"I thank you." Dismissal was so evident in her voice that he prepared to depart.
"Shall you move on, then, in the morning ?" he asked.
"We have seven days in the wilderness," she explained.

"We can not hasten.

It is only a little way to Jerusalem." "But it is a long road and a weary one for tender feet," he answered; "and it is a time of warfare and much uncertainty." She lifted her eyes now with trouble in them.
"Is there any less dangerous way than this ?" she asked.
The Maccabee sat down and clasped his hands about his knees.

This grasping at the slightest excuse to remain exasperated the perplexed Momus, who could not understand the stranger's assurance.

But the Maccabee failed to see him.
"There is," he said to Laodice.