ed angrily the hammer in his belt.

"She must not suspect anything of it, the pure heart!" continued he.

"Certainly not. But thou must be on the watch. I met the Tribune lately
in the office of the old money-lender."

"The usurer! the blood-sucker!"

"I was able, fortunately, to pay him my little debt. The slave
announced me. I waited behind the curtain: I then heard a deep voice
mention thy name--and Felicitas. I entered. The Tribune stood with the
money-dealer. They were quickly silent when they perceived me. And just
now, on the way here, whom should I overtake on the highway? Leo the
Tribune, and Zeno the money-dealer! The latter pointed with his staff
to thy house, the flat roof of which, with its little statues,
projected above the trees. I guessed their conversation, and the object
of their journey. Unseen I sprang from the road into the ditch, and
hastened by the shorter way, the steep meadow path, to warn thee. Take
care--they will soon be here."

"Let him only come, the miser! I have earned and carefully put away the
sum that I owe him for marble supplied from Aquileia, and for the town
taxes. My other creditors I have asked to wait, or rather promised them
higher interest, and have put all the money together for this
destroyer. But what does the Tribune want with me? I owe him nothing,
except a knife-thrust for the look with which he devoured my precious
one."

"Be careful! _His_ knife is more powerful: it is the sword; and behind
him stand the wild Mauritanian cavalry, and the Isaurian hirelings,
whom we must pay with precious gold to protect us from the barbarians."

"But who defends us from the defenders? The Emperor in distant Ravenna?
He rejoices if the Germans do not cross the Alps; he troubles himself
no more about this land, which has been so long Roman."

"Except in extortionate taxes, to squeeze out our last blood-drops."

"Bah! The State taxes! It is many years since they were collected. No
Imperial functionary ventures now over the mountains. I stand indeed
here on Imperial soil. But what is the name of the man who is now
Emperor, and to whom this bit of land belongs, of which he has never
heard? Every two years another Emperor is made known to us--but only
through the coinage."

"And that becomes ever worse."

"It _cannot_ get worse; that is a comfort."

"A friend tells me that the taxes get more and more intolerable in
Mediolanum, where there are still bailiffs and soldiers to lev