they were to carry it out. Hannah continued:

"And thou hast not forgotten that night when the priests at the
Pentecost, entering the inner court, were thrown down by the trembling
of the Temple and that a vast multitude, which they could not see,
cried: 'Let us go hence!' And that dreadful sunset which we watched
and which all Israel saw when armies were seen fighting in the skies
and cities with toppling towers and rocking walls fell into red clouds
and vanished!"

"What of thyself, Hannah?" he broke in. "Art thou ready to depart for
Tyre? Philip will leave to-morrow. Do not delay him. Go and prepare."

But the woman rushed on to indiscretion, in her desperate intent to
stop the journey to Jerusalem at any cost.

"But there are those of good repute here in Ascalon, sober men and
excellent women, who say that our hope for the Branch of David is too
late--that Israel is come to judgment, this hour--for He is come and
gone and we received Him not!"

Costobarus turned upon her sharply.

"What is this?" he demanded.

"O my husband," she insisted hopefully, "it measures up with prophecy!
And they who speak thus confidently say that He prophesied the end of
the Holy City, and that this is not the Advent, but doom!"

"It is the Nazarene apostasy," he exclaimed in alarm, "alive though