"Listen, brother," Marsyas continued. "Thou shall proceed with me to the maritime harbor at Puteoli, and get aboard the vessel there which sails for Alexandria. Thou shall leave Italy: thou shalt discontinue thy work against Agrippa--or have the knife, now! Decide!"

The hiss and protest of plowing waters came now on the breeze; the regular beat of many oars, working as one, broke the hiss into rhythmical bars: an invisible pennant, high up in the helpless shrouds where night covered canvas and mast, was caught suddenly by a vagrant current of wind and fluttered with rapid pulsations of sound. Long lances of light reached out on the water and began to stretch broadening fingers toward the pier. Humming noises like blended voices came with the rattle of chains.

Marsyas knew that Cla.s.sicus was awaiting the arrival of the galley for the advantages of the interruption and to secure Marsyas' arrest.

The young Essene stepped close to Cla.s.sicus.

"I shall wait no longer for thy answer," he said softly.

The philosopher's voice rang out, clear and unafraid.

"Hither, slaves!"

Marsyas was not unprepared. He seized Cla.s.sicus and forced him back into the black shadows of the cl.u.s.tered columns with which the inner edge of the landing was ornamented.

The two couriers came running, but Marsyas spoke authoritatively.

"Good slaves, if ye come at me ye will force me to kill this young man!" he said.

"Take him!" Cla.s.sicus cried.

The two servants sprang forward, but Marsyas, seizing Cla.s.sicus by the hair, thrust his head back and put the point of the knife at his throat.

The two halted, tautly drawn up as if the point of the blade touched their own flesh. Instinctively they knew that the silky quiet in the voice was deadly; Marsyas had them.

Meanwhile the galley was delivering up her pa.s.sengers to the land. The first ship's boat that touched the landing carried four patricians.

The soft sound of heelless sandals on the pavement drifted down from Babe. Some one of the citizens was coming to meet the arrivals.

The four stepped out, and the ship's boat shot back into the darkness.

"Ho! Regulus," one of the four cried.

"Coming!" the citizen answered from the street. "What news?"

"Caesar is dead!"

Cla.s.sicus relaxed in Marsyas' grip; the slaves stood transfixed; the young Essene, holding fast, stilled his loud heart and listened.

"Old age?" the citizen ventured.

"Perchance; yes, doubtless," one of the four answered in a lower tone, for the citizen had come close and was taking their hands. "Smothered in his silken cushions--died of too much comfort! Dost understand?

Well enough!"

Marsyas' hands dropped from Cla.s.sicus.

By the time the Alexandrian aroused to his opportunity, Marsyas had disappeared like a spirit into the night.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE EREMITE IN SCARLET, AND THE BANKRUPT IN PURPLE

Lydia came upon Vasti, the bayadere, returning to the culina with a flaring taper in her hand. The brown woman's eyes were fixed on the flame and she whispered under her breath, till the licking red tongue of the taper flickered and wavered back at her as if speaking in signs.

"What saith the Red Brother?" Lydia asked, in halting Hindu, for she had begun to learn her waiting-woman's tongue.

"He keeps his own counsel, who is fellow to the Fire," was the answer.

"Thy neighbor, the philosopher, awaits thee within."

Lydia went slowly on.

When she entered the alabarch's presiding-room, Cla.s.sicus arose from a seat beside a cl.u.s.ter of lamps and came toward her.

"Thy servant at the door tells me that thy father is not in," he said.

"I came to speak with him of thee: but perchance it is better that I tell thee that which I have to tell, before any other."

Lydia sat down on the divan, and Cla.s.sicus sat beside her.

"I come to submit to thy scorn or thy pity," he said, "either of which I deserve!"

"What hast thou done?" she asked, feeling a vague sense of fear.

"I have been Flaccus' fool!" he vowed.

Lydia's eyes grew troubled.

"What didst thou for him?" she asked in a lowered tone.

"I permitted him to catch me up in the city and rush me to Rome with a memorial to Caesar, beseeching the emperor's aid in seeking the Lady Cypros, who had been abducted."

Lydia's level brows dropped.

"Charging us with abduction?" she remarked.

"Charging no man with abduction, but declaring that she was missing from thy father's roof!"

Cla.s.sicus' face filled with contrite humiliation under her gaze.

"Why so late with the story?" she asked. "Why didst thou not come to us before thou wast persuaded to go!"

"Charge me not with more folly than I did commit!" he besought. "I was caught by his servants in the Brucheum and haled before him, where, in all excitement, he told that the Lady Cypros was missing, and that I, as the safe friend of the alabarch and the proconsul, had been commissioned to enlist Caesar's interest in her cause! The vessel ready for Puteoli waited only on the night-winds to sail! I was not given time to change my raiment, or to fill my purse from mine own treasure, much less to take counsel with thy father and learn the truth!"

"And besides Flaccus, we must now take Caesar into consideration in protecting this unhappy woman!" she exclaimed.

"No!" he cried. "A friend of Agrippa's, whom I met in Rome, stopped me in time!"

She looked away from him and he took her hand.