"A woman of Israel, entombed here with her daughter.

Help us quickly, or we die." Such was the reply Gesius, the keeper, had from the cell which appears on his amended map as VI.

The reader, when he observed the answer, knew who the unfortunates were, and, doubtless, said to himself, "At last the mother of Ben-Hur, and Tirzah, his sister!" And so it was.
The morning of their seizure, eight years before, they had been carried to the Tower, where Gratus proposed to put them out of the way.

He had chosen the Tower for the purpose as more immediately in his own keeping, and cell VI.

because, first, it could be better lost than any other; and, secondly, it was infected with leprosy; for these prisoners were not merely to be put in a safe place, but in a place to die.