"So thou comest in search of me, sweet Capito," he muttered, "and I am penniless. But it is comforting to know that thou hast no more hope of getting the three hundred thousand drachmae which I owe to Caesar, than I have of paying it!" After a little silence, he said further to himself, with added regret: "Now, had I that young Essene's gold, Capito would not find me in Jerusalem! O Alexandria! I must reach thee, though I turn dolphin and swim!" He continued on his way to the north wall, where he found exit presently into Bezetha, the unwalled suburb of Jerusalem. Here the houses were comparatively new, less historic, less pretentious than those in the old city. Here were inns in plenty, relaxed order and a general absence of the racial characteristics and the influence of religion. The middle classes of Jerusalem dwelt here. It was dark, poorly paved, and the man in scarlet laid his hand on his purse under his tunic and walked with circumspection toward a khan. It was no surprise to him to hear the sounds of struggle and outcry. He stopped to catch the direction of the conflict that he might avoid it. It came out of a street so narrow, in a district so squalid, that happiness seemed to have fled the spot. If ever the wealthy entered the place, it was to seek out human beings hungry enough to sell themselves as slaves. The commotion centered before a hovel, a tragedy in sounds, ghastly because the night made it unembodied. The man in scarlet located it as out of his path and would have continued but for the insistent screams of a woman in the struggle. Harsh shouts attempted to cry her down, but desperation lent her strength and the suburb shuddered with her mad cries. The man in scarlet lagged, shook his shoulders as if to throw off the influence of the appeal and finally stopped. At that moment several torches of pitch, lighted at once, threw a smoky light over the scene. The passage was obstructed by a group of men uniformly dressed, and several spectators attracted by the commotion. Assured that this was arrest and not violence, the curiosity of the man in scarlet drew him that way. At a nearer view, he saw that the aggressors were Shoterim or Temple lictors, under command of a Pharisee wearing the habiliments of a rabbi. The man in scarlet identified him as the referee in the center of the ring about the stoning. The sudden lighting of the torches convinced him that the attack had its inception in secret. In the center of the fight was a middle-aged woman clinging desperately about the bodies of a young man and a young woman. It was the efforts of the Shoterim to tear her away and her resistance that had made the arrest violent. Shouts and revilings told the man in scarlet the meaning of the disturbance. The ferrets of the High Priest, Jonathan, had discovered a house of Nazarenes and were taking them. "More ill-timed zeal!" he muttered to himself. "Or let me be exact: more bloody politics!"