urious sound of feeble sighing, which seemed
to come from the further side of the cell. By now the dawn was streaming
through the stone lattice work above the doorway, and in its faint light
Miriam saw the outlines of a figure with snowy hair and beard, wrapped
in a filthy robe that had once been white. At first she thought that
this figure must be a corpse thrust here out of the way of the living,
it was so stirless. But corpses do not sigh as this man seemed to do.
Who could he be, she wondered? A prisoner like herself, left to die, as,
perhaps, she would be left to die? The light grew a little. Surely there
was something familiar about the shape of that white head. She crept
nearer, thinking that she might be able to help this old man who was
so sick and suffering. Now she could see his face and the hand that lay
upon his breast. They were those of a living skeleton, for the bones
stood out, and over them the yellow skin was drawn like shrivelled
parchment; only the deep sunk eyes still shone round and bright. Oh! she
knew the face. It was that of Theophilus the Essene, a past president
of the order indeed, who had been her friend from earliest childhood and
the master who taught her languages in those far-off happy years which
she spent in the village by the Dead Sea. This Theophilus she had found
dwelling with the Essenes in their cavern home, and none of them had
welcomed her more warmly. Some ten days ago, against the advice of
Ithiel and others, he had insisted on creeping out to take the air and
gather news in the city. Then he was a stout and hale old man, although
pale-faced from dwelling in the darkness. From that journey he had not
returned. Some said that he had fled to the country, others that he had
gone over to the Romans, and yet others that he had been slain by some
of Simon's men. Now she found him thus!

Miriam came and bent over him.

"Master," she said, "what ails you? How came you here?"

He turned his hollow, vacant eyes upon her face.

"Who is it that speaks to me thus gently?" he asked in a feeble voice.

"I, your ward, Miriam."

"Miriam! Miriam! What does Miriam in this torture-den?"

"Master, I am a prisoner. But speak of yourself."

"There is little to say, Miriam. They caught me, those devils, and
seeing that I was still well-fed and strong, although sunk in years,
demanded to know whence I had my food in this city of starvation. To
tell them would have been to give up our secret a