Late that same afternoon, the Esquiline Gate, inaccessible, despised and sealed, was broken open from within and under it and down its difficult and dangerous approach poured a silent multitude, numbering thousands.  They were abandoning the Rock of David to its fate.  Among them went the last remnants of that sect of Christians who had tarried long after their brethren had been warned away, hoping against hope.

They were not missed among the numbers in Jerusalem, for the Passover hosts still poured through the gates to the south and took their places in the unhappy city.  And with these that same afternoon Laodice and her old servant came into Jerusalem.

It was the eighth day after they had applied to the priest at Emmaus whither they had fled in their search for the frosts, a good three leagues north of the direct road to Jerusalem.  They had stopped at the Lavatory outside the walls, washed themselves and had purchased the white garments of the purified.  Old Momus carried with him the price of the lambs, of the fine flour and the oil for their cleansing and the two were ready to present themselves for their purification at the Temple.  But all the roar and disorder of the great city in its warfare and its discord confused them.  Ascalon had not a thousandth part of this turmoil at its busiest season.  Neither was there a servant in a purple turban with the gold star to meet them and they were bewildered and lost.

The rest of the visitors to the Passover hurried into the heart of the city; wave after wave of new-comers replaced them; but the young woman and her dumb old servant stood aside just within reach of the shadow of the immemorial portal and waited.

Time and again wolfish Idumean soldiers who were numerous about the place noted the pair and commented to one another or spoke insolently to the shrinking girl who hid ineffectually behind her veil.  Hour after hour they stood with growing distress and no friendly face in all that army of hurrying, restless, quarreling Jews welcomed them.

The afternoon waned.  Laodice thought of the darkness and trembled.

An old man fumbling a talisman of bone drew near them.  Laodice took courage and approached him.

“I pray thee, sir, I seek Amaryllis, the Seleucid.”

The old man turned large, grave eyes upon her.

“Daughter, what dost thou know of this woman?” he asked.

“My husband knows her; I do not.  I am to join him under her roof.”

The old man looked reassured.

“Follow this street unto one intersecting it on the summit of Zion.  That will be a broad street and a straight one, terminating on a bridge.  Go thence to the hither side of that bridge, pass down the ravine and cross to the other side against Moriah.  There thou shalt see a new Greek house.  It is the residence of Amaryllis.”

Laodice thanked her informant and began the pursuit of the cloudy directions to her destination.  Twice before she brought up at the sentry line before the house of the Seleucid, she asked further of other citizens.  Many times she met affront, once or twice she perilously escaped disaster.  At last, near sunset, she stood before the dwelling-place of the one secure citizen of the Holy City.