Now their toils were over; and for six months, or perhaps a year, they might rest and trade in the Great City, enjoying its wealth, its flesh-pots, and the unholy orgies which, among people of the Phoenician race, were dignified by the name of the worship of the gods of heaven.
Soon the clamour died away, and although no command was given, the caravan started on at speed.

All weariness faded from the faces of the wayworn travellers, even the very camels and asses, shrunk, as most of them were, to mere skeletons, seemed to understand that labour and blows were done with, and forgetting their loads, shambled unurged down the stony path.

One man lingered, however.

Clearly he was a person of rank, for eight or ten attendants surrounded him.
"Go," said he, "I wish to be alone, and will follow presently." So they bowed to the earth, and went.
The man was young, perhaps six or eight and twenty years of age.

His dark skin, burnt almost to blackness by the heat of the sun, together with the fashion of his short, square-cut beard and of his garments, proclaimed him of Jewish or Egyptian blood, while the gold collar about his neck and the gold graven ring upon his hand showed that his rank was high.