just length and black. These things I at once noted as he saluted me with the others, and conversed with the sisters. I would willingly have remained, but as when he arrived I, with Ziba, was just on the point of departure, I could not well do so, and therefore inquiring first the distance and the direction to the tomb of Ahab on the outskirts of Samaria, I was about to set forth, when the stranger said that as he was pursuing the same road to the same place, he would accompany and direct me, if that would give me pleasure. I was not slow to accept the proffered service, and when resting but for a few moments he had partaken of some fruit and wine, we bade farewell to our entertainers and betook ourselves to the road.

When I first turned to where the young Jewess had pointed, and beheld my companion as he issued from the dark wood, it had seemed to me, as often happens, as if the same event had once taken place before, or, as if a dream had suddenly come to pass. As he approached and I beheld him nearer, I did not doubt that some time before

I had in some place and at seen him. In a single moment more the truth was plain, that I looked once again upon the Jew horseman of Cæsarea, who, more like an apparition, even like the terrible horseman that of old in the temple fell upon the royal

thief, Heliodorus, than a reality, had risen from the earth, and for a time turned the tide of battle. It was with great joy that I found myself persuaded of this truth, for it could not be but that such an one must be of power among the Jews, and fitted to give me all the knowledge and counsel I could need or desire. At first it did not appear reasonable he should have on his part any knowledge of me, but when I considered that from what Zeno had let fall, as well as from the manner in which my weapon and my body had been hacked, I had been long and fiercely engaged in the fight, though in some sort beside myself, it seemed to me not unlikely, that he also might have some recollection of me, which was made certain almost by the manner in which his eye now and then fell upon me, as we rode on, and was again quickly withdrawn. I, therefore, soon as an occasion would allow, turned our discourse upon Cæsarea, asking him whether he had now just left that city. He replied, that, "as I had seen, he came not immediately from that direction. He had last come from Antipatris; but since he was in Cæsarea, he had journeyed to the north as far as Sepphoris; but Herod having suddenly left that place, whom he had hoped to find present, he had not remained, but withdrawn at once to the sea coast."

"You have not been idle," I rejoined, "since the affair in Cæsarea, when this same horse bore you against the centurion and his troop at the moment the brave Philip was cut down."

"I too am right, then," replied the stranger, "in supposing thee to be the young madman who broke loose at the same moment, but driving headlong and blindly into a mass of the Greeks was quickly overpowered and pinioned. I marvel to see you among the living, having once been within reach of Pilate."

I then gave him an account of the manner in which I had been so fortunate as to escape from his power; and in my turn asked him by what chance he had happened to come up at the unexpected conjuncture he did, and by what means, when the odds were so great against him, he had been able to effect his

retreat.

stand by them as

"As soon," he replied, "as I heard of the intended outrage upon our people in Cæsarea, I resolved to be there to I might. I could not, however, reach the place till the morning of the Sabbath when the assault took place; when, having no means of learning what was to be done on the part of the Jews, the fight, indeed, was already begun, -I could only rush upon the scene in the

manner I did, and with such followers as, with but brief notice, I could persuade to join me. I fought till the coming of a fresh legion of the Roman power made longer resistance to be certain destruction or captivity, without any attending advantage, when with the rest of our unhappy countrymen I fled; and while they took shelter in the bye ways of the city and their dwellings, I, borne by my good Arab, passed the gates, and soon gained the neighboring hills."

"But why," I asked, "as you made toward the centurion gave you that warning- to save a life you yourself were about to take?"

"For the reason," he replied, "that even as I would not that child of mine should do the deed of Judith or Deborah, so did it grieve me that Anna a child of Sameas should, whom I had known and loved as a daughter. Neither was I willing that a brave Roman should die the death of a dog. Yet how knew I but it was the Lord's doing? And who was I to hinder or defend? Wherefore gave I forth that uncertain voice, which if the Lord so pleased the man should comprehend, and so be saved for a more worthy death with me hand to hand, a fate I should have soon dealt out to him. It pleased the Lord that he should die as a fool dies, by the hand of a woman."

"And it was to revenge her death," I said, "that I threw myself into the fight, which otherwise I should have shunned; for I deemed it needlessly provoked." As I said these last words, the eye of my companion fell upon me with a meaning quite different from its former expression, and which showed that dark passions were lodged within.

life of a Jew

Shall he at the

Is he forever Are his only

"How sayest thou?" he bitterly asked "needlessly provoked? Is the nought, and his faith nought? word of a Roman give up both? to be the sport of the tyrant ? words to be, here is my neck for thy foot, and my throat for thy knife? Verily I thought thou wast a Jew also. Why then didst thou fight to revenge the death of a Jewess? What

was she to thee?"

"She was much to me," I said, (6 as was her mother even as for two weeks and more I had dwelt beneath their roof, and in that short time had I come to love her as a sister. And it was to revenge her death, and not because I could justify the revolt of the Jews, that I

joined the fight. Yet do I not, in saying this, admit that I am no Jew. I am now a Jew, if I was not in Rome whence I am but lately come, and it was because I had become a Jew, that I withstood Philip and his adherents to