If you should purchase her and she desires it, do you promise that you will set her free ?" "I promise it." Ithiel looked at him strangely and said: "Good, but in the hour of temptation, if it should come, see that you do not forget your word." So the Court was called together, not the full hundred that used to sit in the great hall, but a bare score of the survivors of the Essenes, and to them the brother, Samuel, repeated his tale.

To them also Marcus made his petition for freedom, that he might journey to Rome with Nehushta, and if it were possible, deliver Miriam from her bonds.

Now, some of the more timid of the Essenes spoke against the release of so valuable a hostage upon the chance of his being able to aid Miriam, but Ithiel cried from his litter: "What! Would you allow our own advantage to prevail against the hope that this maiden, who is loved by everyone of us, may be saved?
Shame upon the thought.

Let the Roman go upon his errand, since we cannot." So in the end they agreed to let him go, and, as he had none, even provided money for his faring out of their scanty, secret store, trusting that he might find opportunity to repay it in time to come.
That night Marcus and Nehushta bade farewell to Ithiel.
"I am dying," said the old Essene.

"Before ever you can set foot in Rome the breath will be out of my body, and beneath the desert sand I shall lie at peace--who desire peace.