h in the course
of his bargaining he made diligent inquiry as to the fate of the girl
who had been taken to the gate Nicanor, Caleb could hear nothing of her,
seeing that she was in a camp situated on the Mount of Olives, upon
the other side of Jerusalem. Baffled for that day, Caleb continued his
inquiries on the next, taking a fresh supply of vegetables, which he
purchased from the same peasant, to another body of soldiers camping in
the Valley of Himnon. So he went on from day to day searching the
troops which surrounded the city, and working from the Valley of Himnon
northwards along the Valley of the Kedron, till on the tenth day he came
to a little hospital camp pitched on the slope of the hill opposite to
the ruin which once had been the Golden Gate. Here, while proffering his
vegetables, he fell into talk with the cook who was sent to chaffer with
him.

"Ah!" said the cook handling the basket with satisfaction, "it is a
pity, friend, that you did not bring this stuff here a while ago when
we wanted it sorely and found it hard to come by in this barren,
sword-wasted land."

"Why?" asked Caleb carelessly.

"Oh! because of a prisoner we had here, a girl whose sufferings had made
her sick in mind and body, and whose appetite I never knew how to tempt,
for she turned from meat, and ever asked for fish, of which, of course,
we had none, or failing that, for green food and fruits."

"What were her name and story?" asked Caleb.

"As for her name I know it not. We called her Pearl-Maiden because of a
collar of pearls she wore and because also she was white and beautiful
as a pearl. Oh! beautiful indeed, and so gentle and sweet, even in her
sickness, that the roughest brute of a legionary with a broken head
could not choose but to love her. Much more then, that old bear, Gallus,
who watched her as though she were his own cub."

"Indeed? And where is this beautiful lady now? I should like to sell her
something."

"Gone, gone, and left us all mourning."

"Not dead?" said Caleb in a new voice of eager dismay, "Oh! not dead?"

The fat cook looked at him calmly.

"You take a strange interest in our Pearl-Maiden, Cabbage-seller," he
said. "And, now that I come to think of it, you are a strange-looking
man for a peasant."

With an effort Caleb recovered his self-command.

"Once I was better off than I am now, friend," he answered. "As you
know, in this country the wheel of fortune has turned rather quick of
late."