“Sold as a slave to the highest bidder!” repeated Miriam faintly.  “That is a poor fate for a woman, is it not?  Had it been that daughter of yours who died, for instance, you would have thought it a poor fate for her, would you not?”

“Do not speak of it, do not speak of it,” muttered Gallus into his beard.  “Well, in this, as in other things, let us hope that fortune will favour you.”

“I should like Marcus to learn that I am to march in the Triumph, and afterwards to be set up in the Forum and sold as a slave to the highest bidder,” said Miriam.

“I should like Marcus to learn—­but, in the name of the gods—­how is he to learn, if he still lives?  Look you, we sail to-morrow night.  What do you wish me to do?”

“I wish you to send a messenger to Marcus bearing a token from me to him.”

“A messenger!  What messenger?  Who can find him?  I can despatch a soldier, but your Marcus is with the Essenes, who for their own sakes will keep him fast enough as a hostage, if they have cured him.  Also the Essenes live, according to your story, in some hyaena-burrow, opening out of an underground quarry in Jerusalem, that is, if they have not been discovered and killed long ago.  How, then, will any soldier find their hiding-place?”

“I do not think that such a man would find it,” answered Miriam, “but I have friends in this city, and if I could come at them I might discover one who would meet with better fortune.  You know that I am a Christian who was brought up among the Essenes, both of them persecuted people that have their secrets.  If I find a Christian or an Essene he would take my message and—­unless he was killed—­deliver it.”

Now Gallus thought for a while, then he said, “If I were to go out in Tyre asking for Christians or Essenes, none would appear.  As well might a stork go out and call upon a frog.  But that old slave-woman, who has tended on me and you, she is cunning in her way, and if I promised to set her at liberty should she succeed, well, perhaps she might succeed.  Stay, I will summon her,” and he left the tent.

Some minutes later he returned, bringing the slave with him.

“I have explained the matter to this woman, Miriam,” he said, “and I think that she understands, and can prove to any who are willing to visit you, that they will have a free pass in to and out of the camp, and need fear no harm.  Tell her, then, where she is to go and whom she must seek.”

So Miriam told the woman, saying, “Tell any Essene whom you can find that she who is called their Queen, bids his presence, and if he asks more, give him this word—­’The sun rises.’  Tell any Christian whom you can find that Miriam, their sister, seeks his aid, and if he asks more, give him this word—­’The dawn comes.’  Do you understand?”

“I understand,” answered the woman.

“Then go,” said Gallus, “and be back by nightfall, remembering that if you fail, in place of liberty you travel to Rome, whence you will return no more.”