he looked up.

"Stand to one side," she whispered to Marcus, then unlatched the
shutters and slowly pushed them open. Now between her and the air was
nothing but the silken curtains. Very gently she parted these with her
hands, for some few seconds suffering her face to be seen between them.
Then laying her fingers on her lips she drew back and they closed again.

"It is well," she said, "she knows."

"Let her see me also," said Marcus.

"Nay, she can bear no more. Look, look, she faints."

Groaning in bitterness of spirit they watched Miriam, who seemed
about to fall. Now a woman gave her the cup of wine, and drinking she
recovered herself.

"Note that woman," muttered Marcus, "that I may reward her."

"It is needless," answered Nehushta, "she seeks no reward."

"She is more than a Roman, she is a Christian. As she passed it she made
a sign of the cross with the cup."

The waggons creaked; the officers shouted; the procession moved forward.
From behind the curtain the pair kept their eyes fixed upon Miriam until
she vanished in the dust and crowd. When she had gone they seemed to see
little else; even the sight of the glorious Caesars could not hold their
eyes.

Marcus summoned the steward, Stephanus.

"Go forth," he said, "and discover when and where the captive
Pearl-Maiden is to be sold. Then return to me swiftly. Be secret and
silent, and let none suspect whence you come or what you seek. Your life
hangs upon it. Go."

The sun was sinking fast, staining the marble temples and colonnades of
the Forum blood-red with its level beams. For the most part the glorious
place was deserted now, since, the Triumph over at length, the hundreds
of thousands of the Roman populace, wearied out with pleasure and
excitement, had gone home to spend the night in feasting. About one of
the public slave-markets, however, a round of marble enclosed with
a rope and set in front of a small building, where the slaves were
sheltered until the moment of their sale, a mixed crowd was gathered,
some of them bidders, some idlers drawn thither by curiosity. Others
were in the house behind examining the wares before they came to the
hammer. Presently an old woman, meanly clad with her face veiled to the
eyes, and bearing on her back a heavy basket such as was used to carry
fruit to market, presented herself at the door of the house.

"What do you want?" asked the gatekeeper.

"To inspect the slaves," she answered in Greek.