Through the little barred window filtered the troubled light of a melancholy dusk. It was raining monotonously. A single clay wall, full of crevices, separated the room from the stable. The acrid odour of dung came though, and the clucking of hens, the shrill chirping of chickens, and the grunting of pigs was audible. There came also the steady noise of a liquid falling into a sonorous can, as if the good wife were milking her cow. The soldiers, discussing their winnings, were quarrelling among themselves in undertones. Close against the floor, through the frail lath and plaster, a hog had thrust his fat, pink snout. Caught in too narrow a slit, he could not draw out his muzzle and was groaning piteously. Publius mused-- "By Jupiter! we're nearer the courtyard of the cattle than the court of the Emperor!" His interest in the game had melted away. The tribune after his excess of confidence himself felt sad. Through the window he looked at the grey sky, dissolving itself into water, at the muzzle of the pig, the thick lees of wine in the tankards, the dirty soldiers. Anger mounted to his brain. He struck the table, which swayed on its uneven legs, with his fist. "Hi, rascality! betrayer of Christ, Syrax, come here! What wine do you call that, you scoundrel?" The innkeeper ran up. He wore hair and beard frizzled into fine ringlets, black as ebony, with bluish shadows. Fortunata used to say, in her hours of conjugal tenderness, that the beard of Syrax was like a bunch of the grapes of Samos. His eyes were also black and extraordinarily brilliant, and a honeyed smile never left his purple lips. He resembled a caricature of Bacchus, and was black and sugary from every point of view. To appease the wrath of Scuda, the innkeeper took to witness Moses and Deidamia, Christ and Hercules, that his wine was superexcellent. But the tribune was obstinate, declaring that he knew in whose house Glabrio, a rich merchant of Lyrnas, had recently been assassinated; and that he, Scuda, would denounce Syrax in the proper quarters. Terrified, the Armenian rushed to the cellars, and brought back thence in triumph a strange bulky bottle, flat at its base, narrow-necked, covered with mildew, and grey with age. Through the mouldiness in places the glass was visible, no longer transparent, but irised, and upon the label of cypress-wood attached to the neck of the bottle could be deciphered the initial letters of "_Anthosmium_" and below "_Annorum Centum_." But Syrax assured the couple that even in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian the wine had been more than a hundred years old. "Black wine?" asked Publius, with respect. "Black as tar, and sweet smelling as nectar. Ho! Fortunata! for this wine bring summer glasses, cups of crystal, and bring too the whitest snow from the ice-tub." Fortunata brought in two glasses. Her healthy face was of a dull pallor like thick cream, and with her came in the smell of country freshness, milk, and manure.