At that sight there broke from the man a cry of surprise and despair, of agony and rage, a cry horrible yet pitiable to hear. “Thief! bitch! accursed!” he screamed. “Give me what is mine. Ah! she would devour it all! In the name of God give me a mouthful, a morsel, that I may live, and not die.” As the speaker lurched forward in the endeavor to get at the thief his legs gave way beneath him, and he fell heavily to the ground; feebly struggling to his feet he staggered on again with intent to wreak vengeance upon the spoiler. Outraged nature did the work for him. The eater gorging herself to the full, and being long unused to the taking of so great an amount of sustenance, became suddenly convulsed, dropped to the ground in horrible contortions, and there and then died, her end being greeted with mocking laughter by the weakling pursuer, who, seemingly undeterred by her fate, knelt down, and plucking the remnant of the bird from the dead woman’s teeth began to gnaw it with his own. Vashti, shuddering, turned away, and retracing her steps to Ophel, sought once more the house of Johanan ben Zacchai. But she stopped aghast ere reaching it. Its gate was wide open now, hanging wrecked upon its hinges, with the battering-ram that had done the work lying within the entrance. From the house came the cries as of an old man in pain. “Give his limb another twist,” cried a voice that she recognized as that of Malchus the Zealot. “We’ll soon make the old graybeard tell where he has concealed his corn.” At the same moment there broke forth from an upper chamber the thrilling screams of Johanan’s two daughters, painly calling upon their aged father to deliver them from the hands of the lewd and laughing Zealots; for John’s followers made it their boast that if there were a virgin in any house they entered there would be none there when they left. With the blood about her heart congealing to ice Vashti fled, lest a like fate should befall her; fled, not knowing whither she went, not caring; fled, till she suddenly found herself facing a great black mass that rose up into the starry night. It was the wall of Zion, the huge rampart of masonry that lay between the Romans and victory, that lay, alas! betwixt herself and Crispus. She was near the Valley Gate, whose approaches as she saw were guarded by a small party of Zealots, while on the battlements above them slow-pacing sentinels kept their watch. Hastily Vashti retreated within the shadows ere she should be seen. By the gate stood Simon the Black. An unpleasant odor, so palpable that one could almost taste it, hung in the air; and this was doubtless his reason for holding in his hand a perfume box whose fragrance he inhaled from time to time.