“Who WILL bend the knee no longer, be it never so little, my cousin,” exclaimed the lad hotly, “as this very day would have shown had not this crafty Rufinus--may great Solomon’s genii dash him in the sea!--come with his cohort to mar our measures! Yet see--who cometh now?” he cried; and at once the attention of the young people was turned in the opposite direction as they saw, streaming out of the great fortress-like court-yard of the Temple of the Sun, another hurrying throng. Then young Odhainat gave a cry of joy. “See, Bath Zabbai; they come, they come”! he cried. “It is my father, Odhainat the esarkos,(1) with all the leaders and all the bowmen and spearmen of our fahdh armed and in readiness. This day will we fling off the Roman yoke and become the true and unconquered lords of Palmyra. And I, too, Must join them,” he added. (1) The “head man,” or chief of the “fahdh,” or family. But the young girl detained him. “Wait, cousin,” she said; “watch and wait. Our fahdh will scarce attempt so brave a deed to-day, with these new Roman soldiers in our gates. That were scarcely wise.” But the boy broke out again. “So; they have seen each other,” he said; “both sides are pressing on!” “True; and they will meet under this very portico,” said Bath Zabbai, and moved both by interest and desire this dark-eyed Syrian girl, to whom fear was never known, standing by her cousin’s side, looked down upon the tossing sea of spears and lances and glittering shields and helmets that swayed and surged in the street below. “So, Odaenathus!” said Rufinus, the tribune, reining in his horse and speaking in harsh and commanding tones, “what meaneth this array of armed followers?” “Are the movements of Septimus Odaenathus, the head-man, of such importance to the noble tribune that he must needs question a free merchant of Palmyra as to the number and manner of his servants?” asked Odaemathus haughtily. “Dog of a Palmyrean; slave of a camel-driver,” said the Roman angrily, “trifle not with me. Were you ten times the free merchant you claim, you should not thus reply. Free, forsooth! None are free but Romans.” “Have a care, O Rufinus,” said the Palmyrean boldly, “choose wiser words if you would have peaceful ways. Palmyra brooks no such slander of her foremost men.” “And Rome brooks no such men as you, traitor,” said Rufinus. “Ay, traitor, I say,” he repeated, as Odaenathus started at the word. “Think not to hide your plots to overthrow the Roman power in your city and hand the rule to the base Sapor of Persia. Every thing is known to our great father the Emperor, and thus doth he reckon with traitors. Macrinus, strike!” and at his word the short Gallic sword in the ready hand of the big German foot-soldier went straight to its mark and Odaenathus, the “head-man” of Palmyra, lay dead in the Street of the Thousand Columns.