“So be it,” said their spokesman, Simon the Zealot.  “This is our sentence on the traitress—­that she suffer the common fate of traitors and be taken to the upper gate, called the Gate Nicanor, that divides the Court of Israel from the Court of Women, and bound with the chain to the central column that is over the gate, where she may be seen both of her friends the Romans and of the people of Israel whom she has striven to betray, there to perish of hunger and of thirst, or in such fashion as God may appoint, for so shall we be clean of a woman’s blood.  Yet, because of the prayer of Benoni, our brother, of whose race she is, we decree that this sentence shall not be carried out before the set of sun, and that if in the meanwhile the traitress elects to give information that shall lead to the recapture of the Roman prefect, Marcus, she shall be set at liberty without the gates of the Temple.  The case is finished.  Guards, take her to the prison whence she came.”

So they seized Miriam and led her thence through the crowd of onlookers, who paused from their wanderings and weary searching of the ground to spit at or curse her, and thrust her back into her cell and to the company of the cold corpse of Theophilus the Essene.

Here Miriam sat down, and partly to pass the time, partly because she needed it, ate the bread and dried flesh which she had left hidden in the cell.  After this sleep came to her, who was tired out and the worst being at hand, had nothing more to fear.  For four or five hours she rested sweetly, dreaming that she was a child again, gathering flowers on the banks of Jordan in the spring season, till, at length, a sound caused her to awake.  She looked up to see Benoni standing before her.

“What is it, grandfather?” she asked.

“Oh! my daughter,” groaned the wretched old man, “I am come here at some risk, for because of you and for other reasons they suspect me, those wolf-hearted men, to bid you farewell and to ask your pardon.”

“Why should you ask my pardon, grandfather?  Seeing things as they see them, the sentence is just enough.  I am a Christian, and—­if you would know it—­I did, as I hope, save the life of Marcus, for which deed my own is forfeit.”

“How?” he asked.

“That, grandfather, I will not tell you.”

“Tell me, and save yourself.  There is little chance that they will take him, since the Jews have been driven from the Old Tower.”

“The Jews might re-capture the tower, and I will not tell you.  Also, the lives of others are at stake, of my friends who have sheltered me, and who, as I trust, will now shelter him.”

“Then you must die, and by this death of shame, for I am powerless to save you.  Yes, you must die tied to a pinnacle of the gateway, a mockery to friend and foe.  Why, if it had not been that I still have some authority among them, and that you are of my blood, girl though you be, they would have crucified you upon the wall, serving you as the Romans serve our people.”