"Fight! He can invent twenty excuses to take Cypros from me by law and against her will." "Then we must hide her and speedily!" The alabarch thrust his old waxen fingers into his white locks. "Now who will imperil himself by giving her asylum?" he pondered. Lydia looked up after a little thought. "The Nazarenes," she ventured timidly. "What! The apostates! The community is the most perilous spot in Egypt!" "Here in Alexandria, of a truth," Lydia hurried on eagerly, "but thou knowest by report that they have spread abroad among rustics and shepherds as a running vine. Many are living about over the Delta. One of them will shelter her, I know. She will go when we have told her what threatens, nor fail to flourish on their rough fare, since she hath made her bed by the roadways, and had her bread from the hands of wayside mendicants!" The alabarch arose and set her on her feet. "Haste, then, Lydia; no time is to be lost!" But before she reached the threshold of the archway she turned back and came slowly to him, closer and closer, until she raised her arms and put them about his neck. "Father!" she whispered, "we need have fear of Classicus." The pallor on the old man's face quivered like the reflection of a shaken light. "He is jealous," he answered, "of Marsyas! Hath he cause, my daughter?" Lydia dropped her head on the alabarch's breast. "Marsyas is an Essene!" she whispered, and the alabarch smoothed her curls and was filled with pity. CHAPTER XXVII THE PROCONSUL'S DELIBERATIONS Before sunset that day, Flaccus had received two messages. One was brought by a Jewish slave. It read: "TO FLACCUS AVILLUS, PROCONSUL OF EGYPT, GREETING: "I have departed. "CYPROS." The other came by a Roman courier, who had landed an hour before from one of the swift-going triremes which had left Ravenna three days later than the passenger boat that had brought Marsyas' tidings. The message also was written in a woman's hand and was no less enraging than the other: "ROME, Kal. Jul. X, 790. "This bulletin to tell thee, O my raging corybant, that thy cause hath ceased to prosper for the past three days. Mine own part was well performed as was thine other minion's, the bewitching Eutychus, but desperate work hath been done which bids fair to upset thee and me and preserve thine enemies. "First and above all things, thou wilt remember that it was not in the pact that I should do more than lead the Herod out of the path of domestic uprightness and hold off my hands. This hath been already done, but the Parcae have grown weary of yielding thee favor, so read, here, following, disaster!