"Your talk is like a breath from the snow clad mountains," he said at last, "or a cup of cold water to a thirsty traveller. The word Romans never occurred in it, and yet it was in our tongue. You were brought up among us, as I heard. Tell me of that." Briefly Beric described his life at Camalodunum. "It is a strange mixture," Nero said; "the cultivated Roman and the wild Briton. I understand now better than I did before, your risking your life for the Christian girl in the arena. You did not love her?" "No, Caesar; we Britons do not think of marriage until we are at least five-and-twenty. We hold that young marriages deteriorate a race. Ennia was little more than a child, according to our notions. She was scarce sixteen, and when I saw her before, for a few days only, she was a year younger; but I think that I should have done the same had I never seen her before. We Britons, like the Gauls, hold women in high respect, and I think that few of my people would hesitate to risk their lives to save a helpless woman." "I think we are all for self here," Nero said; "but we can admire what we should not think of imitating. I like you, Beric, because you are so different from myself and from all around me. We are products of Rome, you of the forest; every man here sighs for power or wealth, or lives for pleasure--I as much as any. We suffer none to stand in our way, but trample down remorselessly all who hinder us. As to risking our lives for the sake of a woman, and that woman almost a stranger, such an idea would never so much as occur to us. This is not the only girl you have saved. I received a letter from Caius Muro some months ago, saying that the news had come to him in Syria that Beric, the young chief of the Iceni, who had so long withstood Suetonius, had been brought a prisoner to Rome, and he besought me, should Beric still be alive, to show favour to him, as he had saved his little daughter, when all others had been slain, at the sack of Camalodunum, and that he had hidden her away until after the defeat of Boadicea, and had then sent her safe and unharmed back to the Romans. The matter escaped my mind till now, though, in truth, I bade my secretary write to him to say that I would befriend you. But it is strange that, having so much life and spirit in that great body of yours, you should yet hold life so cheaply. It was the way with our forefathers, but it is not so now, perhaps because our life is more pleasant than theirs was. Tell me, has Phaon done all to make you comfortable? Is there aught else that you would wish? if so, speak freely."