fortune may attend her and that from time to time she will make the
offering of an hour's thought to the spirit which once was Marcus."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LAMP

If Domitian at length slackened in his fruitless search for Miriam,
Caleb, whose whole heart was in the hunt, proved more diligent. Still,
he could find no trace of her. At first he made sure that if she was in
Rome she would return to visit her friends and protectors, Gallus
and his wife, and in the hope of thus discovering her, Caleb caused a
constant watch to be kept on their abode. But Miriam never came there,
nor, although their footsteps were dogged from day to day, did they lead
him to her, since in truth Julia and Miriam met only in the catacombs,
where he and his spies dared not venture. Soon, however, Gallus
discovered that his home was kept under observation and its inmates
tracked from place to place. It was this knowledge indeed which, more
than any other circumstance, brought him to make up his mind to depart
from Rome and dwell in Syria, since he said that he would no longer live
in a city where night by night he and his were hunted like jackals. But
when he left for Ostia, to wait there till the ship _Luna_ was ready,
Caleb followed him, and in that small town soon found out all his plans,
learning that he meant to sail with his wife in the vessel. Then, as he
could hear nothing of Miriam, he returned to Rome.

After all it was by chance that he discovered her and not through his
own cleverness. Needing a lamp for his chamber he entered a shop where
such things were sold, and examined those that the merchant offered to
him. Presently he perceived one of the strange design of two palms with
intertwining trunks and feathery heads nodding apart, having a lamp
hanging by a little chain from the topmost frond of each of them. The
shape of the trees struck him as familiar, and he let his eye run down
their stems until it reached the base, which, to support so tall a
piece, was large. Yes, the palms grew upon a little bank, and there
beneath the water rippled, while between bank and water was a long,
smooth stone, pointed at one end. Then in a flash Caleb recognised the
place, as well he might, seeing that on many and many an evening had
he and Miriam sat side by side upon that stone, angling for fish in the
muddy stream of Jordan. There was no doubt about it, and, look! half
hidden in the shadow of the stone lay a great fish, the biggest that