“Can you stand?” asked Miriam.

“Perhaps.  I am not sure.  I will try.”

“Nay, wait.  Nehushta, come hither; you are stronger than I. Now, while I unlatch the secret door, do you lift him up.  Be swift, I hear the guard stirring without.”

Nehushta glided forward and knelt by the wounded man, placing her arms beneath him.

“Ready,” she said.  “Here is the iron.”

Miriam took it, and stepping to the wall, felt with her fingers for the crack, which in that darkness it took time to find.  At length she had it, and inserting the thin hooked iron, lifted the hidden latch and pulled.  The stone door was very heavy and she needed all her strength to move it.  At last it began to swing.

“Now,” she said to Nehushta, who straightened herself and dragged the wounded Marcus to his feet.

“Quick, quick!” said Miriam, “the guards enter.”

Supported by Nehushta, Marcus took three tottering steps and reached the open door.  Here, on its very threshold indeed, his strength failed him, for he was wounded in the knee as well as in the head.  Groaning, “I cannot,” he fell to the ground, dragging the old Libyan with him, his breastplate clattering loud against the stone threshold.  The sentry without heard the sound and called to a companion to give him the lantern.  In an instant Nehushta was up again, and seizing Marcus by his right arm, began to drag him through the opening, while Miriam, setting her back against the swinging stone to keep it from closing, pushed against his feet.

The lantern appeared round the angle of the broken masonry.

“For your life’s sake!” said Miriam, and Nehushta dragged her hardest at the heavy, helpless body of the fallen man.  He moved slowly.  It was too late; if that light fell on him all was lost.  In an instant Miriam took her resolve.  With an effort she swung the door wide, then as Nehushta dragged again she sprang forward, keeping in the shadow of the wall.  The Jew who held the lantern, alarmed by the sounds within, entered hastily and, catching his foot against the body of a dead man who lay there, stumbled so that he fell upon his knee.  In her hand Miriam held the key, and as the guard regained his feet, but not before its light fell upon her, she struck with it at the lamp, breaking and extinguishing it.

Then she turned to fly, for, as she knew well, the stone would now be swinging on its pivot.

Alas! her chance had gone, for the man, stretching out his arm, caught her about the middle and held her fast, shouting loudly for help.  Miriam struggled, she battered him with the iron and dragged at him with her left hand, but in vain, for in that grip she was helpless as a child who fights against its nurse.  While she fought thus she heard the dull thud of the closing stone, and even in her despair rejoiced, knowing that until Marcus was beyond its threshold it could not be shut.  Ceasing from her useless struggle she gathered the forces of her mind.  Marcus was safe; the door was shut and could not be opened from the further side until another iron was procured; the guard had seen nothing.  But her escape was impossible.  Her part was played, only one thing remained for her to do—­keep silence and his secret.