"Have ye forgotten your mother-tongues?" he fumed at the polyglot assembly, "or are ye base-born Syrians boasting a nationality that ye can not prove? Hold! Let her not go forth, good citizens; doubtless she hath come from a foreign debtor to repay me! Close the doors without!"
Marsyas pressed through the crowd to the grating, and the old man discovered him.
"Hither, hither, my friend," he exclaimed. "See if thou canst tell what manner of stranger we have here."
The young Essene had been examining the woman; with a quick glance, now, he inspected her face. Dark the complexion, the eyes olive-green as chrysolite, mysterious and hypnotic; the features regular as an Egyptian's, but stronger and more beautiful; the physique refined, yet hardy. The mystic air of the Ganges breathed from her scented shawl. The young man's training in languages was not overtaxed.
"What is thy will?" he asked in the tongue of the Brahmins.
"To exchange Hindu money for Roman coin," was the instant reply.
Marsyas turned to Peter.
"This is an Indian woman," he explained. "She wishes to exchange coin of her country for Roman money."
"Good!" the old man cried, rubbing his hands. "We shall oblige her. Foreign coins are so much bullion; yet, we pay only its face value, in Roman moneys! Good! I shall melt it, and deliver it to the Roman mint! Good! But—but how shall I know one of these outlandish coins from another?"
"I can tell you," Marsyas answered.