“When you could not look the wind in the eye, my Lord Julius, the Prophet bade you be of good cheer and thanked his strange Judean God, whom he called Christus, that he was reaching Rome.” “By Jupiter, child,” cried the guard, with a crash of his sword on the stone bench, “you have spoken truth! What next? Be careful how you answer—your life hangs on it if you are slave! It is death to harbor a runaway in Roman law—” “I know not what next, my Lord Julius; for Publius, the Governor of Malta, took all your shipwrecked crew in, and you tarried to come by the _Castor and Pollux_ on to Neapolis (Naples) while I took secret passage on a fishing vessel and reached Rome first.” The Idumean then knew the youth spoke truth; but not all the truth—what more? Here was a lad of noble birth and clad in a page’s garments, caught and held and hounded by the harpies of the wine shops amid the rascal loafers of the underworld—lost in the gutters of Rome for two full years. Whose son was he and why was he here? The old guard’s manner changed. Could he find the boy’s parents there might be money in it—honest money—not the kidnapper’s ransom for which the knavish criminals of the Three Taverns had tried to steal him; but the old soldier knew he must proceed cautiously. No gain to frighten a startled bird that had fallen in your hand; a gift of gold from the gods. Good money from a good father somewhere back in Grecian Asia could he but win the lad’s trust and get his story true, and save some royal youth from those sharp-taloned hawks of the wine shops. He bade the little stranger sit down on the bench. “The wine in the tankard there I drained; but here’s bread and cheese—eat! How does that compare with the bread and cheese of your Lebanon herds?” The lad ate ravenously. The guard went inside the hut and brought out fresh wine. “The cheese is not so white as our goat curds; but the bread is like pearls after Rome’s slave fare.” The old Idumean pricked up his ears. “Slave fare!” Then the boy had been held by some one in Rome. The guard’s caution redoubled, to which he added courtesy. The spring frogs piped from the marshes. Last snatches of bird notes came from the oleander and acacia groves in front of the villas on the far side of the canal. A cooling breeze came down from the hills where the festive bonfires now winked a flamy eye. Only a few barges glided down the waters of the canal. The traffic of the paved road had quieted to an occasional soldier-tread echoing iron on the stones, or the barefoot patter of a hurrying furtive slave, or the loud laughter of lewd women, and louder disputes of the bargemen in the lodging houses. “What brought you here?” quietly asked the guard. “To see the sights of Rome—” “And I’ll warrant you’ve seen enough of them. Have you seen the gladiators?”