wer, knew who the unfortunates were, and, doubtless,
said to himself, "At last the mother of Ben-Hur, and Tirzah,
his sister!"

And so it was.

The morning of their seizure, eight years before, they had been
carried to the Tower, where Gratus proposed to put them out of the
way. He had chosen the Tower for the purpose as more immediately in
his own keeping, and cell VI. because, first, it could be better lost
than any other; and, secondly, it was infected with leprosy; for these
prisoners were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in a place to
die. They were, accordingly, taken down by slaves in the night-time,
when there were no witnesses of the deed; then, in completion of
the savage task, the same slaves walled up the door, after which
they were themselves separated, and sent away never to be heard
of more. To save accusation, and, in the event of discovery,
to leave himself such justification as might be allowed in
a distinction between the infliction of a punishment and the
commission of a double murder, Gratus preferred sinking his victims
where natural death was certain, though slow. That they might linger
along, he selected a convict who had been made blind and tongueless,
and sank him in the only connecting cell, there to serve them with
food and drink. Under no circumstances could the poor wretch tell
the tale or identify either the prisoners or their doomsman. So,
with a cunning partly due to Messala, the Roman, under color of
punishing a brood of assassins, smoothed a path to confiscation
of the estate of the Hurs, of which no portion ever reached the
imperial coffers.

As the last step in the scheme, Gratus summarily removed the old
keeper of the prisons; not because he knew what had been done--for
he did not--but because, knowing the underground floors as he did,
it would be next to impossible to keep the transaction from him.
Then, with masterly ingenuity, the procurator had new maps drawn
for delivery to a new keeper, with the omission, as we have seen,
of cell VI. The instructions given the latter, taken with the
omission on the map, accomplished the design--the cell and its
unhappy tenants were all alike lost.

What may be thought of the life of the mother and daughter
during the eight years must have relation to their culture
and previous habits. Conditions are pleasant or grievous to
us according to our sensibilities. It is not extreme to say,
if there was a sudden exit of all men from th