Julian sighed.

After a while he spoke.
"Well, how do you proceed?
You tell me that these very visionaries whom you would succor have never laid eyes on you.

What marks you as royal--as a sprig of the great, just and dead Maccabee ?" "I bear proofs, Roman documents of my family and of my birth.

Certain of my party are already organized in Jerusalem and are expecting me, and I wear the Maccabaean signet.

Is not that enough ?" "Nothing of it worth the security of private citizenship and a whole head!" "No?
Not when there is a dowry of two hundred talents awaiting my courage to come and get it ?" "Ha! That wife! But will you enter that sure death for a woman you do not know ?" "And for a fortune I have not possessed and for a kingdom that I never owned." "She will not be there! Old Costobarus is not so mired in folly as to send his daughter into the Pit to provide you with money to--pay Charon." "Aquila sent me a messenger at Caesarea," Philadelphus continued calmly, "saying that Costobarus was transfigured when he had my summons.