who was lodging in the rooms in the wing near the fountain. This was the
elegant thing to do, and by this means the black slave would meet the big
dog before his master who held him and all dogs in the utmost abhorrence.
As he approached his destination he found himself quite in the humor to
speak his mind to the stranger who had come here with a ferocious hound
to tear the members of his family.

CHAPTER XIV.

Hadrian had slept most comfortably; only a few hours it is true, but they
had sufficed to refresh his spirit. He was now in his sitting-room and
had gone to the window, which took up more than half the extent of the
long west wall of the room, and opened on the sea. The wide opening,
which extended downwards to within a few spans of the floor, was finished
at either side by a tall pillar of fine reddish-brown porphyry, flecked
with white, and crowned with gilt Corinthian capitals.

Against one of these the Emperor was leaning stroking the blood-hound,
whose prompt and vigorous watchfulness had pleased him greatly. What did
he care for the terrors the dog might have caused a mere girl?

By the other pillar stood Antinous; he had placed his right foot on the
low window-sill, and with his chin resting on his hand and his elbow on
his knee, his figure was well within the room.

"This, Pontius, is really a first-rate man," said Hadrian, pointing to a
tapestry hanging across the narrow end of the room. "This hanging was
copied from a fruit-piece that I painted some time since, and had
executed here in mosaic. Yesterday this room was not even intended for my
use, thus the hanging must have been put up between our arrival and this
morning. And how many other beautiful things I see around me! The whole
place looks habitable, and the eye finds an abundance of objects on which
it can rest with pleasure."

"Have you examined that magnificent cushion?" asked Antinous; "and the
bronze figures, there in the corner, look to me far from bad."

"They are admirable works," said Hadrian. "Still, I would do without them
with pleasure rather than miss this window. Which is the bluer, the sky
or the sea? And what a delicious spring breeze fans us here, in the
middle of December. Which are the more delightful to contemplate, the
innumerable ships in the harbor, which communicate between this flowery
land and other countries, and bless it with wealth, or the buildings
which attract the eye in whichever direction it turns. I