“Indeed?  And where is this beautiful lady now?  I should like to sell her something.”

“Gone, gone, and left us all mourning.”

“Not dead?” said Caleb in a new voice of eager dismay, “Oh! not dead?”

The fat cook looked at him calmly.

“You take a strange interest in our Pearl-Maiden, Cabbage-seller,” he said.  “And, now that I come to think of it, you are a strange-looking man for a peasant.”

With an effort Caleb recovered his self-command.

“Once I was better off than I am now, friend,” he answered.  “As you know, in this country the wheel of fortune has turned rather quick of late.”

“Yes, yes, and left many crushed flat behind it.”

“The reason why I am interested,” went on Caleb, taking no heed, “is that I may have lost a fine market for my goods.”

“Well, and so you have, friend.  Some days ago the Pearl-Maiden departed to Tyre in charge of the captain, Gallus, on her way to Rome.  Perhaps you would wish to follow and sell her your onions there.”

“Perhaps I should,” answered Caleb.  “When you Romans have gone this seems likely to become a bad country for gardeners, since owls and jackals do not buy fruit, and you will leave no other living thing behind you.”

“True,” answered the cook.  “Caesar knows how to handle a broom and he has made a very clean sweep,” and he pointed complacently to the heaped-up ruins of the Temple before them.  “But how much for the whole basket full?”

“Take them, friend,” said Caleb, “and sell them to your mess for the best price that you can get.  You need not mention that you paid nothing.”

“Oh! no, I won’t mention it.  Good morning, Mr. Cabbage-grower, good morning.”

Then he stood still watching as Caleb vanished quickly among the great boles of the olive trees.  “What can stir a Jew so much,” he reflected to himself, “as to make him give something for nothing, and especially to a Roman?  Perhaps he is Pearl-Maiden’s brother.  No, that can’t be from his eyes—­her lover more likely.  Well, it is no affair of mine, and although he never grew them, the vegetables are good and fresh.”

That evening when Caleb, still disguised as a peasant, was travelling through the growing twilight across the hills that bordered the road to Tyre, he heard a mighty wailing rise from Jerusalem and knew that it was the death-cry of his people.  Now, everywhere above such portions of the beleaguered city as remained standing, shot up tall spires and wreaths of flame.  Titus had forced the walls, and thousands upon thousands of Jews were perishing beneath the swords of his soldiers, or in the fires of their burning homes.  Still, some ninety thousand were left alive, to be driven like cattle into the Court of Women.  Here more than ten thousand died of starvation, while some were set aside to grace the Triumph, some to be slaughtered in the amphitheatres at Caesarea and Berytus, but