But Ausonius tore his gray locks, wailing: "Alas! alas! I know them well. I gave them myself, both vials, to my dear sister, his mother. Alas, my own sister's son! To murder me! For miserable money! I had left it all to him. Only I should have been glad to live a few years longer." Weeping aloud, he covered his face. Bissula, kneeling before him, stroked his hands compassionately. "No doubt is possible," said Saturninus, "even without the confession made by his fury." "Oh! The son of my dearest sister, my Melania!" moaned the Prefect. "I had long suspected him," the Tribune said. "But the scoundrel did not desire to murder you alone; he wanted to kill this child too, to whom all are attached." "What? What?" cried Ausonius. Bissula also started. "That is why he hastened in advance of us all, alone, to her dwelling, on her track. He had raised his sword for a deadly blow when I caught his arm." "What? Horrible!" cried Ausonius. "Yes, that is true; but," the girl went on kindly and truthfully, "but then he had not yet recognized me as his uncle's friend." "Yes, yes," groaned the Prefect. "He told me himself that a red hair had put him on your track. How often I had described you to him! And, as soon as he saw you he recognized you instantly. He wanted to bring you to me; and he--" "And yesterday night," Rignomer put in wrathfully, "he stole into her tent with an unsheathed dagger. Unfortunately one who should have guarded it was sleeping, but the she-bear was awake, and"--he swiftly spread the full mantle open--"she tore out a piece here as he fled." "_This_ piece," said Saturninus, drawing it from his girdle and laying it on the fresh patch; "you see it fits exactly." "The Furies' curse on you all!" screamed Herculanus. "Away with them both!" the Tribune commanded. "Prosper, two of your slave-blocks! It won't do to leave them guarded in an open tent. That is always unsafe and requires the constant presence of trustworthy men, whom we cannot spare. Rignomer, you will lock them in--both feet--apart from each other. Your life will answer for it if they escape on the way." "They shall not," growled the Batavian, who had been inexpressibly enraged by the fling at his love for Bissula, though he did not know why. "Forward!" Led by Rignomer, the four guards and Prosper thrust the prisoners out of the tent. CHAPTER XLIV. The curtains had scarcely dropped behind them when Ausonius exclaimed: "He must not die! My Melania's son! He must fly into exile!" "The Emperor will decide. But you, friend Ausonius, praise Heaven, which sent you this child. You owe your life solely to her."