"Of a surety, this stiff old Roman took chances," Marsyas averred after thought, "with but one apparitor to aid him against Agrippa, palestræ-trained and this young charioteer! Art sure thou didst not play the craven, Eutychus?" he demanded.
"Or should I be blamed," Eutychus groaned, "when it was three against me, with the prince striking at his single defender?"
Marsyas fell silent. It was not like Agrippa to be confused under any circumstances.
He pulled up beside Agrippa's vessel, roused the watchman and had the prince and Eutychus taken aboard; but Vasti and Lydia he left in the borrowed punt, out of sight of the crew that had returned.
He followed the injured men on deck and hurriedly dressed Agrippa's wound, restored him to consciousness and left him in the charge of the captain of the vessel. He ordered one of the skilled seamen to attend Eutychus and hurried back to the women in the boat under the black shadow of the ship.
He pulled straight for the sea, rounded Eunostos point and skirting the tiny archipelagoes in the broad light of the Pharos, brought up at a small indented coast between two sandy peninsulas. Here the residence portion of Alexandria came down to the ocean. The locality was dark and wrapped in sleep.
As he lifted Lydia from the boat, Marsyas turned to Vasti.
"Why didst thou not prevent her in this thing?" he asked in Hindu.
"The white brother forgets that I am a handmaiden," she replied.
"But what if I had not come?" he persisted, growing more troubled by his perplexities.