mies."

He shook his head stupidly.

"Minerva does not favour me, lady," he replied; "for I do not
understand your words."

"Listen!" she went on, with the earnestness of desperation, "He shall
_love_ me--he or one who can sway him--and they shall play the laggards
here, until the winter gives us time--and time brings safety."

He understood her now, but still he shook his head.

"If you speak truth," he said slowly, "you speak foolishness as well.
Hannibal will love no mistress but Carthage, and there is no man living
who shall sway him by a hair's breadth. _Now_ I see why you spoke to
him of plots at Rome and of the wisdom of delay. Ah! a woman to make
game of _him_!" and he threw back his head and laughed. "Do you
imagine he has not divined your plot? Give him your beauty if you
will. He will take it, doubtless, if he have time, and march north
forthwith, after you have confessed your little plottings beneath the
hot tweezers. Only one thing shall stay him--steel,--and in the hands
of man--not blandishments in the mouth of a girl."

Marcia was in despair.

"And is there no help," she cried, "for me, a Roman woman, from you, a
friend of Rome? Surely we shall be stronger together, even if our
plots are different. Two plans are better than one."

Before he could frame his answer they heard footsteps coming toward
them, and then a man, enveloped in the brown cloak of a slave, pushed
aside the foliage and glided out into the moonlight. Perolla, wheeling
about, had half drawn his sword, while Marcia shrunk back into the
shadow.

"Put up your sword, my Perolla," said the newcomer, speaking in low
tones and throwing aside his mantle.

"Decius Magius, by all the gods!" cried the young man; "but why are you
disguised?"

"Because, my friend," said Magius, slowly "Capua is no longer free;
because spies of the Carthaginian and of our senate are watching my
house, making ready to seize me. Decius Magius can no longer walk in
his own city, clad in his own gown, and to-morrow, doubtless, he cannot
walk at all. Therefore I wish to speak with you, and I have put on
this disguise in order that I might gain your house unobserved, and
that your father might not die of fright, learning me to be here."

"But how did you enter? how find me?"

"I entered, my Perolla, because your porter, like every slave in Capua,
is drunk to-night, and because the boy whom he left to keep the gate
was only enough awake to mumble