to see her
daughter again--that was a thought which was so horrible that its very
horror seemed to render its realisation impossible.

But now the praefect, with that harsh, pitiless voice of his, was
actually ordering the girl to be sold in the usual way, with all her
merits exhibited to the likely purchaser: her golden hair--a perfect
glory--to tempt the artistic eye, her skill recounted in fulsomeness,
her cleverness with the needle, her knowledge of healing herbs.

The mother suddenly felt that every one in that cruel gaping crowd must
be pining to possess such a treasure, that the combined wealth of every
citizen of Rome would be lavished in this endeavour to obtain the great
prize. The praefect himself, mayhap, would bid for her, or the
imperator's agents!--alas! everything seemed possible to the anxious,
the ridiculous, the sublime heart of the doting mother, and when that
living mass of golden ripples glimmered in the noonday sun,
Menecreta--forgetting her timidity, her fears, her weakness--pushed her
way through the crowd with all the strength of her despair, and with a
cry of agonised entreaty, threw herself at the feet of the praefect of
Rome.

"My lord's grace, have mercy! have pity! I entreat thee! In the name of
the gods, of thy mother, of thy child if thou hast one, have pity on me!
have pity! have pity!"

The lictors had sprung forward in a moment and tried to seize the woman
who had dared to push her way to the praefect's closely guarded
presence, and was crouching there, her arms encircling his thighs, her
face pressed close against his knees. One of the men raised his flail
and brought it down with cruel strength on her thinly covered shoulders,
but she did not heed the blow, mayhap she never felt it.

"Who ordered thee to strike?" said Taurus Antinor sternly to the lictor
who already had the flail raised for the second time.

"The woman doth molest my lord's grace," protested the man.

"Have I said so?"

"No, my lord--but I thought to do my duty----"

"That thought will cost thee ten such lashes with the rods as thou didst
deal this woman. By Jupiter!" he added roughly, whilst for the first
time a look of ferocity as that of an angry beast lit up the
impassiveness of his deep-set eyes, "if this turmoil continues I'll
have every slave here flogged till he bleed. Is the business of the
State to be hindered by the howlings of this miserable rabble? Get thee
gone, woman," he cried finally, lo