"I am," she said simply, but in those two words there sounded a very pean of triumph.
"Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone," said Caiaphas in a low measured voice, "thou art anathema. As I would cut off my right hand should it become polluted beyond cleansing, so also will I sever thee from my life. Get thee hence unto thine own; thou hast no longer part nor lot with me from henceforth and even forever. And so let it be."
The woman looked dumbly into the pitiless face of the man before her; her slight figure swayed a little, then noiselessly as a snow wreath she fell forward and lay prone upon the marble pavement at his feet.
The man stared at the silent figure; he did not touch it. After a time he arose and walked heavily away without once looking behind him.
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE DESERT ENCAMPMENT.
"Thou mayest fetch the lad and the maiden and set them in my presence. I would question them of this thing."
The woman bowed herself humbly before her lord and retired; presently she returned, leading by the hand a slight figure clad in the shapeless blue gown of an Egyptian peasant girl. Behind lagged with unwilling feet a half-grown lad.
Abu Ben Hesed fixed his piercing eyes upon the twain. "Thou mayest go till I shall call thee," he said to the woman. She lingered yet a moment to whisper, "The maid is blind, my lord!"
"Come hither, my son," said Ben Hesed after a short survey of his two guests, "and tell me how it befell that thou wast in the desert alone? Didst thou know," he added somewhat severely, "that thou wast brought to the borders of the encampment only that thou mightest be buried safe from the vultures? Had not one of the women discerned signs of life, when no other eye could see it, thou wouldst even now be sleeping beneath the sand."