Then it was for the first time that the captain caught sight of Miriam crouched at the foot of her pillar.
"Why," he said, "I had forgotten.

That is the girl whom we saw yesterday from the Court of Women and whom we have orders to save.

Is the poor thing dead ?" Miriam lifted her wan face and looked at him.
"By Bacchus!" he said, "I have seen that face before; it is not one that a man would forget.

Ah! I have it now." Then he stooped and eagerly read the writing that was tied upon her breast: "Miriam, Nazarene and traitress, is doomed here to die as God shall appoint before the face of her friends, the Romans." "Miriam," he said, then started and checked himself.
"Look!" cried one of the soldiers, "the girl wears pearls, and good ones.

Is it your pleasure that I should cut them off ?" "Nay, let them be," he answered.