Pell-mell, tumbling, screaming, scrambling, the wharf-litter fled, parting in two bodies as it passed Agrippa's demoralized group, one half plunging off the masonry on the sands or into the water, the other scattering out over the great expanse of dock. The soldiers pressed after, and, following in the space they had cleared, came a chariot, a legate in full armor driving, his charioteer crouching on his haunches in the rear of the car. His apparitors brought up against Agrippa's party. They did not hesitate at the rank of the strangers; it was part of the blockade. Eutychus took to his heels and Silas went down under a blow from a reversed javelin. Agrippa, besmirched with the missiles of his late assailants and blazing with fury, breasted the soldiers and cursed them fervently. Two of them sprang upon him, and Cypros, screaming wildly, threw off her veil and seized the foremost legionary. The legate pulled up his horses and looked at the struggle. Cypros' bared face was presented to him. With a cry of astonishment, he threw down the lines and leaped from the chariot. "Back, comrades!" he shouted, running toward them. "Touch her not! Unhand the man! Ho! Domitius, call off your tigers!" "How now, Flaccus!" Agrippa raged. "Is this how you receive Roman citizens in Alexandria?" The legate stopped short and his face blackened. "Agrippa, by the furies! I knew the lady, but--" with a motion of his hand he seemed to put off his temper and to recover himself. "Tut, tut! Herod, you will not waste good serviceable wrath on an Alexandrian uproar when you have lived among them a space. They are no more to be curbed than the Nile overflow, and are as natural to the place. But curse them, they shall answer for this! Welcome to Alexandria! Beshrew me, but the sight of your lady's face makes me young again! Come, come; bear me no ill will. Be our guest, Herod, and we shall make back to you for all this mob's inhospitality. Ah, my lady, what say you? Urge my pardon for old time's sake!" He turned his face, which filled with more sincerity toward Cypros than was visible in his voluble cordiality to Agrippa. Cypros, supported by the trembling Drumah, put her hand to her forehead and tried to smile bravely. "But thou hast saved us, noble Flaccus; why should we bear thee ill will? Blessed be thou for thy timely coming, else we had been killed!" Agrippa, still smoldering, with Silas at his feet, alternately brushing the prince's dress and rubbing his bruises, took the word from Cypros. "What do Roman citizens, arriving in Alexandria, and no proconsul to meet them? Perchance Rome's sundry long missing citizens have been lost here!" intimated Agrippa. "Ho, no! They never kill except under provocation. Yet I shall have a word with the wharf-master and the praetor. But come, have my chariot, lady. Apparitor," addressing one of his guards, "send hither conveyance for my guests!"