So it came about that upon a certain night of rain and storm, when none were stirring, a number of men with faces white as lepers, of the hue, indeed, of roots that have pushed in the dark, might have been seen travelling down the cavern quarries, now tenanted only by the corpses of those who had perished there from starvation, and so through the hole beneath the wall into the free air.  With them went litters bearing their sick, and among the sick, Ithiel and Marcus.  None hindered their flight, for the Romans had deserted this part of the ruined city and were encamped around the towers in the neighbourhood of Mount Sion, where some few Jews still held out.

Thus it happened that by morning they were well on the road to Jericho, which, always a desert country, was now quite devoid of life.  On they went, living on roots and such little food as still remained to them, to Jericho itself, where they found nothing but a ruin haunted by a few starving wretches.  Thence they travelled to their own village, to discover that, for the most part, this also had been burnt.  But certain caverns in the hillside behind, which they used as store-houses, remained, and undiscovered in them a secret stock of corn and wine that gave them food.

Here, then, they camped and set to work to sow the fields which no Romans or robbers had been able to destroy, and so lived hardly, but unmolested, till at length the first harvest came and with it plenty.

In this dry and wholesome air Marcus recovered rapidly, who by nature was very strong.  When first his wits returned to him he recognised Nehushta, and asked her what had chanced.  She told him all she knew, and that she believed Miriam to be dead, tidings which caused him to fall into a deep melancholy.  Meanwhile, the Essenes treated him with kindness, but let him understand that he was their prisoner.  Nor if he had wished it, and they had given him leave to go, could he have left them at that time, seeing that the slightest of his hurts proved to be the worst, since the spear or sword-cut having penetrated to the joint and let out the oil, the wound in his knee would heal only by very slow degrees, and for many weeks left him so lame that he could not walk without a crutch.  So here he sat by the banks of the Jordan, mourning the past and well-nigh hopeless for the future.

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.