They passed from the knowledge of men as utterly as if the sea had swallowed them unseen.

We could not hear how they died--nay, not even that they were dead." Esther's eyes were dewy with tears.
"Thy heart is good, Esther, good as thy mother's was; and I pray it have not the fate of most good hearts--to be trampled upon by the unmerciful and blind.

But hearken further.

I went up to Jerusalem to give help to my benefactress, and was seized at the gate of the city and carried to the sunken cells of the Tower of Antonia; why, I knew not, until Gratus himself came and demanded of me the moneys of the House of Hur, which he knew, after our Jewish custom of exchange, were subject to my draft in the different marts of the world.

He required me to sign to his order.