versity still held. On the way he met a Saxon slave,
Wardo, a fair-haired, blue-eyed fellow, hurrying toward the atrium with
a pierced copper bowl packed with snow for cooling wines. Him Nicanor
stopped with a question.

"Hast seen these strangers, Wardo? Whence come they, and who have been
bidden to meet them?"

"They and our lord sup alone," Wardo answered. He shifted his bowl from
hand to hand, and blew on his fingers as though it burned instead of
freezing him. "The dancing girls have been commanded, and wine is to be
brought. Much hath been brought already. And Nicanor, hark 'ee! Egon,
who pours the wines, saith that the talk is strange talk for feasting.
They urge that our lord go back with them to Rome--wherefore, think you?
They speak of Rome, and Londinium, and the legions from Gaul, and of
losses of ships and money, until one's head rings. What might it be
about? Think you that we go to Rome? I should like to go to Rome, if it
be anything like Londinium--"

"We go to Rome?" Nicanor repeated. "Say rather that we should be left
here to die like chained rats that the trainer hath forgotten."

He went off; and watched his chance and slipped away outside, and
stopped before the little garden door. He put his hand upon it, drew
back, and glanced over his shoulder as though for possible pursuit. His
face held a curious mixture of doubt and boldness, hesitancy and desire.
Only a moment he paused; then opened the door with a silent key, slipped
inside so that the vines scarcely rustled, and closed it without noise.

No one was in the garden. His eagerness took fire at the delay; lithe
and silent as a mountain cat he crossed the open space of lawn, mounted
the steps of the terrace, and gained the windows, whence came no light
from the tall silver lamps within. And here he discovered that the
windows were closed. With all his boldness he dared venture no further.
Baffled, yet keener set in his determination for being thwarted, he drew
back into the shadows and waited.

From where he stood by the marble bench no sound came to him save the
chirring of insects in the grass, the squeak of a bat or twitter of a
sleepy bird. One might never have thought the place to be in the heart
of a house whose inmates numbered five hundred souls and more, so still
it was, so seemingly remote from all human noise and tumult. The
combined effects of the silence and the perfume of the many
night-blooming plants made him drowsy; also hi