“Your words are very plain, Caleb, but this is a strange hour to choose to speak them, seeing that, for aught I know, Marcus is already dead, and that within some short time I shall be dead, and that death threatens you and all within this Temple.”

“Yet we live, Miriam, and I believe that for none of the three of us is the end at hand.  Well, you will not fly, either with me or without me?”

“No, I will not fly.”

“Then the time is here, and, having no choice, I must do my duty, leaving the rest to fate.  If, perchance, I can rescue you afterwards, I will, but do not hope for such a thing.”

“Caleb, I neither hope nor fear.  Henceforth I struggle no more.  I am in other hands than yours, or those of the Jews, and as They fashion the clay so shall it be shaped.  Now, will you bind me?”

“I have no such command.  Come forth if it pleases you, the officers wait without.  Had you wished to be rescued, I should have taken the path on which my friends await us.  Now we must go another.”

“So be it,” said Miriam, “but first give me that jar of water, for my throat is parched.”

He lifted it to her lips and she drank deeply.  Then they went.  Outside the cloister four men were waiting, two of them those doorkeepers who had searched her in the morning, the others soldiers.

“You have been a long while with the pretty maid, master,” said one of them to Caleb.  “Have you been receiving confession of her sins?”

“I have been trying to receive confession of the hiding-place of the Roman, but the witch is obstinate,” he answered, glaring angrily at Miriam.

“She will soon change her tune on the gateway, master, where the nights are cold and the day is hot for those who have neither cloaks for their backs nor water for their stomachs.  Come on, Blue Eyes, but first give me that necklet of pearls, which may serve to buy a bit of bread or a drink of wine,” and he thrust his filthy hand into her breast.

Next instant a sword flashed in the red light of the evening to fall full on the ruffian’s skull, and down he went dead or dying.

“Brute,” said Caleb with an angry snarl, “go to seek bread and wine in Gehenna.  The maid is doomed to death, not to be plundered by such as you.  Come forward.”

The companions of the fallen man stared at him.  Then one laughed, for death was too common a sight to excite pity or surprise, and said: 

“He was ever a greedy fellow.  Let us hope that he has gone where there is more to eat.”

Then, preceded by Caleb, they marched through the long cloisters, passed an inner door, turned down more cloisters on the right, and, following the base of the great wall, came to its beautiful centre gate, Nicanor, that was adorned with gold and silver, and stood between the Court of Women and the Court of Israel.  Over this gateway was a square building, fifty feet or more in height, containing store chambers and places where the priests kept their instruments of music.  On its roof, which was flat, were three columns of marble, terminated by gilded spikes.  By the gate one of the Sanhedrim was waiting for them, that same relentless judge, Simeon, who had ordered Miriam to be searched.