ho exercised his teeth upon rich patricians. He wanted to sell
you right back. To sell you back, as if anyone would consent to
buy--after such an exhibition! As well buy a wild beast. Luckily for me,
I received the deposit before witnesses. The fierceness of your nature
will not set aside the contract; the centurion has no choice but to keep
you. He'll keep you, I warrant, but he'll make you pay dear for your
criminal instincts. Oh, you don't know the life that awaits you in the
_ergastula_! You don't know--"

"But my son," I asked, interrupting the "horse-dealer," well knowing
that he would answer out of cruelty. "Is my son also sold? To whom?"

"Sold? And who do you think would still want him? Sold? Better say given
away. You bring bad luck to everybody, double traitor. Did not your
ragings and the shrieks of that mis-born limb teach everyone that he is
of your beastly blood? No one offered even an obole for him! Who would
buy a wolf's whelp? Anyway, I was going to speak to you about that son
of yours, to delight your father's heart. Know that he was given to boot
by my partner at the end of the sale, to the same purchaser to whom he
sold the grey-haired matron, who will be good to turn a mill-wheel."

"And that purchaser," I enquired, "who is he? What is he going to do
with my son?"

"That purchaser is the centurion--your master!"

"Hesus!" I exclaimed, hardly able to believe what I heard. "Hesus, you
are kind and merciful. At least I shall have my son near me."

"Your son near you! Then you are as stupid as you are scoundrelly. Ah,
do you imagine that it is for your paternal contentment that your master
has burdened himself with that wolf-cub? Do you know what your master
said to me? 'I have only one means of subduing that savage beast you
sold me, you egregious cheat.--The chances are, that madman loves his
little one. I'll keep the wolf-whelp in a cage, and the son will answer
to me for the father's docility.--At the father's first, and least
offence, he will see the tortures which he will make his cub suffer,
under my very eyes.'"

I paid no further attention to what the "horse-dealer" said--I was at
least sure of seeing you, or of knowing that you were near me, my child.
That will help me to bear the awful grief caused to me by the fate of my
little daughter Syomara, who, two days later, was carried into Italy on
board the galley of the patrician Trymalcion.

* * * * *

M