hero held an infant in his arms--assuredly his own--while a
girl and boy clung to him, gazing up in his face with wondering black
eyes; and another child, of about three, paying no heed to the others,
was crowing as it splashed through a puddle with its little bare feet.
Two women, one young and one elderly, the man's mother and his wife, no
doubt, seemed to hang on his lips as he recounted perhaps some deed of
valor.

The tuba sounded to arms. He kissed the infant, and carefully laid it on
its mother's bosom; then he took up the boy and the girl, laughingly
caught the little one, and pressed his bearded lips to each rosy mouth in
turn. Last of all he clasped the young wife to his breast, gently stroked
her hair, and whispered something in her ear at which she smiled up at
him through her tears and then blushingly looked down. His mother patted
him fondly on the shoulder, and, as they parted, he kissed her too on her
wrinkled brow.

Caracalla had remarked this centurion once before; his name was
Martialis, and he was a simple, commonplace, but well-conducted creature,
who had often distinguished himself by his contempt for death. The
imperial visit to Alexandria had meant for him a return home and the
greatest joy in life. How many arms had opened to receive the common
soldier; how many hearts had beat high at his coming! Not a day, it was
certain, had passed since his arrival without prayers going up to Heaven
for his preservation, from his mother, his wife, and his children. And
he, the ruler of the world, had thought it impossible that one, even one
of his millions of subjects, should have prayed for him. Who awaited him
with a longing heart? Where was his home?

He had first seen the light in Gaul. His father was an African; his
mother was born in Syria. The palace at Rome, his residence, he did not
care to remember. He traveled about the empire, leaving as wide a space
as possible between himself and that house of doom, from which he could
never wipe out the stain of his brother's blood.

And his mother? She feared--perhaps she hated him--her first-born son,
since he had killed her younger darling. What did she care for him, so
long as she had her philosophers to argue with, who knew how to ply her
with delicate flattery?

Then Plautilla, his wife? His father had compelled him to marry her, the
richest heiress in the world, whose dowry had been larger than the
collected treasure of a dozen queens; and as he t