At length Caleb was placed in charge of a watch upon the wall, and, the other members of his company falling asleep from faintness and fatigue, contrived in the dark to let himself down by a rope which he had secreted, dropping from the end of it into the ditch.  In this ditch he found many dead bodies, and from one of them, that of a peasant who had died but recently, took the clothes and a long winter cloak of sheepskins, which he exchanged for his own garments.  Then, keeping only his sword, which he hid beneath the cloak, he passed the Roman pickets in the gloom and fled into the country.  When daylight came Caleb cut off his beard and trimmed his long hair short.  After this, meeting a countryman with a load of vegetables which he had licence to sell in the Roman camp Caleb bought his store from him for a piece of gold, for he was well furnished with money, promising the simple man that if he said a word of it he would find him out and kill him.  Then counterfeiting the speech and actions of a peasant, which he, who had been brought up among them down by the banks of Jordan, well could do, Caleb marched boldly to the nearest Roman camp and offered his wares for sale.

Now this camp was situated outside the gate of Gennat, not far from the tower Hippicus.  Therefore, it is not strange that although in the course of his bargaining he made diligent inquiry as to the fate of the girl who had been taken to the gate Nicanor, Caleb could hear nothing of her, seeing that she was in a camp situated on the Mount of Olives, upon the other side of Jerusalem.  Baffled for that day, Caleb continued his inquiries on the next, taking a fresh supply of vegetables, which he purchased from the same peasant, to another body of soldiers camping in the Valley of Himnon.  So he went on from day to day searching the troops which surrounded the city, and working from the Valley of Himnon northwards along the Valley of the Kedron, till on the tenth day he came to a little hospital camp pitched on the slope of the hill opposite to the ruin which once had been the Golden Gate.  Here, while proffering his vegetables, he fell into talk with the cook who was sent to chaffer with him.

“Ah!” said the cook handling the basket with satisfaction, “it is a pity, friend, that you did not bring this stuff here a while ago when we wanted it sorely and found it hard to come by in this barren, sword-wasted land.”

“Why?” asked Caleb carelessly.

“Oh! because of a prisoner we had here, a girl whose sufferings had made her sick in mind and body, and whose appetite I never knew how to tempt, for she turned from meat, and ever asked for fish, of which, of course, we had none, or failing that, for green food and fruits.”

“What were her name and story?” asked Caleb.

“As for her name I know it not.  We called her Pearl-Maiden because of a collar of pearls she wore and because also she was white and beautiful as a pearl.  Oh! beautiful indeed, and so gentle and sweet, even in her sickness, that the roughest brute of a legionary with a broken head could not choose but to love her.  Much more then, that old bear, Gallus, who watched her as though she were his own cub.”