gates at
which she could get out of the city and return to Ascalon.

At least the peril for her in this house was already too imminent for
her to remain longer. She continued to Amaryllis:

"Lady, you have been kind to me--in your way. You have been so in the
face of your doubt that I am what I claim to be. How happy, then, you
would have made my lot had I not been supplanted and denied! For all
this I thank you. Mine would be a poor gratitude if I stay to make you
regret your generosity. Wherefore I will go."

She slipped past the three and entered her room. Before Amaryllis
could gather resolution to protest, she was out again, clothed in
mantle and vitta and, walking swiftly, disappeared into the vestibule.
As they sat in the darkening hall, the three heard the doors close
behind her.

"She will return," said Philadelphus coolly, moving away.

Gathering her robes about her, Salome swept out of the corridor and
away. Amaryllis stood alone.

Somewhere out in the city was Hesper the Ephesian. Amaryllis knew that
Laodice would not return.

Chapter XVII

THE TANGLED WEB

Meanwhile Jerusalem was in the fury of barbarous warfare. At this
ravine and that debouching upon Golgotha, the Vale of Hinnom and the
Valley of Tophet, whole legions of besiegers were stationed. Along the
walls the men of Simon and the men of John tramped in armor. From the
various gates furious sorties were made by swarms of unorganized Jews
who fell upon the Romans unused to frantic warfare, and slaughtered,
set fire to engines, destroyed banks and threw down fortifications and
retreated within the gates before the demoralized Romans could rally.

Catapult and ballista upon the eminences outside the walls kept up an
unceasing rain of enormous stones which whistled and screamed in the
air and shook Jerusalem to its foundations. The reverberating boom and
the tremor of earth were varied from time to time by the splintering
crash of houses crushing and the increase of uproar, as scores of
luckless inhabitants went down under the falling rock. Giant cranes
with huge, ludicrous awkward arms, heaved up pots of burning pitch and
oil and flung them ponderously into the city to do whatever horror of
fire and torture had not been done by the engines. Hourly the rattle
of small stones increased, merely to attract the attention of the
citizens to an activity to which they were so accustomed that it was
almost unnoticed. At times citizens and