found it hard to determine how much it would be best for him to
admit, and how much to deny. Finally, in answer to the interrogations
of the king, he acknowledged that he found the children and the ark in
which they had been drifted upon the shore, and that he had saved the
boys alive, and had brought them up as his children. He said, however,
that he did not know where they were. They had gone away, he alledged,
some years before, and were now living as shepherds in some distant
part of the country, he did not know exactly where.

Amulius then asked Faustulus what he had been intending to do with the
trough, which he was bringing so secretly into the city. Faustulus
said that he was going to carry it to Rhea in her prison, she having
often expressed a strong desire to see it, as a token or memorial
which would recall the dear babes that had lain in it very vividly to
her mind.

Amulius seemed satisfied that these statements were honest and true,
but they awakened in his mind a very great solicitude and anxiety. He
feared that the children, being still alive, might some day come to
the knowledge of their origin, and so disturb his possession of the
throne, and perhaps revenge, by some dreadful retaliation, the wrongs
and injuries which he had inflicted upon their mother and their
grandfather. The people, he feared, would be very much inclined to
take part with them, and not with him, in any contest which might
arise; for their sympathies were already on the side of Numitor. In a
word, he was greatly alarmed, and he was much at a loss to know what
to do, to avert the danger which was impending over him.

He concluded to send to Numitor and inquire of him whether he was
aware that the boys were still alive, and if so, if he knew where they
were to be found. He accordingly sent a messenger to his brother,
commissioned to make these inquiries. This messenger, though in the
service of Amulius, was really a friend to Numitor, and on being
admitted to Numitor's presence, when he went to make the inquiries as
directed by the king, he found Remus there,--though not, as he had
expected, in the attitude of a prisoner awaiting sentence from a
judge, but rather in that of a son in affectionate consultation with
his father. He soon learned the truth, and immediately expressed his
determination to espouse the cause of the prince. "The whole city will
be on your side," said he to Remus. "You have only to place yourself
at the head