"See," cried one of them, "here are pearls, fit wear for so fine a lady. Shall we take them?"
"Fool, let the trinkets be," answered Simeon angrily. "Are we common thieves?"
"Here is something else," said the officer, drawing the roll of Marcus's cherished letter from her breast.
"Not that, not that," the poor girl gasped.
"Give it here," said Simeon, stretching out his lean hand.
Then he undid the silk case and, opening the letter, read its first lines aloud. "'To the lady Miriam, from Marcus the Roman, by the hand of the Captain Gallus.' What do you say to that, Benoni and brethren? Why, there are pages of it, but here is the end: 'Farewell, your ever faithful friend and lover, Marcus.' So, let those read it who have the time; for my part I am satisfied. This woman is a traitress; I give my vote for death."
"It was written from Rome two years ago," pleaded Miriam; but no one seemed to heed her, for all were talking at once.
"I demand that the whole letter be read," shouted Benoni.
"We have no time, we have no time," answered Simeon. "Other prisoners await their trial, the Romans are battering our gates. Can we waste more precious minutes over this Nazarene spy? Away with her."
"Away with her," said Simon the son of Gioras, and the others nodded their heads in assent.
Then they gathered together discussing the manner of her end, while Benoni stormed at them in vain. Not quite in vain, however, for they yielded something to his pleading.
"So be it," said their spokesman, Simon the Zealot. "This is our sentence on the traitress--that she suffer the common fate of traitors and be taken to the upper gate, called the Gate Nicanor, that divides the Court of Israel from the Court of Women, and bound with the chain to the central column that is over the gate, where she may be seen both of her friends the Romans and of the people of Israel whom she has striven to betray, there to perish of hunger and of thirst, or in such fashion as God may appoint, for so shall we be clean of a woman's blood. Yet, because of the prayer of Benoni, our brother, of whose race she is, we decree that this sentence shall not be carried out before the set of sun, and that if in the meanwhile the traitress elects to give information that shall lead to the recapture of the Roman prefect, Marcus, she shall be set at liberty without the gates of the Temple. The case is finished. Guards, take her to the prison whence she came."