Thus in solitude, tended by Nehushta, who now had grown very grim and
old, and by the poor remnant of the Essenes, Marcus passed four or five
miserable months. As he grew stronger he would limp down to the village
where his hosts were engaged in rebuilding some of their dwellings, and
sit in the garden of the house that was once occupied by Miriam. Now it
was but an overgrown place, yet among the pomegranate bushes still stood
that shed which she had used as a workshop, and in it, lying here and
there as they had fallen, some of her unfinished marbles, among them one
of himself which she began and cast aside before she executed that bust
which Nero had named divine and set him to guard in the Temple at Rome.
To Marcus it was a sad place, haunted by a thousand memories, yet he
loved it because those memories were all of Miriam.
Titus, said rumour, having accomplished the utter destruction of
Jerusalem, had moved his army to Caesarea or Berytus, where he passed the
winter season in celebrating games in the amphitheatres. These he made
splendid by the slaughter of vast numbers of Jewish prisoners, who were
forced to fight against each other, or, after the cruel Roman fashion,
exposed to the attacks of ravenous wild beasts.
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