The proconsul bit through an expletive. Jonathan was a thorn in his side.
"What is it you wish me to do?" he demanded.
"Arrest me this youth. The claim of the proconsul's charge will take precedence over the hieratic."
"Save the protest; he has; he struck me, a Roman citizen. But draw up the warrant, good Vitellius, and send a centurion after the young man. Thou canst make no error by so doing and thou canst save Capito the favor of his emperor."
Vitellius summoned a clerk and while the warrant for Marsyas' arrest was written, despatched an orderly for an officer. One of the contubernalis to Vitellius, or one of the sons of a noble family serving his apprenticeship in warfare, appeared.
"Take four," Vitellius said grimly, in compliance with Herod's demand, when the young centurion approached, "and go with this man. Arrest by superior claim the High Priest's prisoner, who shall be pointed out. Fetch him and this man back to me!"
The young centurion saluted and Agrippa assented with a nod.
"Thanks," he added nonchalantly. "Come, brother," he said to the young officer, "if we be late it may take the whole machinery of Rome to undo the work of Jonathan."
Agrippa and the Roman legionaries passed out of the Prætorium and turned directly up the slanting street toward the palace of Jonathan, which stood a little above the camp.
The Herod had lost little time and the progress of the arresting party toward the stronghold would not have been rapid with the resistance of Marsyas and the friends of the Nazarenes to retard the movement. After a quick walk of a short distance, the Roman group came upon the Temple's emissaries, entering from an intersecting street.
Saul and Joel walked a little ahead of the broken-spirited prisoners who were centered in a group of armed lictors and a hooting escort of half a hundred vagrants. The flaring torch-light shone down on bowed heads and disordered garments, and showed fugitive glints of manacles and knives.
Among them, unbroken and silent, was Marsyas, heavily shackled. He was marked with blows, but several besides the Levite Joel staggered as they walked, and Agrippa, lifting himself on tiptoe to point out his prisoner to the centurion, eyed the young man with approval.