Now so far as concerned their own order the Essenes thought little of social distinctions, or even of the differences of blood and race.  But Miriam was not of their order; she was their guest, no more, to whom they stood in the place of parents, and who would go from them out into the great world.  Therefore, notwithstanding their childlike simplicity, being, many of them, men experienced in life, they did not think it right that she should mix with those of lower breeding.

This one lad, Caleb by name, was born in the same year as Miriam, when Cuspius Fadus became governor on the death of Agrippa.  His father was Jew of very high rank named Hilliel, who, although he sided from time to time with the Roman party, was killed by them, or perished among the twenty thousand who were trampled to death at the Feast of the Passover at Jerusalem, when Cumanus, the Procurator, ordered his soldiers to attack the people.  Thereon the Zealots, who considered him a traitor, managed to get possession of all his property, so that his son Caleb, whose mother was dead, was brought in a destitute condition by one of her friends to Jericho.  There, as she could not dispose of him otherwise, he was given over to the Essenes, to be educated in their doctrine, and, should he wish it, to enter their order when he reached full age.  This lad, it was now decreed, should become the playmate of Miriam, a decision that pleased both of them very well.

Caleb was a handsome child with quick, dark eyes that watched everything without seeming to watch, and black hair which curled upon his shoulders.  He was clever also and brave; but though he did his best to control his temper, by nature very passionate and unforgiving.  Moreover, that which he desired he would have, if by any means it could be obtained, and was faithful in his loves as in his hates.  Of these hates Nehushta was one.  With all the skill of a Libyan, whose only book is that of Nature and men’s faces, she read the boy’s heart at once and said openly that he might come to be the first in any cause—­if he did not betray it—­and that when God mixed his blood of the best, lest Caesar should find a rival He left out the salt of honesty and filled up the cup with the wine of passion.  When these sayings were repeated to Caleb by Miriam, who thought them to be a jest fit to tease her playmate with, he did not fly into one of his tempers, as she had hoped, but only screwed up his eyelids after his fashion in certain moods, and looked black as the rain-storm above Mount Nebo.

“Did you hear, Caleb?” asked Miriam, somewhat disappointed.

“Oh, yes!  Lady Miriam,” for so he had been ordered to call her.  “I heard.  Do you tell that old black woman that I will lead more causes than she ever thought of, for I mean to be the first everywhere.  Also that whatever God left out of my cup, at least He mixed it with a good memory.”

When Nehushta heard this, she laughed and said that it was true enough, only he that tried to climb several ladders at once generally fell to the ground, and that when a head had said good-bye to its shoulders, the best of memories got lost between the two.