Looking at him she wondered where she had seen his face, which seemed
familiar to her. Then there rose before her mind a vision of the Court
of the Sanhedrim sitting in the cloisters of the Temple, and of herself
standing there before them. She remembered that this man was seated next
to that Simeon who had been so bitter against her and pronounced upon
her the cruel sentence of death, also that some one in the crowd had
addressed him as Simon, the son of Gioras, none other than the savage
general whom the Jews had admitted into the city to make way upon the
Zealot, John of Gischala. From that day to this she had heard nothing
of him till now they met again, the judge and the victim, caught in a
common net. Presently, in the confusion they were brought together and
he knew her.
"Are you Miriam, the grand-daughter of Benoni?" he asked.
"I am Miriam," she answered, "whom you, Simon, and your fellows doomed
to a cruel death, but who have been preserved----"
"----To walk in a Roman Triumph. Better that you had died, maiden, at
the hands of your own people."
"Better that you had died, Simon, at your own hands, or at those of the
Romans."
"That I am about to do," he replied bitterly. "Fear not, woman, you will
be avenged.
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