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. He feels that his God has been good to him to choose his
daughter to share the throne of Judea. Hence, by this time my lady
awaits me in Jerusalem."
Again Julian sighed.
"And there is none in Jerusalem who knows your face?" he asked after a
silence.
"None, except Amaryllis, and she has not seen me since I was sixteen
years old."
"And there also is an obstacle which I had forgotten to enumerate,"
Julian said argumentatively. "You have put your trust in a frail
woman."
"Amaryllis may be frail," the Maccabee admitted, "but she is
sufficiently manly to have all that you and I demand of a man to put
faith in him. She is a good companion and she will not lie."
"Impossible! She is a woman!" Julian exclaimed.
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