Perhaps
you would wish to follow and sell her your onions there."
"Perhaps I should," answered Caleb. "When you Romans have gone this
seems likely to become a bad country for gardeners, since owls and
jackals do not buy fruit, and you will leave no other living thing
behind you."
"True," answered the cook. "Caesar knows how to handle a broom and he has
made a very clean sweep," and he pointed complacently to the heaped-up
ruins of the Temple before them. "But how much for the whole basket
full?"
"Take them, friend," said Caleb, "and sell them to your mess for
the best price that you can get. You need not mention that you paid
nothing."
"Oh! no, I won't mention it. Good morning, Mr. Cabbage-grower, good
morning."
Then he stood still watching as Caleb vanished quickly among the great
boles of the olive trees. "What can stir a Jew so much," he reflected to
himself, "as to make him give something for nothing, and especially to a
Roman? Perhaps he is Pearl-Maiden's brother. No, that can't be from his
eyes--her lover more likely. Well, it is no affair of mine, and although
he never grew them, the vegetables are good and fresh."
That evening when Caleb, still disguised as a peasant, was travelling
through the growing twilight across the hills that bordered the road to
Tyre, he heard a mighty wailing rise from Jerusalem and knew that it was
the death-cry of his people.
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