and served the
simple meal of fruit and wine, used to slip into the narrow little
garden which lay close under the walls of the tower.

This place had been, originally, a small court belonging to an ancient
Temple of Minerva, the "wall-protectress," to whom altars had been
gratefully erected at the principal gates of various towns.

The altar had disappeared centuries ago, but the gigantic olive-tree,
which had once shaded the statue dedicated to the goddess, still
stretched its boughs aloft, while flowers, cherished by Miriam's loving
hand, and which she had often plucked for the bride of the man whom she
hopelessly loved, filled the air with perfume.

Exactly opposite the tree, whose knotted roots protruded from the
earth, disclosing a dark opening in the ground-floor of the old temple,
there had been placed a large black cross, and below it a little
praying stool, which was made out of one of the marble steps of the
temple.

The Christians loved to subject the remains of the ancient worship to
the service of the new, and to drive out the old gods, now become
demons, by the symbols of their victorious faith.

The beautiful Jewess often sat for hours under this cross with old
Arria, the half-blind widow of the under doorkeeper, who, after the
early death of Isaac's wife, had, with motherly love, watched little
Miriam bloom together with her flowers amid the desolate ruins of the
old walls.

Twice a day did Uliaris and Totila thus meet; reporting their losses or
successes and examining the probability of saving the city.

But on the tenth day of the siege, before dawn, Uliaris hastened on
board Totila's "admiral" ship, a rotten fishing-boat, and found the
commander sleeping on deck, covered by a ragged sail.

"What is it!" cried Totila, starting up and still dreaming; "the enemy?
where?"

"No, my boy; this time it is again Uliaris, and not Belisarius, who
awakens thee. But, by the Thunderer! this cannot last much longer!"

"Uliaris, thou bleedest! thy head is bandaged!"

"Bah! 'twas but a stray arrow! Fortunately no poisoned one. I got it
last night. Thou must know that things are at a bad pass; much worse
than ever before. The bloody Johannes--may God slay him!--digs under
our Castle Tiberius like a badger, and if he gets _that_--then
farewell, Neapolis! Yester even he finished a battery upon the hill
above us, and now he throws burning arrows upon our heads. I tried last
night to drive him out of his wor