It had been a ship of silence, manned by barefoot, cowed slaves, captained by a surly, weather-beaten Roman and freighted with a strange, sorrowful company. Now that the journey was at an end, there were no shouts, no noisy haste, no excited preparation. When the wash of the disturbed bay settled over the anchor and the reflected stars grew steady again, there was silence.
Marsyas stood in the bow and looked ashore. Over the whole arc of the southern heavens, he saw long, beaded strands of infinitesimal points of fire, tangles, cross-hatchings, eddies and jottings of light—the lamps of Alexandria. Right and left of him and embracing much of the bay, the confusion of stars swept, culminating in the towering flame surmounting the Pharos to the east, and failing in featureless obscurity to the west. It might have been a congress of fireflies tranced in space. But there came across the waters, not appreciable sound, but the mysterious telepathic communication of animate life. Marsyas sensed the heart-beat of the great invisible city under the ignes fatui swung in the purple night.
He did not contemplate it calmly. The mystery of impending destiny was written over it all.
The silent company of Nazarenes was put ashore an hour later at the wharf of the Egyptian suburb, Rhacotis, and together Silas and Marsyas passed up through the easternmost limits of the settlement toward the Regio Judæorum.
They had not progressed beyond sight of their former traveling companions, before the cluster of Nazarenes seemed to huddle and recoil, and presently turn back and flee over their tracks.
As they rushed down upon the two Jews, the body seemed to have increased greatly in number. The accessions were men, women and children; some were very old, all apparently very poor, so that the one small, female figure, in fine white garments showing under a coarse mantle, was conspicuous among the rough dark habits.
Marsyas had time to note this one out of the many when the flying company rushed about him; after it a body of city constabulary, at the heels of which followed a howling mob of rabid Alexandrians. In an instant, Marsyas and Silas were in the thick of the tumult. The fugitives, demoralized by the attack of the constabulary, rushed hither and thither; the mob closed in upon them and a moving battle raged in the night on the square.
Events followed too swiftly for Marsyas to grasp them as they happened. He had a heated sensation that he defended himself, defended others, struck gallantly, received blows, snatched up a small figure in white from the attack of a vindictive assailant, and then the running fight swept by and away in dust.
He came to himself, panting and enraged, under a lamp, with a girl in his arms. Confronting him with a stone in his hand was Eutychus, petrified with amazement and apprehension. At one side, groaning and bent double with kicks and blows, was Silas. At the other, a silent, brown woman peered at the insensible girl. Up the street receded the sounds of riot.
Marsyas permitted his angry gaze to fall from Eutychus' face to the stone the servitor held. The fingers unclosed and the missile dropped. Then Marsyas looked down at the girl in his arms. He drew in a full breath. The hill bird in the broken wilds of Judea whistled again; the incense from the blooming orchards breathed about him, and the flower face that had looked back at him from the howdah rested now, white and peaceful against his breast. Her long lashes lay on her cheeks, the pretty disorder of her yellow-brown curls was tossed over his arm. He was strangely untroubled for all that.