Laodice looked the way the Greek pointed and saw Philadelphus, standing with lifted head and stretched to his full height, as if searching over the crowd for her.
Panic seized her. She wrenched herself from the Greek's hold and, forgetting even the protection of Hesper who was within touch of her, she threw herself into the crowd behind her and struggled out of the press.
Nathan, the Christian, saw her turn and followed instantly in the path she made.
Once out, she turned in a bewildered manner this way and that. What refuge, now, for her, indeed, but the cavern under the ruin and the care of Hesper, until the end which should swallow them all!
A trembling hand was laid on her arm.
She whirled, expecting to find Philadelphus. Beside her, his old face radiant with emotion, stood Momus!
Chapter XXI
THE FAITHFUL SERVANT
Within the Roman lines was a bent and deformed figure of an old waif that the soldiers had picked up attempting to run the lines into Jerusalem the second day after the siege had been laid about the Holy City.
The old man, though wrinkled and twisted and bowed, had fought with such terrible savagery and had incontinently laid in the dust in succession three of the camp's best fighting-men, that the Roman soldiers, for ever partizan to the strong man, had finally with great difficulty succeeded in trussing the old belligerent and had brought him before Titus.