"Is he with thee?" Flaccus asked pointedly.
"No, we left him in Ptolemais. But the note of their presence in Alexandria must have been sounded early, directly they arrived, for I departed from Jerusalem the day following the first movement against the sect, and thence to Ptolemais and Alexandria with ordinary despatch."
"They did not announce themselves," Flaccus replied. "Vitellius announced them. He wants an Essene who is believed to be among them."
Agrippa raised his head and looked straight at Flaccus. He remembered that he had betrayed Marsyas' refuge. Cypros drew in a breath of alarm.
"That was simply done, Flaccus," Agrippa remarked coolly.
The princess laid her hand on the ruddy flesh of the proconsul's arm.
"We have been frank with thee, my lord," she said, "and thou art a noble Roman--therefore a safe guardian of our unguarded words."
The others maintained a wondering silence. Flaccus smiled.
"Vitellius hath bidden me to look for him, adding with certain fervid embellishments that he hath sought everywhere but in Egypt and Hades. Vitellius is no diplomat. Whistling finds the lost hound sooner than search."
"But thou wilt not find him, noble Flaccus," Cypros besought in a lowered tone. "Yield us thy promise that thou wilt not betray him!"
"My promise, lady! Indeed, I gave it in my heart a moment since. Hear it now. Alexandria is subject to thee. Let him come and be our ward."
"I shall depend on that," Agrippa said decidedly. "For I shall despatch a servant for the man, the instant I can so do!"
"And yet," Cypros insisted, still distressed, "if Vitellius requires him at thy hands, how shalt thou avoid giving him up?"
Flaccus smiled at her with softened eyes.
"O gentle lady, the day the young man should arrive, I shall set the prefect on the Nazarenes in Rhacotis. If he be not found, none without this trustworthy circle shall have cause to believe that I am not in all conscience striving to help a brother proconsul run down a fugitive."
"A shrewd strategy," Lydia said dryly, "but one rather costly for the Nazarenes."
"The Nazarenes! Who wastes tears over them? Thine own straight people condemn them, lady."
"An exhilarating recreation, indeed," she repeated as if to herself, "for the prefect, the rabble Alexandrians and the Nazarenes! O seekers of esthetic sport, that will be a rare occasion! Yield me thy promise, my Lord Agrippa, that thou wilt tell us the day the young man arrives!"