on its helmeted head of
Pallas Nicephora. There, behind her, is the mint-mark and that word of
ancient power and glory, "Roma." Below are letters so worn and
indistinct that I must bend close to read them: "--M. SERGI," and then
others that I cannot trace.

Perhaps I have dozed a bit, for I must have turned the coin,
unthinking, and now I see the reverse: a horseman, in full panoply,
galloping, with naked sword brandished in his left hand, from which
depends a severed head tight-clutched by long, flowing hair.

The clouds hang low over the city, as I peer from my tower
window,--driving, ever driving, from the east, and changing, ever
changing, their fantastic shapes. Now they are the waving hands and
gowns of a closely packed multitude surging with human passions; now
they are the headlong rout of a flying army upon which press hordes of
riders, dark, fierce, and barbarous--horses with tumultuous manes, and
hands with brandished darts. Surely it is a sleepy, workless day! It
will be vain to drive my pen across the pages.

I do not see the cloud forms now--not with my eyes, for they have
closed themselves perforce; but my brain is awake, and I know that the
eyes of Pallas Nicephora see them, and grow brighter as if gazing on
well-remembered scenes.

Why not? How many thousand clinkings of coin against coin in purse and
pouch, how many hundred impacts of hands that long since are dust, have
served to dim your once clear relief!

Surely, Pallas, you have looked upon all this and much more. Shall I
see aught with your eyes, lady of my Sergian denarius? Shall I see,
if, with you before me, I look fixedly at the legions of clouds that
cross my window an hour--two--three--even until the night closes in?

Grant but a grain of this, O Goddess, and lo! I vow to thee a troop of
pipe-players upon the Ides of June.

I.

NEWS.

"A troop of pipe-players to Minerva on the Ides of June, if we win!"

"And my household to Mars, if we have lost!"

The speakers were hurrying along the street that leads down from the
Palatine Hill toward the Forum, and both were young. Their high shoes
fastened with quadruple thongs and adorned with small silver crescents
proclaimed their patrician rank.

"Why do you vow as if the gods had already passed judgment, Lucius?"

"Because, my Caius, I am very sure that a battle has been fought. What
else do these rumours mean that are flying through the city? rumours
that none can