"What is this?" she exclaimed. "Did I not see him walking with the procurator as one walketh with a near friend? Is he, then, more than a horse boy? Is he an officer of the palace, and greater than I? Now am I indeed in pain, for I have need of friends. O love! Why was I cruel to thee? Come again, O my beloved! My Lysias! I will tell thee that I am not changed! Will he return if I call him? He will, for I am beautiful. I am favored by Aphrodite. She will make him bend to me as I will. It was but for a moment, and I was in fear. None must see me this day. I will go at once as if I were summoned by the wife of the procurator. Woe to any who shall hinder me."
She caught up and threw over her head a veil and over her body a flowing robe of silk embroidered with needlework. Then, as if fear hastened her, she flitted away along the main corridor and disappeared.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
The School of Gamaliel.
With all honor did the captain of the Damascus gate of Jerusalem receive Caius of Thessalonica, the friend of Pontius the Spearman. The chariot halted before the gate and in it sat the stern Roman centurion, giving no external token of a wound or of suffering.
"O noble Caius," said the captain, after his first greeting, "I have this, also, for thee from the procurator, that his physician, who is also thine, hath gone before thee to thy house. May the gods give him both skill and success."
"I thank the procurator and thee, also," said Caius. "I will now drive on."
"A moment, O most noble Caius," interrupted the officer of the guard. "A messenger even now. He is from the procurator."
There was no stir among the mounted swordsmen who rode before and behind the chariot, but they sent quick glances to each other as their eyes fell upon this messenger.