The rascal had just seized with one hand her streaming black tresses, and with the other a heavy collar of gold, which was wound round her throat, when a priest, stepping up, laid a quiet hand upon his shoulder.

The fellow, too maddened to obey, turned, and struck back the restraining arm...and in an instant was felled to the earth by a young monk..
'Touchest thou the Lord's anointed, sacrilegious wretch ?' cried the man of the desert, as the fellow dropped on the pavement, with his booty in his hand.
The monk tore the gold necklace from his grasp, looked at it for a moment with childish wonder, as a savage might at some incomprehensible product of civilised industry, and then, spitting on it in contempt, dashed it on the ground, and trampled it into the mud.
'Follow the golden wedge of Achan, and the silver of Iscariot, thou root of all evil!' And he rushed on, yelling, 'Down with the circumcision! Down with the blasphemers!'-- while the poor girl vanished among the crowd.
Raphael watched him with a quaint thoughtful smile, while Miriam shrieked aloud at the destruction of the precious trumpery.
'The monk is right, mother.

If those Christians go on upon that method, they must beat us.

It has been our ruin from the first, our fancy for loading ourselves with the thick clay.' 'What will you do ?' cried Miriam, clutching him by the arm.
'What will you do ?' 'I am safe.

I have a boat waiting for me on the canal at the garden gate, and in Alexandria I stay; no Christian hound shall make old Miriam move afoot against her will.