Meanwhile there was peace.
Miriam dreamed in her uneasy sleep, and in this dream many visions came to her.

She saw this sacred hill of Moriah, whereon the Temple stood, as it had been in the beginning, a rugged spot clothed with ungrafted carob trees and olives, and inhabited, not of men, but by wild boars and the hyaenas that preyed upon their young.

Almost in its centre lay a huge black stone.

To this stone came a man clad in the garb of the Arabs of the desert, and with him a little lad whom he bound upon the stone as though to offer him in sacrifice.

Then, as he was about to plunge a knife into his heart, a glory shone round the place, and a voice cried to him to hold his hand.