"Two I will give," said Lysias, after again galloping up and down the road. "Make out thy bill of sale to Lysias, the scholar. I now return speedily to Jerusalem."
"I think well of thee!" exclaimed Simon; afterward adding, "I pray thee take my greeting to the great Rabbi Gamaliel. He knoweth me. I deal fairly with thee. I am not ashamed to have thee show unto even him this thy purchase."
Back into the house he went and he soon returned with a small square parchment of a bill of sale. But the coins which he received were heavy coins of Athens and he weighed them thoughtfully in his hand.
"Good youth," he said, "take thou now the counsel of thy elder. Carry not too many of such as these with thee. Open not thy purse before strangers. Thou art overwell appareled. Get thee as far as the gate of a walled town having a garrison before the sun goeth down. Ride fast and far that thou mayest be beyond any who might inquire of thee concerning that which is now under thee. Thou hadst better not enter Samaria."
"Fare thee well," said Lysias, urging the ass promptly. "I take thy counsel."
"Well for him if he so doeth," muttered Ben Assur in the gateway, "since Arcas claimeth the beast as already his own. I will myself now depart for Damascus and the Samaritan devil may seek for his five pieces where he will. I have beaten him."
The thought then in the mind of Lysias did not err greatly.
"Something is concealed from me as to this swift one," he said to himself. "I have no business in Samaria that I should risk being robbed and then imprisoned as a thief. But if I now meet a Roman patrol, no officer will deem me a pirate coming ashore from a burning trireme with a band of Saxons."
Therefore he blessed his gods for guiding him to the house of Ben Assur, and he rode on in safety, but not as yet was there any safety for the others who, like him, had escaped the sea and the fire. Far behind him on Mount Carmel, in a place of few trees, an Ionian sailor fell breathless upon the grass while beside him halted a Roman horseman.
"Get thee up!" he shouted. "Answer truly lest I slay thee! Where are thy companions?"