mbered even to this day.

But in the little village of the Essenes by the grey shores of the Dead
Sea, nothing seemed to change, except that now and again an aged brother
died, and now and again a new brother was admitted. They rose before
daylight and offered their invocation to the sun; they went out to
toil in the fields and sowed their crops, to reap them in due season,
thankful if they were good, still thankful if they were bad. They
washed, they prayed, they mourned over the wickedness of the world, and
wove themselves white garments emblematic of a better. Also, although
of this Miriam knew nothing, they held higher and more secret services
wherein they invoked the presence of their "angels," and by arts of
divination that were known to them, foretold the future, an exercise
which brought them little joy. But as yet, however evil might be the
omens, none came to molest their peaceful life, which ran quietly
towards the great catastrophe as often deep waters swirl to the lip of a
precipice.

At length when Miriam was seventeen years of age, the first stroke of
trouble fell upon them.

From time to time the high priests at Jerusalem, who hated the Essenes
as heretics, had made demands upon them that they should pay tithe for
the support of the sacrifices in the Temple. This they refused to do,
since all sacrifices were hateful to them. So things went on until the
day of the high priest Ananos, who sent armed men to the village of the
Essenes to take the tithes. These were refused to them, whereon they
broke open the granary and helped themselves, destroying a great deal
which they could not carry away. As it chanced, on that day Miriam,
accompanied by Nehushta, had visited Jericho. Returning in the afternoon
they passed through a certain torrent bed in which were many rocks, and
among them thickets of thorn trees. Here they were met by Caleb, now
a noble-looking youth very strong and active, who carried a bow in his
hand and on his back a sheath of six arrows.

"Lady Miriam," he said, "well met. I have come to seek you, and to
warn you not to return by the road to-day, since on it you will meet
presently those thieves sent by the high priest to plunder the stores of
the Order, who, perhaps, will offer you insult or mischief, for they are
drunk with wine. Look, one of them has struck me," and he pointed to a
bruise upon his shoulder and scowled.

"What then shall we do?" asked Miriam. "Go back to Jericho?"

"