bour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest."--ST. MATTHEW XI. 28.

A timid voice roused Taurus Antinor from his dream:

"My gracious lord, thy litter is here!"

He started as a man suddenly wakened from sleep, and once or twice his
eyes closed and opened again ere they rested finally on the broad back
bent in a curve before him.

"Methought my gracious lord was waiting," continued the speaker in the
same timid voice, "and mayhap did not see the litter among the shadows."

"I fear me I was dreaming, my good Folces," said the praefect with a
sigh, "for truly I did know that thou wast here. Is the girl Nola with
thee?"

"Aye, gracious lord. She waits on thy pleasure, and thy bearers----"

"Nay, did I not tell thee that I would have no bearers?"

"The way is long, gracious lord----"

"I told thee that I would walk."

"But my lord----"

"Silence now," he said with some of his habitual impatience; "send my
litter and bearers home; bring me the mantle I required, and do thou and
Nola follow me."

Reluctantly the old man obeyed.

"My gracious lord will be footsore--the way is long and ill-paved----"
he muttered, half audibly, even as he made his way to the rear of the
bosquet of lilies where a group of slaves stood waiting desultorily.

Anon he returned carrying a mantle of dark woollen stuff, and Taurus
Antinor, having wrapped himself in this, slowly turned to walk down the
hill.

Leaving the imperial palaces behind him, he went rapidly along the
silent and deserted street. It wound its tortuous way at first on the
crest of the hill, skirting the majestic temple of Magna Mater with its
elevated portico and noble steps that lost themselves in the shadows of
labyrinthine colonnades.

The street itself--narrow and unpaved--was in places rendered almost
impassable by the piles of constructor's materials and rubbish that
encumbered it at every step--debris or future requisites of the gigantic
and numberless building operations which the mad Emperor pursued with
that feverish energy and maniacal restlessness that characterised his
every action. Palaces here and temples there, a bridge over the Forum, a
new circus, new baths, the constant pulling down of one edifice to make
room for the construction of another: all this work--commenced and still
unfinished--had changed the whole aspect of the great city, turning it
into a wilderness of enormous beams and huge blocks of uncut marble and
stone that litter