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!" Classicus cried. The two servants sprang forward, but Marsyas, seizing Classicus 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 passengers 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!" Classicus 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 Classicus. By the time the Alexandrian aroused to his opportunity, Marsyas had disappeared like a spirit into the night. CHAPTER XXX 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, Classicus arose from a seat beside a cluster 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 Classicus 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.