The rumination was broken off suddenly by a glimpse of an old deformed man bearing a burden on his shoulders, followed by a slender figure, jealously wrapped in a plebeian mantle that left only a hem of silver tissue under its border. They were skirting along the brow of the hill opposite, away from the rest of the pilgrims on the road. Both were walking slowly and the old man seemed to be examining the farther slope, as if meditating a halt. Julian got upon his feet and watched. He saw the old man sign to the girl presently and they moved down the farther side of the hill and were lost to view. Julian cast a look at the sleeper and hesitated. Then he scanned the road; he might miss Aquila. He seemed to relinquish the intent that had risen in him, and sat down again. After a while as his constant gaze at the passers-by led him again toward the overflowing well, he saw there, standing in a long line, awaiting turn to dip a vessel in the water, the old bowed servant, with a skin in his hand. The girl was nowhere to be seen. Julian sprang to his feet and, hastening across the road, considerably below the well, climbed the hill in the direction in which he had seen the girl disappear. That watchful alarm in the brain which, at moments of demand, is instantly alive in certain sleepers, aroused the Maccabee almost as soon as the stealthy, receding footsteps of Julian died away. He stirred, sat up and looked about him. Julian was nowhere to be seen. Both horses were feeding a little distance away. The Maccabee sprang up and looked toward the well. There patiently but apprehensively waiting was old Momus. The girl was not with him. Suspicion grew vivid in the Maccabee's brain. The tender rank grass about him showed the print of his cousin's steps as they led away toward the road. He followed intently. The slim marks of the well-shod feet led him across the dust of the road up into gravel on the slope and finally eluded him on the escarpment that soared away above him. The Maccabee hurried to the top of the declivity to gain whatever aid that point of vantage might offer and from that height saw below him to the west a single nook shaped of rock and hummock and a tree out of which rose a blue thread of smoke. He dropped down the farther slope at a pace little short of a run.