Amaryllis bent so she could whisper in Laodice's ear. "John hath taken him a new woman to keep him cheerful this hour. I was not daring enough. Philadelphus' wife hath supplanted me. Your place with him is vacant. Go back and possess it!" "Why was appetite and desire and thirst of power and the love of riches lighted in you, but to be satisfied?" The prophetess' words swept in after Laodice's sudden fear of returning to Philadelphus. "We have expiated the sin of Adam, the greed of Jacob and the fault of David. The judgment is run out; ye have come to your own! Verily, I say unto you, if ye follow me in the name of him who hath come unto you, the world shall be yours!" Amaryllis still continued to whisper, and Laodice, fearing that the Maccabee might hear, drew farther away. He stood where she had left him, with his head lowered, waiting--at last a creature dependent on another's will. "Listen!" Amaryllis said. "I have been seeking you since midnight! Philadelphus' doubt was awakened in this woman. He questioned her, so minutely that she betrayed ignorance of many things she should have known had she been the real daughter of Costobarus. And when finally he taxed her with imposture, she robbed him of the dowry and fled to John. Convinced that you are his wife, he set forth and hath since searched for you without ceasing! See, over there! He seeks you, now!" Laodice looked the way the Greek pointed and saw Philadelphus, standing with lifted head and stretched to his full height, as if searching over the crowd for her. Panic seized her. She wrenched herself from the Greek's hold and, forgetting even the protection of Hesper who was within touch of her, she threw herself into the crowd behind her and struggled out of the press. Nathan, the Christian, saw her turn and followed instantly in the path she made. Once out, she turned in a bewildered manner this way and that. What refuge, now, for her, indeed, but the cavern under the ruin and the care of Hesper, until the end which should swallow them all! A trembling hand was laid on her arm. She whirled, expecting to find Philadelphus. Beside her, his old face radiant with emotion, stood Momus! Chapter XXI THE FAITHFUL SERVANT Within the Roman lines was a bent and deformed figure of an old waif that the soldiers had picked up attempting to run the lines into Jerusalem the second day after the siege had been laid about the Holy City. The old man, though wrinkled and twisted and bowed, had fought with such terrible savagery and had incontinently laid in the dust in succession three of the camp's best fighting-men, that the Roman soldiers, for ever partizan to the strong man, had finally with great difficulty succeeded in trussing the old belligerent and had brought him before Titus. There they laid the twisted old burden before the young general and shamelessly told how he, thrice the age of the vanquished men, had finished them with despatch.