Groaning in bitterness of spirit they watched Miriam, who seemed about to fall. Now a woman gave her the cup of wine, and drinking she recovered herself.
“Note that woman,” muttered Marcus, “that I may reward her.”
“It is needless,” answered Nehushta, “she seeks no reward.”
“That is strange in a Roman,” he said bitterly.
“She is more than a Roman, she is a Christian. As she passed it she made a sign of the cross with the cup.”
The waggons creaked; the officers shouted; the procession moved forward. From behind the curtain the pair kept their eyes fixed upon Miriam until she vanished in the dust and crowd. When she had gone they seemed to see little else; even the sight of the glorious Cæsars could not hold their eyes.
Marcus summoned the steward, Stephanus.
“Go forth,” he said, “and discover when and where the captive Pearl-Maiden is to be sold. Then return to me swiftly. Be secret and silent, and let none suspect whence you come or what you seek. Your life hangs upon it. Go.”
The sun was sinking fast, staining the marble temples and colonnades of the Forum blood-red with its level beams. For the most part the glorious place was deserted now, since, the Triumph over at length, the hundreds of thousands of the Roman populace, wearied out with pleasure and excitement, had gone home to spend the night in feasting. About one of the public slave-markets, however, a round of marble enclosed with a rope and set in front of a small building, where the slaves were sheltered until the moment of their sale, a mixed crowd was gathered, some of them bidders, some idlers drawn thither by curiosity. Others were in the house behind examining the wares before they came to the hammer. Presently an old woman, meanly clad with her face veiled to the eyes, and bearing on her back a heavy basket such as was used to carry fruit to market, presented herself at the door of the house.
“What do you want?” asked the gatekeeper.