Ethne and Baithene had already many friends in Orleans, and began to feel at home there in a community of brethren. They would gladly have stayed there, but Eleazar was restless to depart, and, to the dismay of Miriam, nothing would dissuade him from going northward in the track of the retreating army. He had fellow-countrymen and commercial relations in Troyes. The city of Troyes was a great commercial emporium, the central point of a network of Roman roads, and once there, he thought he could make his way whither he would. The second morning after the raising of the siege, the little party therefore started from one of the gates of Orleans. They had hired of a citizen two strong mules, which were to accompany them to the nearest point on the river Seine, by which Eleazar had determined to reach Troyes. Danger was everywhere, but he felt safe and less likely to be observed in a boat on a river. As they went through the gate, the young Roman officer was there, commanding the guard. He saw them at once, and this time came forward and asked if he could render them any assistance. “Surely,” he said, “you are not going forth on the track of the enemy across this waste land?” Eleazar was disposed to resent any interference with his private affairs, but he dared not refuse to state whither and on what errand they were going. “We must needs go hence without delay,” he said; “but we are only poor folk, and our poverty will be our best protection against plunder. In a short time we hope to be safe amongst friends.” Marius, the young Roman, felt he had no right to inquire further. Besides, what protection had he to offer? Already a portion of the Roman and Gothic armies had left in pursuit of the retreating Huns, and that day the rest were to follow, leaving Orleans to repair her own walls and defend herself. Therefore, though with a sore heart, and much perplexed as to the relations between the fair-haired youth and maiden and the dark, Oriental-looking old man, he let the little company pass on. To direct attention to them might, he felt, only increase their peril, but he watched them far across the desolate plain, until the little band disappeared from his sight on the edge of a forest.