ongs to the palace, and whoever dares
touch it, I will break his bones."

As he spoke Keraunus stood up, his huge chest panting, his cheeks and
forehead dyed purple, and his fist, which he held in the dealer's face,
was trembling. Gabinius drew back startled, and said:

"Then you will not have the twelve talents!"

"I will--I will!" gasped Keraunus, "I will show you how I beat those
who take me for a rogue. Out of my sight, villain, and let me hear not
another word about the picture, and the robbery in the dark, or I will
send the prefect's lictors after you and have you thrown into irons, you
rascally thief!"

Gabinius hurried to the door, but he there turned round once more to
the groaning and gasping colossus, and cried out, as he stood on the
threshold:

"Keep your rubbish! we shall have more to say to each other yet."

When Selene and Arsinoe returned to the sitting-room they found their
father breathing hard and sitting on the couch, with his head drooping
forward. Much alarmed, they went close up to him, but he exclaimed quite
coherently:

"Water--a drink of water!--the thief!--the scoundrel!"

Though hardly pressed, it had not cost him a struggle or a pang to
refuse what would have placed him and his children in a position of
ease; and yet he would not have hesitated to borrow it, aye, or twice
the sum, from rich or poor, though he knew full certainly that he would
never be in a position to restore it. Nor was he even proud of what he
had done; it seemed to him quite natural in a Macedonian noble. It
was to him altogether out of the pale of possibility that he should
entertain the dealer's proposition for an instant.

But where was he to get the money for Arsinoe's outfit? how could he
keep the promise given at the meeting?

He lay meditating on the divan for an hour; then he took a wax tablet
out of a chest and began to write a letter on it to the prefect. He
intended to offer the precious mosaic picture which had been discovered
in his abode, to Titianus for the Emperor, but he did not bring his
composition to an end, for he became involved in high-flown phrases. At
last he doubted whether it would do at all, flung the unfinished letter
back into the chest, and disposed himself to sleep.

CHAPTER X.

While anxiety and trouble were brooding over the steward's dwelling,
while dismay and disappointment were clouding the souls of its
inhabitants, the hall of the Muses was merry with feasting a