issue, crisp as parchment. It
was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the
army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was
marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible
to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower
of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of
the adventure.

The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered
them into the Senaculum.

The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the
majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into
Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those
Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their
snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their
ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam
from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust
would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.

They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of
senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs
the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice.
Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the
cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor
meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade
surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens
who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was
broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the
twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device
of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier
before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of
incense.

The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of
the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.

Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.

They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Actaeon, moved by the
supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind
impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion
produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.

He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to
avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in t