, thinking
in her heart that she would kill him.

"Nay," she said to herself, "she loved him, and did she know it might
pain her. Better kill myself; yes, and if I were sure that she is dead
this, sin or no sin, I would do."

As she sat thus, helpless, hopeless, she saw a light coming up the stair
towards them. It was borne by Ithiel. Nehushta rose and faced him.

"Praise be to God! there you are at length," he said. "Thrice have I
been up this stair wondering why Miriam did not come."

"Brother Ithiel," answered Nehushta, "Miriam will come no more; she
is gone, leaving us in exchange this man Marcus, the Roman prefect of
Horse."

"What do you mean? What do you mean?" he gasped. "Where is Miriam?"

"In the hands of the Jews," she answered. Then she told him all that
story.

"There is nothing to be done," he moaned when she had finished. "To open
the door now would be but to reveal the secret of our hiding-place to
the Jews or to the Romans, either of whom would put us to the sword, the
Jews for food, the Romans because we are Jews. We can only leave her to
God and protect ourselves."

"Had I my will," answered Nehushta, "I would leave myself to God and
still strive to protect her. Yet you are right, seeing that many lives
cannot be risked for the sake of one girl. But what of this man?"

"We will do our best for him," answered Ithiel, "for so she who
sacrificed herself for his sake would have wished. Also years ago he was
our guest and befriended us. Stay here a while and I will bring men to
carry him to the vault."

So Ithiel went away to return with sundry of the brethren, who lifted
Marcus and bore him down the stairs and passages to that darksome
chamber where Miriam had slept, while other brethren shut the trap-door,
and loosened the roof of the passage, blocking it with stone so that
without great labour none could pass that path for ever.

Here in this silent, sunless vault for many, many days Marcus lay sick
with a brain fever, of which, had it not been for the skilful nursing
of Nehushta and of the leeches among the Essenes, he must certainly
have died. But these leeches, who were very clever, doctored the deep
sword-cut in his head, removing with little iron hooks the fragments of
bone which pressed upon his brain, and dressing that wound and another
in his knee with salves.

Meanwhile, they learned by their spies that both the Temple and Mount
Sion had fallen. Also they heard of the trial of Mi