nd lashed the slave across the
face.

"Now speak!" he shouted. "Think not to shield him so, for I'll have thee
flayed alive before thou shalt defy me thus!"

"I--I!" groaned Marcus. The word had a strange and guttural sound, but
Eudemius did not notice.

"Go on!" he ordered furiously.

"I--I--!" Marcus screamed, and fell grovelling at his master's feet.

A spasm of pain shook Eudemius and turned him livid. He kicked savagely
at the writhing figure on the floor and clapped his hands thrice loudly.
Two slaves came running, with faces pale with apprehension. Eudemius,
almost beyond speech himself, raised a shaking hand and pointed downward
at the heap.

"Take him to the stone room and put him to the rack until he is ready to
say what I would hear!" he said hoarsely. His voice broke into a gasp;
he leaned back heavily, with his other hand against the chair from which
he had risen. "When he is ready, call me!"

The men lifted Marcus to his feet and took him away.

Marius watched interestedly. To counsel mercy never crossed his
mind--the mind of a Roman bred to consider bloodshed a sport and mortal
strife a pastime. If Eudemius chose to kill his slave for a whim--well,
the slave was his, and it was nobody else's business. He turned to the
table and poured himself another glass of wine.

Eudemius dropped back heavily into the chair and sat, as before, with
head bent slightly forward and gripping hands. And, as before, he seemed
listening; only this time it was with a cruel and eager greed, and his
eyes, bloodshot and terrible, were as the red eyes of a vulture that
waits for its victim's death. From time to time his mouth twitched, and
a shudder, long and uncontrollable, ran through him.

But still he waited, and there was silence in the room.

V

That day Nicanor had been assigned by Hito to the squad of the fire
slaves, whose duty it was to tend the fires of the hypocausts which
warmed the guest apartments, the rooms of the master's family, the
banquet halls, and the baths. The great fireplaces, one for every
hypocaust, built in arches under the outer walls of the villa, were
approached from the outside by passages of rough masonry. From them the
hot air was carried back through the hypocaust and led to the rooms
above by means of an ingenious system of flue tiles. The fires, burning
constantly from the first approach of the keen weather of Autumn, needed
incessant attention. All day slaves went back and for