“Then why did you not rush on him with your sword, and despatch him at once? But where _is_ your sword? it is not in your scabbard.” The Dacian, with a stupid grin, pointed to the roof of the neighboring basilica, and said: “There, don’t you see it shining on the tiles, in the morning light?” Corvinus looked, and there indeed he saw what appeared like such an object, but he could hardly believe his own eyes. “How did it get there, you stupid booby?” he asked. The soldier twisted his moustache in an ominous way, which made Corvinus ask again more civilly, and then he was answered: “He, or it, whatever it was, without any apparent effort, by a sort of conjuring, whisked it out of my hand, and up where you see it, as easily as I could cast a quoit a dozen yards.” “And then?” “And then, he and the boy, who came from round the pillar, walked off in the dark.” “What a strange story!” muttered Corvinus to himself; “yet there are proofs of the fellow’s tale. It is not every one who could have performed that feat. But pray, sirrah, why did you not give the alarm, and rouse the other guards to pursuit?” “First, Master Kornweiner, because, in my country, we will fight any living men, but we do not choose to pursue hobgoblins. And, secondly, what was the use? I saw the board that you gave into my care all safe and sound.” “Stupid barbarian!” growled Corvinus, but well within his teeth; then added: “This business will go hard with you; you know it is a capital offence.” “What is?” “Why, to let a man come up and speak to you, without giving the watchword.” “Gently, captain; who says he did not give it? I never said so.” “But did he, though? Then it could be no Christian.” “Oh yes, he came up, and said quite plainly, ‘_Nomen Imperatorum_.’”[143] “What?” roared out Corvinus. “_Nomen Imperatorum._” “‘_Numen Imperatorum_’ was the watchword,” shrieked the enraged Roman. “_Nomen_ or _Numen_, it’s all the same, I suppose. A letter can’t make any difference. You call me Arminius, and I call myself Hermann, and they mean the same. How should _I_ know your nice points of language?” Corvinus was enraged at himself; for he saw how much better he would have gained his ends, by putting a sharp, intelligent prætorian on duty, instead of a sottish, savage foreigner. “Well,” he said, in the worst of humors, “you will have to answer to the emperor for all this; and you know he is not accustomed to pass over offences.” “Look you now, Herr Krummbeiner,” returned the soldier, with a look of sly stolidity; “as to that, we are pretty well in the same boat.” (Corvinus turned pale, for he knew this was true.) “And you must contrive something to save me, if you want to save yourself. It was you the emperor made responsible, for the what-d’ye-call-it?--that board.”