“Against Rome or against Simon?”

“Both.”

“Ill enough.  But when Titus presses too close Simon will lay down his hostility toward me; and when Titus becomes too effective, we are to have a divine interference, so our prophets say.”

“I observe,” the woman said, “we Jews at this time are relying much on the prophets to fight our battles.  Behold, our stores will hold out, we say, because it is said; and we shall fight indifferently, because Daniel hath bespoken a Deliverer for us at this time!”

John, with his wine-glass between thumb and finger, looked at her.

“I should expect a heretic to be so critical for us,” he said.

The woman sat with her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands, gazing moodily at the sunlight falling through the brass grill over the windows on the court.  She ignored his remark, but answered presently in another tone.

“There is nothing to employ a surfeited mind in this city.”

“No?” he said lightly, while interest began to awaken in his eyes.  “The making of enjoyment is here.  I have found it so.”

“Perchance you have,” but she halted and resumed her moody gaze at the flood of sunlight.

“Are you weary?” he asked.  “What is it?”

“Idleness!  Eating, sleeping—­no; not even that; for idleness steals away my appetite and my repose.”

“Strange restiveness for one reared in the quiet inner chambers of a Jewish house,” he observed.

Her eyes dropped away to the floor; he saw that she was breathing quickly.

“I dreamed of a free life once,” she said in a restrained way.  “I have not since been satisfied.  I dreamed of cities and kings, that were mine! of crises that I dared, of—­of things that I did!”

There was indignation and pride in the words, too much recollection of an actuality to rise from the reminiscences of a dream.  John watched her alertly.

“Enough will happen here in time to divert you,” he said.

She made a motion with her hand that swept the round of masonry about her.

“Not until this falls.”

“Come, then, up into my fortress and see my fellows from Gischala,” he offered.  “They fled with me from that city when Titus took it and together we came to this place.  They are hardened to disaster; they and death are fellow-jesters.”

“Soldiers?”

“Everything!  Better athletes than soldiers, better mummers than athletes; villains most engaging of all!”

She showed no interest and, after a critical pause, he continued: 

“They robbed the booth of some costumer whom the Sadducees had made rich and captured a maid whom they held until she had taught them how to use henna and kohl.  So I had a garrison of swearing girls until they wearied of the fatigue of stepping mincingly and untangling their garments.  It was that which robbed the sport of its pleasure and changed my harem back to a fortress.  But while it lasted they were kings over Jerusalem.  And what dear mad dangerous wantons they were!  What confusion to short-sighted citizens; what affrights to sociable maidens!  Even I laughed at them.”