spasian addressed the soldiers,
thanking them for their bravery and promising them rewards, whereon they
shouted again until they were marched off to the feast that had been
made ready. Now the Caesars vanished and the officers began to order the
great procession, of which Miriam could see neither the beginning nor
the end. All she knew was that before her in lines eight wide were
marshalled two thousand or more Jewish prisoners bound together with
ropes, among whom, immediately in front of her, were a few women. Next
she came, walking by herself, and behind her, also walking by himself, a
dark, sullen-looking man, clad in a white robe and a purple cloak, with
a gilded chain about his neck.

Looking at him she wondered where she had seen his face, which seemed
familiar to her. Then there rose before her mind a vision of the Court
of the Sanhedrim sitting in the cloisters of the Temple, and of herself
standing there before them. She remembered that this man was seated next
to that Simeon who had been so bitter against her and pronounced upon
her the cruel sentence of death, also that some one in the crowd had
addressed him as Simon, the son of Gioras, none other than the savage
general whom the Jews had admitted into the city to make way upon the
Zealot, John of Gischala. From that day to this she had heard nothing
of him till now they met again, the judge and the victim, caught in a
common net. Presently, in the confusion they were brought together and
he knew her.

"Are you Miriam, the grand-daughter of Benoni?" he asked.

"I am Miriam," she answered, "whom you, Simon, and your fellows doomed
to a cruel death, but who have been preserved----"

"----To walk in a Roman Triumph. Better that you had died, maiden, at
the hands of your own people."

"Better that you had died, Simon, at your own hands, or at those of the
Romans."

"That I am about to do," he replied bitterly. "Fear not, woman, you will
be avenged."

"I ask no vengeance," she answered. "Nay, cruel as you are I grieve that
you, a great captain, should have come to this."

"I grieve also, maiden. Your grandsire, old Benoni, chose the better
part."

Then the soldiers separated them and they spoke no more.

An hour passed and the procession began its march along the Triumphal
Way. Of it Miriam could see little. All she knew was that in front there
were ranks of fettered prisoners, while behind men carried upon
trays and tables the golden vessels of th