The next minute with desperate mercilessness he had loosed a long plaited whip like a crackling flame upon the necks of his horses.
The terrified beasts leaped; the car lurched and headlong they plunged into the mass before them. Right and left the rawhide played, over faces, shoulders and lifted arms, searing and scarring wherever it touched. With grim satisfaction, the two within the chariot felt at times that the car mounted and toppled over prostrate rioters, like sticks in the roadway. The jam became panic and flight, and the horses took the free passage, mad with desire to get away from the stinging torment that harassed them.
The driver of Cypros' car closed in quickly with its following of curricles, and kept close behind the flying chariot, but the prætorians, out-distanced, contented themselves by following through short ways, and the riot was left behind.
At the wharf the maddened animals could not be stopped until they had been circled again and again. But hardly had the wheels ceased to move, when Marsyas leaped to the ground, and, flinging the lines to a slave, put up his hands to Agrippa.
"As the first debt to thy manhood and to the alabarch forget not this opportunity to help him! Hear them! They want Jewish blood; Lydia's blood! There is none in Alexandria to stay them! Help, my lord! Beseech Cæsar in thy people's behalf, as I beseech thee now! Answer, answer!"
"I hear, Marsyas," Agrippa responded, "and by all that I hold sacred, I promise thee Flaccus' end! God help thee! Farewell!"
Pausing only for the word, Marsyas turned and ran with frantic speed back into the city. He saw, at every step, that which made his heart chill in his bosom. The tide of the riot had turned, and that which was not already pouring in upon the Nazarenes, was rushing into the Regio Judæorum.