der a veil of scarlet
Philadelphus sank to the earth.

Julian with a sob of terror sprang out of range of his victim's gaze.
After a time he took courage and looked. The lids were fallen and the
breast was still.

Julian bent hastily and snatched the signet from the nerveless hand
and fumbling in the bosom drew forth the wallet there. He opened it,
finding within ancient parchments with heavy seals, new writings,
rolls of notes and a packet of letters. He rose, trembling violently,
and backed away. After a moment's fascinated gaze at the roadway to
see if the pilgrims passing had seen what he had done, he whirled
about, mounted his horse and galloped frantically toward Jerusalem.

Meanwhile the midday activity on the Roman roadway swept by the
smoldering fire and the motionless figure lying in the grass some
distance back from the highway. Along the splendid causeway the
Passover pilgrims fared, men afoot, men on camels, families and
solitary travelers; the poor, the once rich, the humble and the
haughty; figures in burnooses, gabardines, gowns and tunics; striped
and checkered woolens, linens or rags; noisy or silent, angry or sad,
hour in and hour out, until the hills were a-throb with the human
atmosphere. Time and again the sweet invitation of the rare grass
along the marsh invited the way-weary to halt to tie a sandal, to bind
up a wound, to eat a crust spread with curds or simply to rest. No one
approached the silent man who had fallen beside a dying fire. They
were tired enough to refrain from disturbing a man who slept. So,
though they looked at him from where they sat and two or three asked
each other if he were asleep or merely weary, he was left alone. One
by one they who halted took up their journey again and the figure in
the grass lay still.

Finally near the noon hour there came from the summit of a hill
overhanging the road, a high, wild, youthful yell that cut with
startling distinctness through the dead level of human communication
on the highway. Each of the travelers below looked up to see a young
shepherd in sheepskins with long-blowing stiff crinkled locks flying
back from a dusky face, with eyes soft and shining as those of some
wild thing. Around him eddied a mob of sheep as wild as he, and a
Natolian dog raced hither and thither in a cloud of dust, rounding the
edge of the flock and shaping it to the advance of the young faun that
mastered it.

"Sheep! by the prophets!" one of the sedate