CHAPTER VII
THE BONDMAN OF HATE
In a city like Ptolemais, where many pagans lived extravagantly and many Jews lived thriftily, there were, as naturally follows, many money-lenders among the sons of Abraham.
"Seek them all," was Agrippa's charge, "but Peter, the usurer. Him, thou hadst better avoid."
The young Essene laid aside the prince's dress, with its embroidery of precious metal, and, getting into a simpler garment affected by the stewards to men of rank, went out into the city to borrow twenty thousand drachmæ.
He did not get the twenty thousand drachmæ, but he found, instead, that Herod Agrippa was the most notorious bankrupt in the world. Being a Jew and by heritage thrifty, the discovery shook him in his respect for the prince, but at the same time a resolution shaped itself in him against the usurers. But, on a certain day, he returned to the little house in the suburbs of the city to report that he had been placidly refused by every money-lending Jew or Gentile, except Peter, in the seaport.
But he delivered his tidings unmoved.
"Be of hope," he said to Cypros, whose head drooped at the news; "there are many untried ways."
He went again into the city, and visited the khans. There might be new-comers who were money-lenders in other cities.