The day must come when they will fight their own fight again. Our candles burn weak, but they must not be extinguished."

Someone entered the room.

"David," said his father's voice, "are you still here?"

"Father," replied David, "it is time to light the candles."