He could not decide which would suit the noble citizen's slender, white neck best, metal or silk.

He took a silken string from the pocket of his cloak, while two Bedouins roughly held Simeon.
Meanwhile, outside the camp, the second chief was packing the stolen treasure on the camels by torchlight.

Whenever he stumbled over a dead body he muttered a curse, and when his work was finished he sought his comrade.

Women in chains wept loudly, not so much on account of their imprisonment--they took that almost as a matter of course--but because their master was being murdered in the tent.

So the second chief snatched a torch from a servant, hastened to the tent, and arrived just in the nick of time.
"Barabbas!" he exclaimed, taking hold of the murderer, "don't you remember what we determined?
We only kill those who fight; we do not kill defenceless persons." Barabbas removed his thin arms from his victim and in a tearful voice grumbled: "Dismas, you are dreadful.