"Nay! Nay!" exclaimed Abbas. "Speak not too much of that matter. The judge compelled that unjust person to pay me my dues and he was cast into prison. I exact no more than my right."
"Thou art, then, a rare money-lender," said Lysias; but the cunning of the Greek had succeeded and Abbas was ready thenceforth to say to any inquirer that he knew this man well.
"O youth," he said, "I will talk with thee further concerning certain matters when we may have opportunity. Be not thou too much influenced by what thou hearest. Is there any news?"
"Tell us what things have occurred," added Ben Ezra, "for we have been in Galilee. I journeyed thither as interpreter for the Saxon gladiators of Caius, the centurion, of Thessalonica. In his service am I to this day."
"A good man and highly honored," said Lysias. "He is a friend of the procurator."
So they rode on conversing, but in Greek. Nor was it difficult as they went for Ben Ezra, even aided by Abbas unwittingly, to inform Lysias completely concerning the doings of the Saxons.
"The procurator," he said, "calleth the gladiators of Caius his own. Thou wilt soon meet them and I will make thee acquainted with them."
"I will gladly have speech with such strange ones," said Lysias, "but the scholars of Gamaliel may not meddle much with the circus."
Ere long as they rode he and Ben Ezra were able to be out of hearing of Abbas and the others, but the speech of the Jew was brief.
"O Greek," he said, "if thou art imprudent in this matter, for thee is not the scourge, but the sword."