About that time two women came down the street from the direction of the Tower of Antonia, approaching the palace of the Hurs. They advanced stealthily, with timid steps, pausing often to listen. At the corner of the rugged pile, one said to the other, in a low voice,
“This is it, Tirzah!”
And Tirzah, after a look, caught her mother’s hand, and leaned upon her heavily, sobbing, but silent.
“Let us go on, my child, because”—the mother hesitated and trembled; then, with an effort to be calm, continued—“because when morning comes they will put us out of the gate of the city to—return no more.”
Tirzah sank almost to the stones.
“Ah, yes!” she said, between sobs; “I forgot. I had the feeling of going home. But we are lepers, and have no homes; we belong to the dead!”
The mother stooped and raised her tenderly, saying, “We have nothing to fear. Let us go on.”
Indeed, lifting their empty hands, they could have run upon a legion and put it to flight.
And, creeping in close to the rough wall, they glided on, like two ghosts, till they came to the gate, before which they also paused. Seeing the board, they stepped upon the stone in the scarce cold tracks of Ben-Hur, and read the inscription—“This is the Property of the Emperor.”
Then the mother clasped her hands, and, with upraised eyes, moaned in unutterable anguish.