So here he sat by the banks of the Jordan, mourning the past and well-nigh hopeless for the future.
Thus in solitude, tended by Nehushta, who now had grown very grim and old, and by the poor remnant of the Essenes, Marcus passed four or five miserable months.

As he grew stronger he would limp down to the village where his hosts were engaged in rebuilding some of their dwellings, and sit in the garden of the house that was once occupied by Miriam.

Now it was but an overgrown place, yet among the pomegranate bushes still stood that shed which she had used as a workshop, and in it, lying here and there as they had fallen, some of her unfinished marbles, among them one of himself which she began and cast aside before she executed that bust which Nero had named divine and set him to guard in the Temple at Rome.
To Marcus it was a sad place, haunted by a thousand memories, yet he loved it because those memories were all of Miriam.
Titus, said rumour, having accomplished the utter destruction of Jerusalem, had moved his army to Caesarea or Berytus, where he passed the winter season in celebrating games in the amphitheatres.

These he made splendid by the slaughter of vast numbers of Jewish prisoners, who were forced to fight against each other, or, after the cruel Roman fashion, exposed to the attacks of ravenous wild beasts.

But although he thought of doing so, Marcus had no means of communicating with Titus, and was still too lame to attempt escape.