Without, it had grown dark. The woman had made no effort to hide the nature of her burden. She made an almost haughty gesture of farewell to Marsyas.
"I shall serve thee, perchance, one day," she said and passed out.
Marsyas followed her. At the threshold, he wavered and stepping into the street stopped.
She made a small, frail, dusky apparition, under the black shadows of the bulky buildings of Ptolemais--a profitable victim for some light-footed highwayman, less sorely in need of money than he. But she evidently felt no fear.
Then, he turned and went back into the counting-room.
"Who and what art thou?" the usurer demanded, with no little admiration in his tone.
"I am," Marsyas answered, "a doctor of Laws, a master of languages, a doctor of medicines, a scholar of the College at Jerusalem, a postulant Essene."
"Only for a time. When I can repay thee a debt long standing, I shall cease to serve at all."
The usurer's eyes brightened. "A debt," he repeated softly. "Is this my fortunate day? Which of the bankrupts who owe me has been replenished?"
"Not yet, the one of whom I speak," Marsyas replied. "Hast thou heard of Herod Agrippa?"
"Herod Agrippa! Evil day that he borrowed a talent of me, never to return it!"
"Never! Whosoever lends him money pitches it into the sea!"
"Yet the sea hath given up its treasure, at times. But let me trouble thee with a question. What price did the costliest slave in thy knowledge command?"
"What price? A slave? In Rome? Nay, then, let me think. A Georgian female captive of much beauty was sold to Sejanus once for six hundred thousand drachmæ--"
"I speak of serving-men," Marsyas interrupted.
"Nay, then: Cæsar owns a physician worth eighty thousand drachmæ."
"Hath he cured any in Cæsar's house of poisoning; can he speak many languages; is he also a doctor of Laws and a good Jew?"
"What price, then, should I he worth to Cæsar?" Marsyas demanded.
"Sell not thyself to Cæsar," Peter cried, flinging up his hands. "It is forbidden!"
"I shall not sell myself," Marsyas said. "I have come only to find how to value my services."
"Whom dost thou serve?" the old man demanded. Marsyas was not ready to disclose his identity.
"A Roman. Peace and the continuance of good fortune be thine."