After watching him a moment, Mary's hand sought the border of his
cloak. Her fingers felt the loose thread in the wide hem. Lifting the
anklet, she slipped it inside the hem and pushed it around to one side
of the garment.

"On the morrow when he mends the rent he will find that I neither took
it nor must his arm suffer palsy for withholding it from me," and she
smiled. Then she arose. "Zador Ben Amon," she said, "I go to the home
of Anna whose father doth not return from Jerusalem to-night.
Farewell."

With a start he turned his face to her. A few quick steps brought him
to her side and he would have thrown his arms about her but she
gathered her veil tightly and said, "Touch me not!"

"Touch thee not? Am I a god of wood?" and before she had stepped aside
his fingers touched her.

"My brother sitteth just behind the lattice. Wilt thou that I call
him?" Zador Ben Amon stopped. Mary cast one swift glance at him.
"Devourer of songs unsung," she said slowly, turning her back on him.

He watched her cross the court and pass through the gate into the yard
of Simon the Leper. When she was beyond sight he stepped hurriedly
back to the bench. He glanced cautiously toward the house. He ran his
hand over the stone where he had placed the anklet. He shook his
cloak. He dropped on his hands and knees and searched the grass
carefully. "The woman hath taken it and I have me no recourse," he
muttered angrily. "A curse upon her! But this is not the end of it!"

CHAPTER VIII

STRANGE TALES ARE ABOUT

The palace occupied by Pilate, Roman Procurator of Judea, during his
visitations to the once Jewish capital, was one of the gorgeous and
perpetual monuments to the architectural skill of Herod the Great and
his almost inconceivable expenditure of gold. Had Pilate built it for
himself it could not have been more to his liking, containing as it did
apartments in size from the closet of a slave maiden to halls of state
large enough to banquet whole companies. The favorite state apartment
of Pilate was always first set in order. A palace within a palace was
it, pillared into twelve compartments which yet made one whole. The
frieze of the twelve compartments was surmounted with the twelve signs
of the Zodiac and paintings of meat eaters. The side walls were
decorated with fauns and naked bacchantes carrying vases of flowers.
The gleaming pillars that reached to a ceiling of great height were
entwined with c