"Regio Judæorum!" cried a woman under foot, filling her basket with fish entrails. "What say you, Gesius? Who, these? Look, Alexandrians, what tinsel and airs are hunting the Regio Judæorum!"
"Purple, by my head!" the man exclaimed. "Roman citizens with the bent nose of Jerusalem!"
"Agrippa, or I am a landsman!" a sailor shouted. "Fugitive from debtors, or I am a pirate!"
"Jews!" another woman screamed; "coming to collect usury!"
A howl of rage, threatening and lawless, greeted this cry, out of which rose the sailor's voice with a shout of laughter.
"Usury! Ha, ha! He has not a denarius on him that is not borrowed!"
The Jewish prince had lived a life of diverse fortune, but never until then had he been the object of popular scorn. A surprise was aroused in him as great as his indignation; he stood transfixed with emotion. Cypros, thoroughly terrified, came out from among her servants and clung to his arm. On her the eyes of the fishwives alighted.
[Illustration: Cypros, thoroughly terrified, clung to his arm (missing from book)]
"Look! Look!" they cried. "Sparing us our husbands by hiding her beauty! The rag over her face! Bah! for a plaster of mud!"
"Fish-scales will serve as well," another cried, snatching up a handful and throwing it at the princess.