Amid the prayers and blessings of the wedding-guests, they went out hand in hand, the two slaves with leather water-buckets behind them, Barbo ahead, bellowing: “Room for Brinnaria Epulonia! Room for Brinnaria Epulonia!” At the street corner, before they started down the slope of the Carinae, they had before them a wide view over the city directly towards the Capitol. Between them and the Capitol Hill they could see the buildings about the Great Forum all one sea of flames. “The Basilica AEmilia is on fire,” said Brinnaria, “and the Temple of Augustus is just catching. We shall be in time; our Temple won’t catch before we get there. “Run, let’s run.” Run they did, the crowds making way at Barbo’s loud adjurations. In their wedding finery, she with her veil wrapped round her head like a market-woman’s shawl, they ran, hand in hand between the great Temple of Venus and Rome, black on their right hand against the reddened clouds, and the vast Colosseum on their left, all orange in the glare, the gilding on its awning poles glimmering. Up the Sacred Street they passed, running when they could, ploughing through the crowds when the crowd was too thick. By the time they passed through the Arch of Titus they were running, panting and gasping, through a hail of warm ashes, hot cinders, glowing embers, blazing bits of wood, flaming brands. At the corner of the Pearl-Dealers Exchange Almo halted, detaining her by her gripped left hand. “It is no use,” he said; “we are too late. You might pass the portal of the Atrium alive, but you’d never get back alive. And I doubt if you could reach the portal through this heat. You’d scorch to death.” “I shall reach the portal,” Brinnaria declared, firmly. “But I’m not coming back through it. Listen to me and don’t forget. I’m going to make a dash for the portal. I can reach it, our Temple has not caught yet, the bronze-tile roof will hold the fire off the beams some time. This end of the Temple of Augustus has not blazed yet; I can see the cornice. “Once inside the Atrium I’ll not try to come back this way, I’ll find the Palladium or make sure it is not there; then I’ll run upstairs to the south-east corner. Those rooms are on a level with the pavement of the New Street.” “But,” Almo interrupted, “there isn’t an opening towards the New Street. The outer wall of the Atrium towards the Palace is all blank wall to the cornice, not even a ventilation hole anywhere.”