er to the wants of the feasters.

At the table to the east--that of honour--reclined Stenius Ninius, in
the middle place of the middle couch, with Hannibal himself at his
right, the place of honour above all. Marcia was led to the head of
the lowest couch, next to the Carthaginian leader, where she found
Pacuvius Calavius reclining below her, as the phrase went; while on the
couch directly opposite lay the priest of Melkarth in the lowest place,
and Perolla in the highest. The other places, below Pacuvius, between
Stenius and the priest, and between the priest and Perolla, were
assigned to the women, while the other table, over which Pacuvius
Ninius presided, was arranged in similar fashion.

V.

THE BANQUET.

Marcia had felt an instinctive shrinking when she saw that the women,
also, were to recline, after the manner of the dissolute Greeks,
instead of sitting, as she had been taught to consider the only decent
posture for a Roman maid or matron. Then the thought of her mission
brought the blush surging to her cheeks, whence it receded, leaving
them pale with a sterner resolve. Was not love of country the greatest
virtue? It was time to school herself, to shrink at nothing in that
cause. As she took her place, she noticed that the priest of Melkarth,
who lay directly opposite, had been regarding her fixedly.

She could see his face now, and it was not a pleasing one. The Semitic
features, fine and noble in their best form, but capable of greater
depths of degeneration than those of any other type, were in his case
exaggerated to an extreme degree of coarseness. The mouth was large
and badly formed, the forehead low, the small eyes peered out snakelike
from under heavy, puffy lids. The nose alone was cut with any measure
of fineness, and that projected, wide-nostrilled, and aquiline as the
beak of a bird of prey. It would have been difficult to imagine a face
more gross and sensual in its lines, and the look of low admiration and
eagerness which it now wore, was well calculated to bring out the
sensuality in its most repulsive form. Marcia felt her cheeks burning
under the fixedness of the man's gaze, and, looking down, she struggled
to compose herself by a close study of the gorgeous coverlid of the
couch,--a fine Campanian texture, dyed scarlet, and heavily embroidered
with figures of birds and beasts and flowers, worked into an elaborate
design.

Even then, his eyes seemed to burn through her