ust of necessity stand aside
for these! But of this more anon. Wilt rest now and partake of wine?"

"I thank thee, good Caius," replied the praefect, "but I have supped,
and only came at thy bidding, because thou didst say that affairs of
State would claim our attention this night."

To all those present he gave courteous if not very hearty greeting. Then
did his glance encounter that of Hortensius Martius who alone had said
no word or made a movement to welcome him.

There was a vacant place beside young Hortensius, and Taurus Antinor
took it, but he did not lie along the cushions as the others did but
half sat, half leaned on the couch, and turning to the young man said
simply:

"I give thee greeting, O Hortensius! I had no thought of meeting thee
here."

"I told thee yesterday that I would be present," said the other curtly.

"I remember now and am proud and honoured to sit by thy side; wilt
pledge me in a goblet of wine?"

He had forced his rough voice to tones of gentleness. Hortensius Martius
raised his glowering eyes with some curiosity on his face.

But a day and a night had elapsed since his life had lain wholly at the
mercy of this powerful giant whom he had insulted, and who had been on
the point of punishing that insult with death.

Young Hortensius, held aloft in the mighty grip of the praefect twenty
feet above the flagstones of the Forum, seeing a hideous death waiting
for him below, did not even now realise how it came to pass that--when
he recovered from the swoon into which horror and fear had thrown
him--he found himself being tended by an old woman, and anon delivered
safe and sound into the keeping of his slaves; he had entered his litter
and been borne to his home still marvelling, but of the praefect of
Rome he had not since then seen a trace.

He had questioned his slaves who swore that from the arcades of the
tabernae, where they had been waiting, they had seen nothing of what
went on around the rostra. Hortensius knew that they lied, they must
have seen something of the quarrel; they must have seen him being
carried like a recalcitrant child up to the top of the highest rostrum,
and threatened with awful punishment by the very man whom he had
affected to despise. They must also have seen the praefect relenting,
carrying him down again, content apparently with the fright which he had
given him.

His slaves must have been witnesses to his humiliation, and now were
afraid to tell him