"Now then, do you wish to go the same road as they carried the
Jewish girl and the Eastern?"
"They turned to the right," said the clerk sulkily. "It is the truth,
but may that road you speak of be yours who draw knives on honest folk."
With a bound Demetrius left his side, and for the second time the clerk
stood still, watching him go.
"A strange business," he said to himself, "but, perhaps my master was
right and that old woman is a sorceress, or, perhaps, the young one is
the sorceress, since all men seem ready to pay a tribe's tribute to get
hold of her; or, perhaps, they are both sorceresses. A strange story,
of which I should like to know the meaning, and so, I fancy, would the
Prince Domitian when he comes to hear of it. Saturius, the chamberlain,
has a fat place, but I would not take it to-night, no, not if it were
given to me."
Then that young man returned to the mart in time to hear his master
knock down Lot thirteen, a very sweet-looking girl, to Saturius himself,
who proposed, though with a doubtful heart, to take her to Domitian as a
substitute.
Meanwhile, Nehushta, Miriam and the steward Stephanus, disguised as a
slave, went on as swiftly as they dared towards the palace of Marcus
in the Via Agrippa.
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