He put aside his calculations in that direction as a detail not yet in order, and turned to the organization of his army.

Here again he met obstacle.
Among his council of Bezethans he found an enthusiasm for some intangible purpose, objection to his own plans and a certain hauteur that he could not understand.
"What is it you hope for, brethren ?" he asked one night as he stood in the gloom of the crypt under the ruin with fifty of his ablest thinkers and soldiers about him.
"The days of Samuel before Israel cursed itself with a king," one man declared.

The others were suddenly silent.
"Those days will not come to you," he answered patiently.

"You must fight for them." "We will fight." "Good! Let us unite and I will lead you," the Maccabee offered.
"But after you have led us, perhaps to victory, then what ?" they asked pointedly.
The Maccabee saw that they were sounding him for his ambitions, and discreetly effaced them.
"Do with me what you will; or if you doubt me, choose a leader among yourselves." They shook their heads.
"Then enlist under Simon and John and fight with them," he cried, losing patience.
Murmurs and angry looks greeted this suggestion, and the Maccabee put out his hands toward them hopelessly.
"Then what will you do ?" he asked.
"It shall be shown us," they replied; and with this answer, with his organization yet uneffected, his plans more than ever chaotic, the Maccabee began another day.

Shrewd and resourceful as he believed himself to be, he beheld plan after plan reveal its inefficiency.
Forced by some act of the city to abandon one idea, the next that followed found a new intractability.