The man in scarlet looked a little startled and put his slender hand up to his cheek so that a finger lay along the lips. "Now, may thy haste deaden thy powers of recognition, O white brother," he hoped in his heart, "else thou seest a familiar face in me." He lifted the other arm and pointed toward the wall of the city. "Any of these gates will lead thee within," he said. "Doubtless, but once within any but the one I seek, I am more lost than I am here. Wilt thou direct me?" The man in scarlet motioned toward a splendid mass of masonry rising many cubits above the wall toward the north. "There," he said. "Go hence over the Bridge of the Red Heifer and follow along the roadway on the other side of Kedron." As the man in white bowed his thanks, his elbow struck against an obstruction which yielded hastily. The two looked, to see the Greek who had been defeated at dice make off up the hill. The Essene caught at his pilgrim wallet which hung at his side and found it open. "Ha! a thief!" the man in scarlet cried. "Did he rob thee?" His quick eyes dropped to the wallet. There were many small round cylinders wrapped in linen within, evidently stacks of coin of various sizes from the little denarius to the large drachma; a handful of loose gold and several rolls of parchment which might have been bills of exchange. The Essene frowned and closed the mouth of the purse. "A trifle is gone," he said. "He was discovered in time." "If thou carryest this to the Temple, friend," the older man urged, "get it there to-night, else thou walkest in danger continually." "I give thee thanks; I shall be watchful; peace to thee,"--and the young man walked swiftly away. "Wary as the eyes of Juno!" the man in scarlet said to himself. "Essenes never make offering at the Temple; that treasure goes into the common fund of the order. Now, what a shame that the unsated maw of the Essenic treasury should swallow that and hold it uselessly when I need gold so much! Would that I had been born a good thief!" He sauntered after the young Essene and idly kept him in sight. "He walks like a legionary and talks like a patrician, but doubtless he hath the spirit of an ass, or he would not have let that knave of a Greek make off with so much as a lepton. I wonder if I should not seek out the thief and win his pilferings from him." The Essene in the distance, just before he reached the Bridge of the Red Heifer, unslung his wallet and resettled the strap over his shoulder, but the purse did not reappear at his side. He had concealed it within his gown. "I wish he were not in such uncommon haste; I might persuade him to loan it me. Money-lending is second nature to a Jew. There must be several thousand drachmae in that wallet--enough to take me to Alexandria. I wonder if he sped so all the way from--_Hercle!_ What an aristocrat!"--noting the Essene draw aside his robes from contact with the unclean mob at the opposite end of the causeway.