The summer waxed over Egypt. The Delta, back from the yellow plain which fronted the sea, was in full flower of the wheat. The happy fellahs lay under the shade of dom-palms and drowsed the morning in and the sunset out, for there was nothing to do since Rannu of the Harvests had laid her beneficent hand upon the fields. Across the Mediterranean, nearer the snows, the wheat flowered later and the Feast of Flora held in celebration of the blossoming fields would arrive with the new moon. Egypt could have given her celebration in honor of Flora weeks earlier, but she preferred to wait for Rome.
These were not uneventful days in the alabarch's house, for Cypros, with Drumah at her feet, fashioned with her own hands Agrippa's wardrobe and prepared for his departure, while the prince idled about the alabarch's garden, apparently oblivious to the call of his need to go to Rome, in his enjoyment of Junia's fellowship. And Marsyas, daily more grave, gazed at him askance and furthered the plans for the trip, tirelessly.
His patience might have continued unworn, but for a single incident.
Late one night, when oppressed by the crowding of his unhappy thoughts, he arose from his bed to walk the streets in search of composure, and, descending into the darkness of the alabarch's house, he heard the doors swing in softly. Expecting robbers, or at least a servant returning by stealth from a night's revel, he stepped down into the gloom and waited till the intruder should pass.
Softly the unknown approached and laid hand on the stair-rail to ascend. At the second step the figure was between him and the window lighting the stairs. Against the lesser darkness and the stars without, he saw Lydia's outlines etched. Noiselessly, she passed up and out of hearing.
In his soul, he knew that she had been to the Nazarenes!
"To-morrow," he said grimly to himself, "I prepare the prince's ship! There passes a stiff-necked sacrifice to Saul of Tarsus, unless I can bring him low!"
The next morning, Justin Classicus received a letter, by a merchant ship from Syria. He retired into his chamber and read it:
"O Brother," it said, "that dwelleth among the heathen, this from thy friend who envieth thy banishment:
"I delayed opening thy letter three days, believing it to come from him who lined my threadbare purse while in Alexandria, asking usury, long since due, but at the end of that time, I received his letter of a surety. So I made haste to open thy slandered missive, and greater haste to answer it by way of propitiation.