“Ha!  That wife!  But will you enter that sure death for a woman you do not know?”

“And for a fortune I have not possessed and for a kingdom that I never owned.”

“She will not be there!  Old Costobarus is not so mired in folly as to send his daughter into the Pit to provide you with money to—­pay Charon.”

“Aquila sent me a messenger at Caesarea,” Philadelphus continued calmly, “saying that Costobarus was transfigured when he had my summons.  He feels that his God has been good to him to choose his daughter to share the throne of Judea.  Hence, by this time my lady awaits me in Jerusalem.”

Again Julian sighed.

“And there is none in Jerusalem who knows your face?” he asked after a silence.

“None, except Amaryllis, and she has not seen me since I was sixteen years old.”

“And there also is an obstacle which I had forgotten to enumerate,” Julian said argumentatively.  “You have put your trust in a frail woman.”

“Amaryllis may be frail,” the Maccabee admitted, “but she is sufficiently manly to have all that you and I demand of a man to put faith in him.  She is a good companion and she will not lie.”

“Impossible!  She is a woman!” Julian exclaimed.

“Even then,” the Maccabee returned patiently, “her own ambition safeguards me.  She can not succeed except as I am successful, and her purposes are of another kind than mine.  She helps herself when she helps me.  Therefore I am depending on her selfishness.  It is usually a dependable thing.”

“What does she want?”

“The old classic times of the heterae in Greece.  She wants to be the pioneer of art in Jerusalem.  It is a fertile and a neglected field.  She had rather be known as the mother of refinement in Judea than as the queen of kings over the world.”

“A modest ambition!”

“A great one.  How many monarchs are forgotten while Aspasia is remembered!  Who were the reigning kings during Sappho’s time?”

“But go on.  You repose much on her influence.  Perhaps she has the will but not the power to help you.”

“Power!  She is the mistress of John of Gischala and actual potentate over Jerusalem at this hour.”

“Unless Simon bar Gioras hath taken the upper hand within the last few days.  Remember the fortunes of factionists are ephemeral.”

Philadelphus jingled his harness.  He was sorry that he had permitted this discussion.  Now its continuance was particularly irritating, when he had rather think of something else.  He was near Jerusalem; but he was not going forward, now, with the same eagerness, nor with the same enthusiasm for his cause.  The incident in the hills had marked the change in him.  It was not, then, with a patient tongue that he defended his intentions, which had grown less inviting in the last hour.

“How little your wife will enjoy her,” Julian’s smooth voice broke in once more, “seeing that the frail one is lovely.”