"Valeria gave the orders. My master was out."

"Ha!" remarked Drusus to his aunt, "won't the good man be pleased to
know how his wife has killed a valuable slave in one of her tantrums?"
Then aloud. "If I can buy you of Calatinus, and give you to the Lady
Cornelia, niece of Lentulus, the consul-elect, will you serve her
faithfully, will you make her wish the law of your life?"

"I will die for her!" cried Agias, his despair mingled with a ray of
hope.

"Where is your master?"

"At the Forum, I think, soliciting votes," replied the boy.

"Well then, follow me," said Drusus, "our road leads back to the
Forum. We may meet him. If I can arrange with him, your executioners
have nothing to fear from Valeria. Come along."

Agias followed, with his head again in a whirl.

III

The little company worked its way back to the Forum, not, as now, a
half-excavated ruin, the gazing-stock for excursionists, a commonplace
whereby to sum up departed greatness: the splendid buildings of the
Empire had not yet arisen, but the structures of the age were not
unimposing. Here, in plain view, was the Capitoline Hill, crowned by
the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Arx. Here was the site of
the Senate House, the Curia (then burned), in which the men who had
made Rome mistress of the world had taken counsel. Every stone, every
basilica, had its history for Drusus--though, be it said, at the
moment the noble past was little in his mind. And the historic
enclosure was all swarming, beyond other places, with the dirty,
bustling crowd, shoppers, hucksters, idlers. Drusus and his company
searched for Calatinus along the upper side of the Forum, past the
Rostra, the Comitium,[52] and the Temple of Saturn. Then they were
almost caught in the dense throng that was pouring into the plaza from
the busy commercial thoroughfares of the Vicus Jugarius, or the Vicus
Tuscus. But just as the party had almost completed their circuit of
the square, and Drusus was beginning to believe that his benevolent
intentions were leading him on a bootless errand, a man in a
conspicuously white toga rushed out upon him from the steps of the
Temple of Castor, embraced him violently, and imprinted a firm,
garlic-flavoured kiss on both cheeks; crying at the same time
heartily:--

[52] _Comitium_, assembly-place round the Rostra.

"Oh, my dear Publius Dorso, I am so glad to meet you! How are all your
affairs up in Fidenae?"

Drusus recoiled in some disgu