"What does the Prefect want?"--"What can he want? we have nothing left but our lives."--"And those he will--" "Do you know that the day before yesterday the coast town Centumcellæ surrendered to the Goths?"--"Yes; the citizens overpowered the Prefect's Isaurians and opened the gates."--"Would that we could follow their example!"--"We must do it soon, or it will be too late."--"Yesterday my brother fell down dead, some boiled nettles still in his mouth. He was too weak to swallow the mess."---"Yesterday in the Forum Boarium a mouse was sold for its weight in gold!"--"For a week I got roasted meat from a butcher--he would not sell the flesh raw."--"You were lucky! They storm all houses where they smell roast meat!"--"But the day before yesterday he was torn to pieces by the mob, for he had enticed beggar-children into his house--and that was the flesh he had sold us!"--"But do you know what the Gothic King does with his prisoners? He treats them as a father treats his helpless children; and most of them enter his army at once."--"Yes, and those who will not he provides with money for the journey."--"Yes, and with clothes and shoes and provisions. The sick and wounded are nursed."--"And he gives them guides to the coast towns."--"And sometimes he even pays for their passage in merchant-ships to the East."--"Look, the Prefect dismounts!" "He looks like Pluto!" "He is no longer Princeps Senatus, but Princeps Inferorum." "Look at his eyes! As cold as ice, and yet like red-hot arrows." "Yes, my godmother is right; she says that only those who have no heart can look like that." "That is an old tale. Spectres and Lemures have eaten his heart in the night." "Ah, bah! There are no Lemures. But there is a devil, for it says so in the Bible. And the Prefect has sold himself to the devil. The Numidian who is holding his black horse by the bridle is an imp from hell, who always accompanies him. Nothing can hurt the Prefect. He feels neither hunger nor thirst nor the want of sleep. But he can never smile, for he has sold his soul!" "How do you know?" "The deacon of St. Paul's has explained it all. And it is a sin to serve such a man any longer. Did he not betray our Bishop, Silverius, to the Emperor, and send him over the sea in chains?" "And lately he accused sixty priests, Orthodox and Arian, of treason, and banished them from the city." "That is true!" "And he must have promised the devil that he would torment the Romans." "But we will endure it no longer. We are free! He himself has often told us so. I will ask him by what right----" But the bold speaker stopped short, for the Prefect glanced at the murmuring group as he mounted the rostrum.