“I have a message,” continued the stranger, “for one, Crispus Cestius Gallus.” “My name,” said the bearer of it. “What would the king with me?” “My royal master bids you tarry an hour with him ere journeying on to Cæsarea.” “Where is the king to be found?” “Within the walls of his mansion, Beth-tamar.” “And should I pass on my way neglectful of the king’s bidding----?” “Pass on, and miss a high destiny.” “Haste thee, and tell thy lord that Crispus comes with his friend, Titus Flavius.” The man had appeared suddenly; just as suddenly did he now disappear. Bidding his two slaves await his return, Crispus turned from the maritime road, and began to climb the rough ascent. His ready acquiescence with the stranger’s wish was viewed with some uneasiness by Titus, who was, however, quickly reassured by Crispus. “Polemo, in this matter,” said he, “acts as his own messenger, for it was he who spoke with us.” “The king himself?” said Titus, greatly surprised. “Even so,” replied Crispus. “We can enter Beth-tamar in perfect safety. I am not altogether unprepared for this meeting. As I was setting out from Antioch my father spoke thus to me: ‘On your way to Cæsarea you may meet with King Polemo, who hath a proposal for you. I leave you free to accept or decline, but, if you will be guided by me, you will do his bidding, however strange it may appear.’” Language such as this moved Titus to wonder, and he became almost as eager as Crispus for the meeting with the Pontic king. Arrived upon the platform that formed the summit of the crag, the two Romans saw before them a rectangular edifice, massive and spacious, formed like most of the buildings in that region from blocks of limestone--a bare dull-looking structure; but then the Oriental house is not to be judged by its outside, for a costly exterior suggests wealth, and in the East, wealth, then, as now, is a temptation to the powers that be. Within the arched entrance stood a slave, who, with a profound salaam, invited the two friends to follow him. Traversing a stone passage, they quickly emerged into a spacious court, open to the sky: rooms with latticed windows looked out upon this court, and to one of these the slave conducted the visitors, and there left them. The room was Oriental in character: a cushioned divan ran round the marble walls that gleamed with gilded arabesques and lapis-lazuli. In the middle of the tesselated pavement was a fountain, whose waters played with a golden sparkle in the soft radiance shed by the many lamps pendent from the fretted roof above.