"It would be my luck never to see him again; he will probably linger only to see this dead man buried, and go on to En-Gadi, as he said he would. It would hardly be seemly to approach him about his gold, in his unhappiness, or I would waylay him, yet. A pest on the zealots! Why did they not hold off this stoning for a day?" Moodily occupied by his thoughts, he passed unconscious of the careless people about him. The huge tower of Antonia set on the brink of Mount Moriah frowned blackly over the street and in its shadow the idle life of the night laughed and reveled and sauntered. The woman of the city was there, the Roman soldier in armor, the alien that bowed to Brahm or Bel, the son of the slow Nile, of the Orontes and of the yellow Tiber. It was not the resort of the lowest classes, but of those that were at variance with the spirit of the city, or the times and their philosophies. Light streamed from open doorways, the wail of lyres and the jingle of castanets resounded within and without. Now and then belated carters, driving slow donkeys, would plod through the revelry--a note of relentless duty which would not be forgotten. Again, humbler folk would retreat into wagon-ways or hug the walls to permit the passage of a Sadducee and his retinue, or a decurion and his squad--rank and power asserting their inexorable prerogative. Presently there approached the click of hoofs upon flagging. A soldier, passing through a broad shaft of light from a booth, stopped short, drew himself up and swung his short sword at present. Up the street, from lip to lip of every arms-bearing man, ran his abrupt call to attention. A body of legionaries appeared suddenly in the ray of light--brassy shapes in burnished armor, picked for stature and bearing. Not even the plunge into blackness again broke the precision and confidence of that tread before which the world had fled as did now the mule-riders and the pedestrians of Jerusalem. After them, the beam of light projected two horsemen into sudden view. There was the rattle and ring of saluting soldiers by the way. The radiance showed up a typical Roman in the armor of a general, but in deference to Israelitish prejudice against images, the eagle was removed from his helmet, the bosses of Titan heads from breastplate and harness. This was Vitellius, Proconsul of Syria and the shrewdest general on Caesar's list. By his side rode Herrenius Capito, Caesar's debt-collector, a thin-faced Roman in civilian dress, and with the ashes of age sprinkled on his hair. The man in scarlet took one glance at the gray old countenance frowning under the sudden light of the lamp and slid into the obscurity of an open alley at hand. He did not emerge till the hoof-beats had died away.