riest, eagerly. "This is a
crime against the State."

"The black slave Juba," replied Fausta, "is, as thou knowest, a faithful
worshipper of Cybele, and she told me even now, that Adauctus, the
Imperial Treasurer, had been only yesterday closeted with the Empress,
and plotting to restore to the favour of the Emperor a certain
Demetrius, a Christian renegade, who is in hiding for his crimes."

"Oh, ho!" chuckled the priest, with a wicked grin, "my fine lady need
not think herself so high and mighty as to be above the reach of the
law, or beyond the anger of the insulted gods."

"I would almost give my eyes," hissed through her teeth the revengeful
Fausta, "if I could only see that painted doll, Valeria, abased and
degraded. She has too long held a sway, of which I, the mother of the
Emperor, have been deprived."

"I trust you may not only see it," said Furca, gloating in anticipation
over the prospect, "but also see her pale, proud mother, the Empress
Prisca, humbled at your feet."

"Accomplish this, good Furca," exclaimed Fausta, with exultation, "and
the goddess Cybele shall have such an offering as she never had
before."

"We must be wary," said the priest, "or we may ourselves be crushed.
They are too powerful to be attacked openly. We must plot against them
secretly. I'll be a _furca_ to them indeed," he added, punning upon his
own name, which had also the signification of an instrument of
punishment, something like a cross; and the conspirators parted with
this pledge of mutual hate against their destined victims.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI

THE SLAVE MARKET.

In the meantime Isidorus, with well-filled purse, and armed with
credentials under the Imperial seal, had set off upon his difficult and
doubtful quest.

"However it turn out," he said to himself, "it will be strange if I do
not climb a few steps higher on the ladder on which my feet are now
placed. Being the confidential agent of the Empress is better than
being the secretary of the rude soldier, Sertorius, and being snubbed by
him every day, too."

Mounted on one of the best horses in the Imperial stables, he rode forth
upon the famous Salarian Way, which led straight as an arrow over the
wide Campagna, and over the rugged Appenines to the distant city of
Ravenna, among the marshes of the Adriatic. Now a decayed and
grass-grown city, six miles from the sea, it was then a great and busy
port, and had been for two centuries and a hal