But Marsyas begged Agrippa's permission to go on and the prince, still declaring that the Essene had made a mistake, turned and went with him.
Drumah, with her head in the air, passed Eutychus without casting a look upon him.
CHAPTER XV
THE FALSE BALANCE
Marsyas did not sleep the sleep of a man worn with exertion and excitement. Instead he lay far into the night with his wide eyes fixed on the soft gloom above him. He had many diverse thoughts, none wholly contented, many most unhappy.
The instance of apostasy under the roof troubled him; not as apostasy should trouble one of the faithful, but as an impending calamity. He had strange, terrifying, commingling pictures of Stephen's dark locks in the dust of the stoning-place, and the pretty disorder of yellow-brown curls thrown over his arm. His purpose against Saul of Tarsus seemed to magnify in importance, by each succeeding momentous event. He remembered Cypros' charge and bound himself to keep it, again and again through the dark troubled hours. It was a long way yet until he could triumph over the powerful Pharisee, and the stretches of misfortune that could ensue, in the time, were things he drove out of his thoughts.
When at last he fell asleep, he dreamed that he stood on Olivet and watched Saul and Lydia seeking for him in the trampled space without Hanaleel, while a crucifix, instead of the moon, arose in the east.
The old Essenic habit was strong in Marsyas. In spite of his long wakefulness, the dark red color in the east which announced the sunrise yet an hour to come was as a call in his ear.
He arose while yet the night was heavy in the halls of the alabarch's house and the whisper of the sand lifting before the sea-wind was the only sound in the Alexandrian streets.