ll my heart!" cried the girl.

"I was sure you would. As soon as possible I will come to look
after you. You Nonnus and Lucanus, conduct these noble ladies to the
harbor-guard's house.

"Tell him they are intimate friends of the Empress. Only keep the pumps
going! Till we meet again Balbilla!" and with these words the architect
gave his horse the bridle and made his way through the crowd.

A quarter of an hour later Balbilla was standing on the roof of the
little stone guard-house. Claudia was utterly exhausted and incapable of
speech. She sat in the dark little parlor below on a rough-hewn wooden
bench. But the young Roman now gazed at the fire with different eyes
than before. Pontius had made her feel a foe to the flames which only a
short time before had filled her with delight as they soared up to the
sky, wild and fierce. They still flared up violently, as though they
had to climb above the roof; but soon they seemed to be quelled and
exhausted, to find it more and more difficult to rise above the black
smoke which welled up from the burning mass. Balbilla had looked out
for the architect and had soon discovered him, for the man on horseback
towered above the crowd. He halted now by one and now by another burning
storehouse. Once she lost sight of him for a whole hour, for he had
gone to Lochias. Then again he reappeared, and wherever he stayed for a
while, the raging element abated its fury.

Without her having perceived it, the wind had changed and the air had
become still and much warmer. This circumstance favored the efforts of
the citizens trying to extinguish the fire, but Balbilla ascribed it
to the foresight of her clever friend when the flames subsided in souse
places and in others were altogether extinguished. Once she saw that he
had a building completely torn down which divided a burning granary
from some other storehouses that had been spared, and she understood
the object of this order; it cut off the progress of the flames. Another
time she saw him high on the top of a rise in the ground. Close before
him in a sheet of flame was a magazine in which were kept tow and casks
of resin and pitch. He turned his face full towards it and gave his
orders, now on this side, now on that. His figure and that of his horse,
which reared uneasily beneath him, were flooded in a crimson glow--a
splendid picture! She trembled for him, she gazed in admiration at this
calm, resolute, energetic man, and when a blazing