shout in my face. So also
did my heart shout. For far from the marble courts and gilded palaces
that hid the polluted couches of helpless maidens, she who was mine
rested in the dust of Thrace with the winds of the Aegean sobbing where
she lay. And as these desecrators did exult, so did my heart thank the
gods for the steel of my blade, the strength of my arm and the pale
dead face of my love! Most noble mistress, I have done. Dost thou
understand?"

"I understand thou hast been cruelly robbed," she answered.

"Yet have I not been robbed of that which maketh a man to think."

"Hast thou thoughts? What is the wisdom of thy thinking?"

"On the shores of the sea have I seen the storm make mountains of
water, yet the depths were not moved from their holdings. Down from
the mountains hath the wind raged and hath fought me for my mantle,
which ever I held tighter. From the hand of Rome comes the sword which
doth scar and rob and pollute. Yet it doth not subdue."

"This thou hast observed. What meaning hath it?"

"Even this. What the storm can not do with much thundering, the tide
doeth at will. What the wind can not do with loud battling, the sun
doeth in silence. What the sword can not do though blood be spilled
like water, the mind of man can accomplish."

"Thou speakest wisdom. But how doth this put a light on thy scarred
face?"

"A vision hath been given of a kingdom greater than that of Caesar's,
wherein the bruised and beaten and scarred who toil and starve that
idlers may gorge, shall be accounted greater than those who rule by the
might of the sword."

Claudia crossed and recrossed the room several times after the slave
spoke these words, the silence unbroken save by the tinkle of her
strings of ornaments. Pausing before him she said, "As the tide is
greater than the storm; as the sun is greater than the wind; as the
mind of man is greater than the sword, so shall there be a kingdom
greater than that of Caesar? Is this what thou sayest?"

"Not I, but the Jew that teacheth in the Temple."

"Hast heard this from his own lips?"

"Thou knowest I have not. Save as the centurion's slave hath spoken
know I nothing."

Claudia bent toward the slave, so near the jewels swinging from her
shoulders lay on his arm, as she whispered, "Wouldst thou hear the Jew?"

"Ah, that I might--that I might," and the sad eyes of the eunuch filled
with tears.

"Thou hast my permission. Nay, even more, it is m