"Have mine, too, Bassia! Thou art a better thrower than I!" a third shouted, handing up her basket.
"A handful for the simpering hand-maid, too!"
"Fall to, wives; don't leave it all to Bassia!"
"'Way for the proconsul!"--a distant roar came up from the water's edge.
"Bilge-water in my jar, there, mate; it will mix their perfumes!"
"'Way for the proconsul!" the distant roar insisted.
"'Ware, Bassia! The proconsul is coming!"
"Perpol! he will not see! He is the best Jew-baiter in all Alexandria! Sure aim, O Phoebus of the bow!"
"Pluto take the legionaries; here they come!"
"One more pitch at them, though Cæsar were coming!"
"No privileges exclusive for thyself, Bassia! _Habet_! More scales!"
The centurion at the head of a column now appeared, with his brasses dripping with dirty water, threw up his sword and shouted. The column flung itself out of line and went into the mob with pilum butt or point as the spirit urged.
Pell-mell, tumbling, screaming, scrambling, the wharf-litter fled, parting in two bodies as it passed Agrippa's demoralized group, one half plunging off the masonry on the sands or into the water, the other scattering out over the great expanse of dock. The soldiers pressed after, and, following in the space they had cleared, came a chariot, a legate in full armor driving, his charioteer crouching on his haunches in the rear of the car.
His apparitors brought up against Agrippa's party. They did not hesitate at the rank of the strangers; it was part of the blockade. Eutychus took to his heels and Silas went down under a blow from a reversed javelin. Agrippa, besmirched with the missiles of his late assailants and blazing with fury, breasted the soldiers and cursed them fervently. Two of them sprang upon him, and Cypros, screaming wildly, threw off her veil and seized the foremost legionary.
The legate pulled up his horses and looked at the struggle. Cypros' bared face was presented to him. With a cry of astonishment, he threw down the lines and leaped from the chariot.
"Back, comrades!" he shouted, running toward them. "Touch her not! Unhand the man! Ho! Domitius, call off your tigers!"
"How now, Flaccus!" Agrippa raged. "Is this how you receive Roman citizens in Alexandria?"