see those evil malefactors that set upon
him."

"No, Folces, I was dreaming as I walked. They came upon me unawares."

"And my gracious lord allowed them to go. They were notorious
miscreants."

"They were the embodiment of a strange riddle, good Folces. They helped
to puzzle me--and Heaven knows that I was puzzled enough ere I saw those
miserable wretches. Mayhap some day I'll understand the riddle which
their abject persons did represent. But now tell me, is this the house?"

The wanderers had struck to their right and walked on some two hundred
paces. Now they paused beside one of those square mud-walled boxes, of
which they could only discern the narrow door made of unplaned wood, and
through the chinks of which a faint light glimmered weirdly. Two or
three steps fashioned in the earth itself led down toward the threshold.
Taurus Antinor descended these and knocked boldly on the door.

It was opened from within, and under the rough lintel there appeared the
figure of a man of short stature, clad in a long grey tunic. His head,
which he held forward in an attempt to peer through the darkness, looked
almost unnaturally large, owing to the mass of loose greyish hair that
fell away from his forehead like a mane, and the long beard that
straggled down upon his breast.

"May we enter, friend?" asked Taurus Antinor.

At the sound of the voice the man drew aside, and through the narrow
doorway was now revealed the interior of the house--a straight, square
room, with a few wooden seats disposed about, and at the top end an
oblong table covered with a snow-white cloth. An aperture in the wall
appeared to lead to an inner chamber, which must indeed have been of
diminutive size, for the central room seemed to occupy almost the whole
of the interior of the house. Suspended by an iron chain from the
ceiling above there hung a small lamp in which flickered a tiny flame
fed by some sweet-smelling oil. It threw but little light around and
left deep and curious shadows in the angles of the room.

From out these, as the praefect entered, there emerged the figure of an
old woman, with smooth grey hair half-hidden beneath a kerchief of
strange oriental design, and straight dark robe, foreign in cut and
appearance to those usually seen in the streets of Rome.

The massive figure of Taurus Antinor seemed almost to fill the entire
room, but he stood to one side now disclosing the old slave and the girl
Nola.

"This," he said, a