A flush of warm color swept over his face.

Without a word he put his hand into his robes and drew forth and laid upon his palm the little cedar crucifix.

Cypros uttered a little sound of fright; Agrippa whirled upon Marsyas with frank amazement on his face. After a moment's intent contemplation of the Essene's face, Junia settled back into her easy att.i.tude and smiled.

Lydia sprang up; yet before the rush of precipitate speech reached her lips, there came, imperative and distinct, Marsyas' telepathic demand on her attention. Tender but commanding, his dark eyes rested upon her.

"Thou shall not betray thyself for me!" they said. "Thou shalt not bring sorrow to thy father's heart and disaster upon thy head! Thou shalt keep silence, and permit me to defend thee! I command thee; thou canst do naught else but obey!"

She wavered, her cheeks suffused, and her eyes fell. When she lifted them again, they were flashing with tears. A moment, and she slipped past her guests into the house.

The alabarch broke the startled silence; he had turned almost wrathfully upon Cla.s.sicus.

"It seems," he exclaimed, "that thou hast needlessly broadened thine interests into matters which once did not concern thee!"

"Good my father," Cla.s.sicus responded, "thou hast lost two sons already to idolatry and false doctrines. And thy lovely daughter, thou seest, is no more secure from the seductions of an attractive apostasy than were they!"

"Well?" Marsyas asked quietly.

"It is not needful to point the man of discernment to his duty,"

Cla.s.sicus returned.

"Methinks," said Marsyas, rising, "that the sharp point of a pretext urges me out of Alexandria, as it did in Judea. Thou hast had no scruples," he continued, turning to Agrippa, "thus far in accepting the companionship of an accused man, so I do not expect to be cast off now."

"But," Agrippa protested, stammering in his surprise and perplexity, "acquit thyself, Marsyas. Thou art no Nazarene!"

"No charge so light to lift as this, my lord," Marsyas answered. "Yet even for thy favor I will not do it!"

Agrippa looked doubtful, and the alabarch exclaimed with deep regret:

"What difficulty thou settest in the way of my debt to thee! Thou, to whom I owe my daughter's life!"

"Yet have a little faith in me," Marsyas said to him. "And for more than I am given lief to recount, I am thy debtor!"

He put the crucifix into the folds of his garments.

"I am prepared to go to Rome, even now," he added to Agrippa.

"But--I would stay until after the Feast of Flora," the prince objected stubbornly.

Cypros was breaking in, affrightedly, when Flaccus interrupted.

"Come! come!" he said, with a bluff a.s.sumption of good nature. "Thou art not banished from the city, young man! I am legate over Alexandria, and a conscienceless pagan, wherefore thou hast not offended my G.o.ds nor done aught to deserve my disfavor. Get thee down to Rhacotis among thy friends--or thine enemies--till the Herod hath diverted himself with Flora, and go thy way to Rome! What a tragedy thou makest of nothing tragic!"

"O son of Mars," Marsyas said to himself, "I do not build on finding asylum there. Never a pitfall but is baited with invitation!"

But Cypros turned to the proconsul, her face glowing with thankfulness under her tears.

"Is it pleasing to thee, lady?" the proconsul asked jovially.

"Twice, thrice thou hast been my friend!" she cried.

"I shall go," said Marsyas. "Remember, my lord prince, these many things which I and others suffer add to the certainty that thou shalt be called to pay my debt against Saul of Tarsus, one day! Three days hence, thou and I shall sail for Rome!"

He saluted the company and pa.s.sed out of the garden.

"Perchance," said Flaccus dryly, with his peculiar apt.i.tude for insinuation, "an officer should conduct him to this nest of apostates."

"He will go, never fear!" Cypros declared, brushing away tears.

"By Ate! the boy is spectacular," Agrippa vowed suddenly. "He is no Nazarene! I know how he came by that unholy amulet. It is a relic of that young heretic friend of his, whom they stoned in Jerusalem!"

But Junia found immense amus.e.m.e.nt in that surmise. Presently, she laughed outright.

"O Cla.s.sicus, what a blunderer thou art! Right or wrong, thou hast brought down the ladies' wrath, not upon the comely Essene, but upon thine own head for abusing him!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE RANSOM

Marsyas pa.s.sed up to his room to put his belongings together. The sound of his movements within reached Lydia in her refuge, and, when he came forth, she stood in the gloom of the hall without, awaiting him.

Moved with a little fear of her reproach, he went to her, with extended hands.

"What have I done?" she whispered.

"Thou hast done nothing," he said quickly. "I blame myself for keeping the amulet about me, when I should have destroyed it. But I could not--I have not yet; because--it is thine!"

"But I kept silence--I who owned the crucifix--"

"I made thee keep silence!"

"But what have they said to thee; what wilt thou do?" she insisted.

"I go without more obloquy than I brought hither with me; I was accused, before; I could stand further accusation, for thy sake! They have said nothing; done nothing--I go to Rhacotis, to await the departure of Agrippa, who goes to Rome at the end of three days--nay; peace!" he broke off, as a momentous resolution gathered in her pale face. "Thou wilt keep silence, else I do this thing in vain!"

"I will not slander myself!" she cried. "I am not afraid to confess my fault--"

"But thou shall not do it!" he declared. "The punishment for it would not be alone for thyself! Choose between the quiet of thy conscience and the peace and pride of thy father! Bethink thee, the inestimable harm thou canst do by this thing! Be not deceived that the story of thy lapse would be kept under thy father's roof. That ign.o.ble pagan governor below has no care for thy sweet fame! He would tell it; thy maidens would hear of it and fear thee or follow thee! Thy father's government over his people would be weakened; the elders of the Synagogue would question him--Lydia, suffer the little hurt of conscience for thine own account, rather than afflict many for thy pride's sake!"

Her small hands, white in the darkness of the corridor, were twisted about each other in distress. Marsyas' pity was stirred to the deepest.

"How unhappy thou hast been!" he said, touching upon her apostasy.

"Give over thy wavering and be the true daughter of G.o.d, once more!

Let us destroy this evil amulet!"