the open, and they followed
it until three hours after noon. Then they turned aside into a narrower
branch road, and so rode easily for another hour until they entered a
grove of ilex trees. To the farther end of this they came abruptly, and
saw before them open country, a broad and gentle slope of hill; and on
its summit a great stately house, white-walled, with outbuildings in the
copse around it. In the centre of the blank wall of the front of the
house which confronted them, was a gateway, with gates of bronze, and a
porter's lodge. Here the porter, looking through his wicket, asked their
business, and, being told, directed them around to the rear. So they
entered at another smaller gate, and were in a court, open to the sky
and surrounded on all sides by buildings, where slaves were working.
This, Nicanor learned from the soldiers' talk, was in the quarters of
the slaves.

[Illustration: "'Were I that woman, I should have wanted to love
him.'"]

And here the centurion found the overseer, and talked with him long and
earnestly. The overseer paid over the reward, and the centurion, as
Nicanor saw without at all understanding the transaction, returned
certain broad pieces, which the steward hid away upon himself with a
furtive glance around. The soldier then departed with his men, his
tongue in his cheek; and the overseer came to where Nicanor stood in
chains, and looked at him. He was a very fat man, with little eyes sunk
in unwholesome flesh, and was far haughtier than the great lord Eudemius
himself. When he saw Nicanor's face, he began unexpectedly to curse and
bluster, and said:

"How now, fellow! Is this a trick thou and thy mates have played upon
me, to obtain my master's gold? Thou art not he who escaped three days
ago."

But light had broken upon Nicanor, and he answered:

"So I told them, and so thou couldst have seen if thou hadst looked
before thou didst pay--and receive back--thy master's gold. If this be
thy practice, sure thy lord must be the poorer for thy loyal service!"

But the overseer was talking very fast, without paying heed at all.

"By my head, but this is a scurvy trick to play a man! But now thou art
here, here shalt thou stay in that other's place; for it would go hard
with me were my lord to learn that reward had been paid for nothing--and
a slave is a slave to him."

Nicanor turned on him in a blaze of wrath, and the fat overseer, wary of
the lean strength of him, called his me