and obscene misery. Thousands perished every day, and every
night thousands more escaped, or attempted to escape, to the Romans,
who caught the poor wretches and crucified them beneath the walls, till
there was no more wood of which to make the crosses, and no more ground
whereon to stand them.

All these things and many others Miriam saw from her place of outlook
in the gallery of the deserted tower. She saw the people lying dead
by hundreds in the streets beneath. She saw the robbers hale them from
their houses and torture them to discover the hiding-place of the food
which they were supposed to have hidden, and when they failed, put them
to the sword. She saw the Valley of the Kidron and the lower slopes of
the Mount of Olives covered with captive Jews writhing on their crosses,
there to die as the Messiah whom they had rejected, died. She saw the
furious attacks, the yet more furious sallies and the dreadful daily
slaughter, till at length her heart grew so sick within her, that
although she still took refuge in the ruined tower to escape the gloom
beneath, Miriam would spend whole hours lying on her face, her fingers
thrust into her ears, that she might shut out the sights and sounds of
this unutterable woe.

Meanwhile, the Essenes, who still had stores of food, ventured forth but
rarely, lest the good condition of their bodies, although their faces
were white as death from dwelling in the darkness, should tempt the
starving hordes to seize and torture them in the hope of discovering
the hiding-places of their nutriment. Indeed, to several of the brethren
this happened; but in obedience to their oaths, as will be seen in the
instance of the past President Theophilus--who went out and was no more
heard of--they endured all and died without a murmur, having betrayed
nothing. Still, notwithstanding the danger, driven to it by utter
weariness of their confinement in the dark and by the desire of
obtaining news, from time to time one of them would creep forth at night
to return again before daybreak. From these men Miriam heard that
after the murder of the high priest Mathias and his sons, together with
sixteen of the Sanhedrim, on a charge of correspondence with the Romans,
her grandfather, Benoni, had been elected to that body, in which he
exercised much influence and caused many to be put to death who were
accused of treason or of favouring the Roman cause. Caleb also was in
the Temple and foremost in every fig