“Does she still live?”
“She lives—no more. Thirst and heat have withered her.”
“How came she there?”
“This writing tells you, Cæsar.”
Titus read. “Ah!” he said, “Nazarene. An evil sect, worse even than these Jews, or so thought the late divine Nero. Traitress also. Why, the girl must have deserved her fate. But what is this? ‘Is doomed to die as God shall appoint before the face of her friends, the Romans.’ How are the Romans her friends, I wonder? Girl, if you can speak, tell me who condemned you.”
Miriam lifted her dark head from the shoulder of the captain on which it lay and pointed with her finger at the Jew, Simeon.
“Is that so, man?” asked Cæsar. “Now tell the truth, for I shall learn it, and if you lie you die.”
“She was condemned by the Sanhedrim, among whom was her own grandfather, Benoni; there is his signature with the rest upon the scroll,” Simeon answered sullenly.
“For what crime?”
“Because she suffered a Roman prisoner to escape, for which deed,” he added furiously, “may her soul burn in Gehenna for ever and aye!”