"Greeting, Joel," he replied in a voice quite in keeping with his splendid bulk, "peace to thee. Yet take it not amiss if I suggest that since there is no warning in thy footfall or thy garments, thou shouldst be belled!" The other had dropped back in his seat, and the Levite bowed again to him. "I pray thy pardon, Rabbi Saul, but I came as I was sent--in haste." "It is nothing, Joel," Saul answered. "Give us news of the High Priest's health." "He continues in health, God be thanked, but his spirit was sorely tried--" He stopped abruptly to look, as if in question, at the man sitting apart in the shadows. "Who is that?" he asked suspiciously. "A pupil," was Eleazar's impatient reply. The Levite looked again, but, the twilight thwarting him, he hitched a slant shoulder and, passing to one of the windows, drew aside its heavy hanging. Instantly, a great golden beam shot into the cold chamber and illuminated it gloriously. Saul threw his hand over his eyes to shut out the blinding radiance. But the pupil, helped at his reading by the admitted light, straightened himself, glanced up a moment, and turned to his scroll without a word. "A stranger," Joel whispered, coming back to the rabbis. "What burden of mystery dost thou conceal, Joel?" Eleazar exclaimed. "Yonder man is an Essene; look about; the stones will take tongue and betray thee, sooner than he." "Let me be sure, let me be sure!" Joel insisted stubbornly. As if obedient to Eleazar, he cast an eye about the chamber. The light which came in at the west was straight from the spring sun, moted and warm with benevolence. That which entered at the east was only a quivering reflection from the marble walls and golden gates of the Temple. The chamber was immense, shadowy and draughty, the floor of stone, the walls of Hermon's rock, relieved by massive arcades supported on pilasters, and friezes of such images as were hieratically approved. The ceiling was so lost in height and cold dusk that its structure could not be defined. At the end opposite the doors was the lectern of ivory and ebony, embellished with symbolical intaglios and inlaid with gold. Beside it stood the reader's chair, across which the rug had been dropped as he had put it off his knees. Before the lectern, across and down the great chamber, were ranges of carven benches, among which were lamps of bronze, darkened and green about the reliefs and corrugations on the bowls, depending from chains or set about on tripods. But besides the three already noted, the Levite saw and expected to see no others. Eleazar regarded his ostentatious inspection of the room with disgust. "Thou hast a burden on thy soul, Joel," Saul urged mildly. "Let us bear it with thee." The Levite came close and bent over the rabbis. "Question your souls, brethren," he said. "Hath Judea more to lose than it hath lost?" he asked in a lowered tone. "Its identity," Eleazar responded shortly. But the Levite looked expectantly at Saul.