t we sent a messenger off three months ago, but that.... Make
something happen to him, stupid, and save me the trouble.'

'Shall I kill him by Arabs in the neighbourhood of Palmyra, your
Excellency?'

'Let me see.... No. They may make inquiries there. Drown him at sea.
Nobody can ask questions of the sharks.'

'Foundered between Tyre and Crete, from which sad calamity only one man
escaped on a raft, and being picked tip, after three weeks' exposure to
the fury of the elements, by a returning wheat-ship--By the bye, most
noble, what am I to say about those wheat-ships not having even sailed?'

'Head of Augustus! I forgot them utterly. Say that--say that the plague
was making such ravages in the harbour quarter that we feared carrying
the infection to the seat of the empire; and let them sail to-morrow.'

The secretary's face lengthened.

'My fidelity is compelled to remark, even at the risk of your just
indignation, that half of them have been unloaded again for your
munificent largesses of the last two days.'

Orestes swore a great oath.

'Oh, that the mob had but one throat, that I might give them an emetic!
Well, we must buy more corn, that's all.'

The secretary's face grew longer still.

'The Jews, most August--'

'What of them?' yelled the hapless Prefect. 'Have they been
forestalling?'

'My assiduity has discovered this afternoon that they have been buying
up and exporting all the provisions which they could obtain.'

'Scoundrels! Then they must have known of Heraclian's failure!'

'Your sagacity has, I fear, divined the truth. They have been betting
largely against his success for the last week, both in Canopus and
Pelusium.'

'For the last week! Then Miriam betrayed me knowingly!' And Orestes
broke forth again into a paroxysm of fury.

'Here--call the tribune of the guard! A hundred gold pieces to the man
who brings me the witch alive!'

'She will never be taken alive.'

'Dead, then--in any way! Go, you Chaldee hound! what are you hesitating
about?'

'Most noble lord,' said the secretary, prostrating himself upon the
floor, and kissing his master's feet in an agony of fear....

'Remember, that if you touch one Jew you touch all! Remember the bonds!
remember the--the--your own most august reputation, in short.'

'Get up, brute, and don't grovel there, but tell me what you mean, like
a human being. If old Miriam is once dead, her bonds die with her, don't
they?'

'Alas, my lord, you do