CHAPTER V.
MIRIAM IS ENTHRONED Presently Nehushta found herself out of sight of the sea and among cultivated land, for here were vines and fig trees grown in gardens fenced with stone walls; also patches of ripening barley and of wheat in the ear, much trodden down as though horses had been feeding there.
Beyond these gardens she came to a ridge, and saw beneath her a village of many houses of green brick, some of which seemed to have been destroyed by fire.

Into this village she walked boldly, and there the first sight that met her eyes was that of sundry dead bodies, upon which dogs were feeding.
On she went up the main street, till she saw a woman peeping at her over a garden wall.
"What has chanced here ?" asked Nehushta, in the Syrian tongue.
"The Romans! the Romans! the Romans!" wailed the woman.

"The head of our village quarrelled with the tax-gatherers, and refused to pay his dues to Caesar.

So the soldiers came a week ago and slaughtered nearly all of us, and took such sheep and cattle as they could find, and with them many of the young folk, to be sold as slaves, so that the rest are left empty and desolate.

Such are the things that chance in this unhappy land.