The countenance of the evidently important personage whose dress has been stated was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the contrast between such an expression and the indolent indifference or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so say, of the physiognomy. There was something sinister and cruel about the mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully-trimmed moustache. After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion, (_dux legionis_,) an officer whose sword, like that of the legatus, was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made of vine-wood. In an instant this officer turned his horse's head and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he addressed Paulus thus: "Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here?" "Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, wondering why such a question was asked. "And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway?" the centurion then inquired. "Not since we came," said Paulus. The officer thanked him and trotted back. Meanwhile, Paulus and his mother and the freedman Philip had not been so absorbed in watching the occurrence and scene just described as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their dearly-loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded by some monarch, or rather some magician, on purpose to snatch her from the possibility of dwelling longer amidst the gloom, the regrets, and the terrors under which she had appeared to be sinking, neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening when it occurred, nor the loveliness of the landscape which formed its theatre, could have been more opportunely combined. She had not only never beheld any thing so magnificent, but her curiosity was violently aroused. Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freedman a glance of intelligence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour ago so alarmingly ill, contemplated the drama at which she was accidentally assisting. "_That's a rare doctor_," whispered Philip, pointing to the general of the Prætorian Guards. "No doctor," replied Paulus in the same low tones, "could have prescribed for our darling better."