hey met. When they learnt the
truth, however, these people returned and heard their story in silence,
for in those days such tales were common enough. As it came to an end
a withered, sunburned woman advanced to Nehushta, and, laying one hand
upon her arm, pointed with the other at Miriam, saying:

"Tell me, friend, is that the babe I suckled?"

Then Nehushta, knowing her to be the nurse who had travelled with
them to the village of the Essenes, greeted her, and answered "Yea,"
whereupon the woman cast her arms about Miriam and embraced her.

"Day by day," she said, "have I thought of you, little one, and now
that my eyes have seen you grown so sweet and fair, I care not--I whose
husband is dead and who have no children--how soon they close upon the
world." Then she blessed her, and called upon her angel to protect her
yonder in Jerusalem, and found her food and an ass to ride; and so they
parted, to meet no more.

As it happened, they were fortunate upon that journey, since, with the
armed guard of twenty men who accompanied Caleb, they were too strong a
party to be attacked by the wandering bands of thieves, and, although
it was reported that Titus and his army had already reached Caesarea from
Egypt, they met no Romans. Indeed, their only enemy was the cold, which
proved so bitter that when, on the second night, they camped upon the
heights over against Jerusalem, having no tents and fearing to light
fires, they were obliged to walk about till daylight to keep their blood
astir. Then it was that they saw strange and terrible things.

In the clear sky over Jerusalem blazed a great comet, in appearance like
a sword of fire. It was true that they had seen it before at Tyre, but
never before had it shown so bright. Moreover, there it had not the
appearance of a sword. This they thought to be an ill omen, all of them
except Benoni, who said that the point of the sword stretched out over
Caesarea, presaging the destruction of the Romans by the hand of God.
Towards dawn, the pale, unnatural lustre of the comet faded, and the
sky grew overcast and stormy. At length the sun came up, when, to their
marvelling eyes, the fiery clouds took strange shapes.

"Look, look!" said Miriam, grasping her grandfather by the arm, "there
are armies in the heavens, and they fight together."

They looked, and, sure enough, it seemed as though two great hosts
were there embattled. They could discern the legions, the wind-blown
standards,