While Caleb looked, the red rim of the sun rose above the horizon, flooding the world with light and life. Now birds began to chirp, and beasts to move; now the shadows fled away. Caleb's impressionable nature answered to this change. Hope stirred in his breast, even the pain of his maimed hand was forgotten.
"I will win yet," he shouted to the silent sky; "my troubles are done with. I will shine like the sun; I will rule like the sun, and my enemies shall whither beneath my power. It is a good omen. Now I am glad that the Roman spared my life, that in a day to come I may take his--and Miriam."
Then he turned and trudged onward through the glorious sunlight, watching his own shadow that stretched away before him.
"It goes far," he said again; "this also is a very good omen."
Caleb thought much on his way to Jerusalem; moreover he talked with all whom he met, even with bandits and footpads whom his poverty could not tempt, for he desired to learn how matters stood in the land. Arrived in Jerusalem he sought out the home of that lady who had been his mother's friend and who gave him over, a helpless orphan, to the care of the Essenes. He found that she was dead, but her son lived, a man of kind heart and given to hospitality, who had heard his story and sheltered him for his mother's sake. When his hand was healed and he procured some good clothes and a little money from his friend, without saying anything of his purpose, Caleb attended the court of Gessius Florus, the Roman procurator, at his palace, seeking an opportunity to speak with him.
Thrice did he wait thus for hours at a time, on each occasion to be driven away at last by the guards. On his fourth visit he was more fortunate, for Florus, who had noted him before, asked why he stood there so patiently. An officer replied that the man had a petition to make.
"Let me hear it then," said the governor. "I sit in this place to administer justice by the grace and in the name of Cæsar."
Accordingly, Caleb was summoned and found himself in the presence of a small, dark-eyed, beetle-browed Roman with cropped hair, who looked what he was--one of the most evil rulers that ever held power in Judæa.
"What do you seek, Jew?" he asked in a harsh voice.
"What I am assured I shall find at your hands, O most noble Florus, justice against the Jews--pure justice"; words at which the courtiers and guards tittered, and even Florus smiled.