I have no knife." Nehushta obeyed smiling and the letter was unrolled.

It, or those parts of it which concern us, ran thus: "To the lady Miriam, from Marcus the Roman, her friend, by the hand of the Captain Gallus.
"Dear friend and lady, greeting.

Already since I came here I have written you one letter, but this day news has reached me that the ship which bore it foundered off the coast of Sicily.

So, as Neptune has that letter, and with it many good men, although I write more ill than I do most things, I send you another by this occasion, hoping, I who am vain, that you have not forgotten me, and that the reading of it may even give you pleasure.

Most dear Miriam, know that I accomplished my voyage to Rome in safety, visiting your grandsire on the way to pay him a debt I owed.