s on board my
ship."

"Oh, those suppers are both celebrated and ill-famed," observed Balbus;
"you have always the most fiery wines."

"And the most fiery girls," added Massurius.

"However that may be, Totila always pleaded business, and was not to be
persuaded. Imagine that! business after the eighth hour in Neapolis,
when the most industrious are lazy! Naturally, it was only an excuse. I
promised myself to find out his pranks, and, at evening, loitered near
his house in the Via Lata. And truly, the very first evening he came
out, looking carefully about him, and, to my surprise, in disguise. He
was dressed like a gardener, with a travelling-cap well drawn down over
his face, and a cloak folded closely about him. I dogged his footsteps.
He went straight through the town to the Porta Capuana. Close to the
gate stands a large tower, inhabited by the gate-keeper, an old
patriarchal Jew, whom King Theodoric, on account of his great fidelity,
entrusted with the office of warder. My Goth stood still before the
house, and gently clapped his hands. A little side-door, which I had
not remarked before, opened noiselessly, and Totila slipped in like an
eel."

"Ho, ho!" interrupted Piso eagerly, "I know both the Jew and his child
Miriam--a splendid large-eyed girl! The most beautiful daughter of
Israel, the pearl of the East! Her lips are red as pomegranates, her
eyes are deep sea-blue, her cheeks have the rosy bloom of the peach."

"Well done, Piso," said Cethegus, smiling; "your poem is very
beautiful."

"No," he answered, "Miriam herself is living poetry."

"The Jewess is proud," grumbled Massurius, "she scorned my gold with a
look as if no one had ever bought a woman before."

"So the haughty Goth," said Lucius Licinius, "who walks with an air as
if he earned all heaven's stars upon his curly head, has condescended
to a Jewess."

"So I thought, and I determined, at the next opportunity, to laugh at
the youth for his predilection for musk. But nothing of the sort! A few
days later, I was obliged to go to Capua. I started before daybreak to
avoid the heat. I drove out of the town through the Porta Capuana, just
as it was dawning, and as I rattled over the hard stones before the
Jews' tower, I thought with envy of Totila, and said to myself that he
was then lying in the embrace of two white arms. But at the second
milestone from the gate, walking towards the town, with two empty
flower-baskets hanging over his breast