whispered:

"Thou wilt not betray, Acte, wilt thou?"

"By the shade of my mother," answered the freedwoman, "I will not; but
pray to thy God that Ursus be able to bear thee away."

The blue, childlike eyes of the giant were gleaming with happiness. He
had not been able to frame any plan, though he had been breaking his
poor head; but a thing like this he could do,--and whether in the day or
in the night it was all one to him! He would go to the bishop, for the
bishop can read in the sky what is needed and what is not. Besides,
he could assemble Christians himself. Are his acquaintances few among
slaves, gladiators, and free people, both in the Subura and beyond the
bridges? He can collect a couple of thousand of them. He will rescue his
lady, and take her outside the city, and he can go with her. They will
go to the end of the world, even to that place from which they had come,
where no one has heard of Rome.

Here he began to look forward, as if to see things in the future and
very distant.

"To the forest? Ai, what a forest, what a forest!"

But after a while he shook himself out of his visions. Well, he will go
to the bishop at once, and in the evening will wait with something like
a hundred men for the litter. And let not slaves, but even pretorians,
take her from him! Better for any man not to come under his fist, even
though in iron armor,--for is iron so strong? When he strikes iron
earnestly, the head underneath will not survive.

But Lygia raised her finger with great and also childlike seriousness.

"Ursus, do not kill," said she.

Ursus put his fist, which was like a maul, to the back of his head, and,
rubbing his neck with great seriousness, began to mutter. But he must
rescue "his light." She herself had said that his turn had come. He will
try all he can. But if something happens in spite of him? In every case
he must save her. But should anything happen, he will repent, and so
entreat the Innocent Lamb that the Crucified Lamb will have mercy on
him, poor fellow. He has no wish to offend the Lamb; but then his hands
are so heavy.

Great tenderness was expressed on his face; but wishing to hide it, he
bowed and said,--"Now I will go to the holy bishop."

Acte put her arms around Lygia's neck, and began to weep. Once more the
freedwoman understood that there was a world in which greater happiness
existed, even in suffering, than in all the excesses and luxury of
Caesar's house. Once more a kind