Marsyas took his arm from about Lydia and arose.
"I am here, O King," he said, "to crave the fulfilment of that oath."
Agrippa smiled, in spite of the serene gravity on Marsyas' face.
"Ask thy boon, Marsyas," he answered.
Marsyas knelt at the king's footstool, and put up his hands as supplicants do before a throne.
"Thou hast remembered thine oath unto me, my King; thou hast published thyself as ready to fulfil thy promise, and hast yielded unto me the choice of the manner of my requital! Thus assured and believing I make my prayer. Lift not thy hand against Saul of Tarsus!"
Agrippa's brows dropped suddenly; his face was no less displeased than startled. He had meant to have a jest at Marsyas' expense, to try the young man's claim to a change in heart, to bring to the surface human nature through its envelope of religion; but he had not looked for this thing! To behold so strange a perversion of the ancient spirit in a man like Marsyas, and to submit to its demands against his own inclinations weighed heavily on Agrippa's patience. Saul's lapse into apostasy gave him an opportunity to attach to him the loyalty of that fierce party in Judea, which were better propitiated than fought—the Sicarii, anarchists, who would demand the putting away of the heretic. Marsyas had asked him to sacrifice a potent piece of state-craft.
He glanced at Cypros, and saw resentfully that she was urging him with her eyes to submit. Marsyas' face began to show an expression that compelled him, while it irritated the more. The young man wore the face of one who does not expect defeat, denies it so confidently that it hesitates to exist. Agrippa shifted in his throne, frowned more, wavered, and finally said shortly:
"As Cæsar forgot me to mine own safety, I will forget Saul!"
Marsyas' hands dropped softly on the king's, a token of brotherhood.