faced the astonished Rufinus. Close behind her came an equally
excited lad who, when he saw the stricken body of his father on
the marble street, flung himself weeping upon it. But Bath
Zabbai's eyes flashed still more angrily:

"Assassin, murderer!" she cried; "you have slain my kinsman and
Odhainat's father. How dare you; how dare you!" she repeated
vehemently, and then, flushing with deeper scorn, she added:
"Roman, I hate you! Would that I were a man. Then should all
Palmyra know how----"

"Scourge these children home," broke in the stern Rufinus, "or
fetch them by the ears to their nurses and their toys. Let the
boys and girls of Palmyra beware how they mingle in the matters
of their elders, or in the plots of their fathers. Men of
Palmyra, you who to-day have dared to think of rebellion, look on
your leader here and know how Rome deals with traitors. But,
because the merchant Odaenathus bore a Roman name, and was of
Roman rank--ho, soldiers! bear him to his house, and let Palmyra
pay such honor as befits his name and station."

The struggling children were half led, half carried into the
sculptured atrium[1] of the palace of Odaenathus which, embowered
in palms and vines and wonderful Eastern plants, stood back from
the marble colonnade on the Street of the Thousand Columns. And
when in that same atrium the body of the dead merchant lay
embalmed and draped for its "long home,"[2] there, kneeling by
the stricken form of the murdered father and kinsman, and with
uplifted hand, after the vindictive manner of these fierce old
days of blood, Odaemathus and Zenobia swore eternal hatred to