“Well, father; I want to become possessed of that slave at any price, and I ask you whether, in the event of his being captured, it would not be possible to mitigate the rigor of the law....” “You astound me! For a mere whim you would endanger the state, cut a trench in the dyke which alone is able to protect us against the flood of rebellion? And you ask me--ME--to be your accomplice in such a proceeding? I admit, that Stephanus is brutal and tyrannical, nay--from my point of view--criminal. But then, are there not laws to protect slaves against such barbarities?” “Laws, yes--” cried Quintus bitterly “but they do not exist as against the rich and powerful.” “Every earthly thing is of its nature imperfect. If Stephanus defies the law, that does not justify us in leaving the crime of Eurymachus unpunished. I lament deeply, that my own son should so utterly misunderstand the first and highest principles of my views of life. Go, my dear Quintus, and for the future consider twice, before you trouble your father with such follies. Eurymachus must die by the hand of the executioner, though you should pledge half your estates to buy him. Go, my son, and do not altogether forget that you are a Roman.” Thus speaking, Titus Claudius sat down again to his desk. Quintus stood for a moment as if in absence of mind; then he slowly went towards the door. “Farewell, father,” he said, as he left the room. His voice was sad, almost gloomy, as though they were parting for a long, sad interval. Titus Claudius, struck by the strangeness of his tone, raised his head in astonishment and gazed, like a man waking from a painful dream, at the door through which Quintus had departed; a vague presentiment fell on his spirit. “I was too hard,” he said to himself. “His error springs from a noble source--from pity. I ought to have said a kind word to him before he went away,” and he hastily rose from his seat. “Quintus, Quintus!” he called out into the hall. “Skopas, Athanasius, did you see my son?” The slaves flew into the vestibule, but Quintus had long since disappeared in the bustle of the street. The Flamen returned to his sitting-room, oppressed with melancholy foreboding. “I will tell him the very next time I see him.--He has the best and truest heart that ever beat, and the noblest souls are easiest wounded.--However, away with such thoughts now, and to work once more.” Titus Claudius sat down again and bent over his table and, as he sat there, he might have been taken for a poet in the act of composition, for his fine face glowed with eager inspiration. But the words he wrote were not those which enchant the populace, but the eloquent flow of a mighty impeachment; what he was forging were not lines and verses, but terrific weapons against what he believed to be the most threatening foe of the Roman Empire; against Christianity.[298] FOOTNOTES: