With his head scarcely lifted from the table, and with eyes that seemed half shut, he asked whence I had come and whither I was going. My voice, notwithstanding my attempt to disguise it, struck his acute ear. His native keenness was awake at once. He darted a fiery glance at me, and, striking his hand on the table, exclaimed: “By Hercules, it is the Jew!” My altered costume again perplexed him. “Yet,” said he in soliloquy, “that fellow went to Nero, and must have been executed. Ho! send in the tribune who took him.” [Sidenote: Salathiel the Plunderer] Catulus entered, and his account of me was, luckily, contemptuous in the extreme. I was “a notorious robber, who had stolen a handsome horse, perfectly worthy of the stud of the procurator.” I panted with the hope of escape, and was gradually moving to the door. “Stand, slave!” cried Florus, “I have my doubts of you still, and as the public safety admits of no mistake I have no alternative. Tribune, order in the lictors. He must be scourged into confession.” The lictors were summoned, and I was to be torn by Roman torturers. A tumult now arose outside, and a man rushed in with the lictors, exclaiming: “Justice, most mighty Florus! By the majesty of Rome, and the magnanimity of the most illustrious of governors, I call for justice against my plunderer, my undoer, the robber of the son of El Hakim, of his most precious treasure.” Florus recognized the clamorer as an old acquaintance, and desired him to state his complaint, and with as much brevity as possible. “Last night,” said the man, “I was the happy possessor of a mare, fleet as the ostrich and shapely as the face of beauty. I had intended her as a present for the most illustrious of procurators, the great Florus, whom the gods long preserve! In the hour of my rest, the spoiler came, noiseless as the fall of the turtle’s feather, cruel as the viper’s tooth. When I arose the mare was gone. I was in distraction. I tore my beard; I beat my head upon the ground; I cursed the robber wherever he went, to the sun-rising or the sun-setting, to the mountains or the valleys. But fortune sits on the banner of my lord the procurator, and I came for hope of his conquering feet. In passing through the camp, what did I see but my treasure, the delight of my eyes, the drier up of my tears! I have come to claim justice and the restoration of my mare, that I may have the happiness to present her to the most renowned of mankind.” [Sidenote: A Mare’s Wildness] I had been occupied with the thought whether I should burst through the lictors or rush on the procurator. But the length and loudness of this outcry engrossed every one. The orator was my friend the beggar! He pointed fiercely to me. If looks could kill, he would not have survived the look that I gave the traitor in return. “There,” said Florus, “is your plunderer. Sabat, have you ever seen him before?” The beggar strode insolently toward me.