“I’ll leave you to press the claim yourself,” Valens said, in an offended voice. Then in a loud stentorian tone he told off half-a-dozen of his men, and ordered them to remain under the authority of the young Claudius until he returned on the following day, and brought back orders as to the fate of the prisoners who were confined in the dungeon. And then Valens, followed by his troop, rode off towards Verulam. CHAPTER V. CLAUDIUS FULFILS HIS VOW. Claudius was no more inclined to the Christian faith than he had been when we last saw him in the room of Casca, the son of Severus. But he felt himself pledged to perform his vow, sworn by the gods, that if ever it were in his power he would save Ebba, the British slave, so well beloved by Hyacintha, the daughter of the noble Severus. Since she and her brother had left Verulam, in the sunny days of July, for that distant Rome, which was then, to all intents and purposes, as far from Verulam as San Francisco or Lima would be from the St. Albans of to-day, Claudius had felt a terrible blank in his life. Games and athletic sports, feats of arms, and dashing military exercises, were much to him, but till he had lost Casca he did not know how his life had been bound up in him. Those pleasant talks in the twilight with Casca, who had read much, and was of a studious rather than a warlike nature, were all over. Claudius had felt the fascination of Casca’s conversation, although he professed to despise all those aspirations and longings which were in the boy’s heart, and welled up like an irrepressible spring, which could not be stopped in its overflow. With Casca and his young sister’s departure all the gentler elements had died out of Claudius’s life, and he had thrown himself more eagerly into any amusements, or any occupation which could drown reflection, living only in the present, and persuading himself that the present was enough. His old father had filled a post of honour under Carausius, who had held Britain as an independent province for ten years. Then Carausius was assassinated by Allectus, who had at first asserted himself, and held the command with but few Roman soldiers, and a large army of the northern tribes, who are now known to be the Caledonians. When at last the whole province was united under the Imperial sway of Diocletian, old Caradon lived on in gloomy subjection to Roman authority, asking no public office, and allowing his two children, left to him by his Italian wife, to follow their own devices. He found them harder to control than any of the savage tribes over whom, during the temporary rule of Carausius, he had held authority; and the evening of his days was spent in a state of inaction and regret for the times which were past.