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versity still held. On the way he met a Saxon slave, Wardo, a fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, hurrying toward the atrium with a pierced copper bowl packed with snow for cooling wines. Him Nicanor stopped with a question. "Hast seen these strangers, Wardo? Whence come they, and who have been bidden to meet them?" "They and our lord sup alone," Wardo answered. He shifted his bowl from hand to hand, and blew on his fingers as though it burned instead of freezing him. "The dancing girls have been commanded, and wine is to be brought. Much hath been brought already. And Nicanor, hark 'ee! Egon, who pours the wines, saith that the talk is strange talk for feasting. They urge that our lord go back with them to Rome--wherefore, think you? They speak of Rome, and Londinium, and the legions from Gaul, and of losses of ships and money, until one's head rings. What might it be about? Think you that we go to Rome? I should like to go to Rome, if it be anything like Londinium--" "We go to Rome?" Nicanor repeated. "Say rather that we should be left here to die like chained rats that the trainer hath forgotten." He went off; and watched his chance and slipped away outside, and stopped before the little garden door. He put his hand upon it, drew back, and glanced over his shoulder as though for possible pursuit. His face held a curious mixture of doubt and boldness, hesitancy and desire. Only a moment he paused; then opened the door with a silent key, slipped inside so that the vines scarcely rustled, and closed it without noise. No one was in the garden. His eagerness took fire at the delay; lithe and silent as a mountain cat he crossed the open space of lawn, mounted the steps of the terrace, and gained the windows, whence came no light from the tall silver lamps within. And here he discovered that the windows were closed. With all his boldness he dared venture no further. Baffled, yet keener set in his determination for being thwarted, he drew back into the shadows and waited. From where he stood by the marble bench no sound came to him save the chirring of insects in the grass, the squeak of a bat or twitter of a sleepy bird. One might never have thought the place to be in the heart of a house whose inmates numbered five hundred souls and more, so still it was, so seemingly remote from all human noise and tumult. The combined effects of the silence and the perfume of the many night-blooming plants made him drowsy; also hi
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