The assembled group drifted out of the counting-room and the usurer, sighing his delight, opened a gate and bade Marsyas and the Hindu woman come into the apartment behind the screen. There the exchange was made, and the old usurer, trusting to the Hindu's ignorance of the language, permitted no moment to pass without comment on his profit.
Presently, Marsyas turned to the woman.
"You lose money by this traffic," he said deliberately.
"Rest thee, brother," was the calm reply, "I know it. Yet I must have Roman coin to carry me to Egypt."
Marsyas glanced at her apparel. In spite of its humble appearance, it was the owner of this treasure, that dwelt within it.
The exchange was made, amounting to something over twenty thousand drachmæ. Marsyas, with wistful eyes, saw her put the treasure away in the sheepskin bag. He arose as she arose, and the two were conducted out by Peter.
Without, it had grown dark. The woman had made no effort to hide the nature of her burden. She made an almost haughty gesture of farewell to Marsyas.
"I shall serve thee, perchance, one day," she said and passed out.
Marsyas followed her. At the threshold, he wavered and stepping into the street stopped.
She made a small, frail, dusky apparition, under the black shadows of the bulky buildings of Ptolemais—a profitable victim for some light-footed highwayman, less sorely in need of money than he. But she evidently felt no fear.