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, and in other places a perfect little meadow had grown in the midst of a hall, or an arcade; for Octavianus Augustus, Tiberius, Vespasian, Titus and a whole series of prefects, had already carefully removed the finest of the mosaics from the famous palace of the Ptolemies, and carried them to Rome or to the provinces, to decorate their town houses or country villas. In the same way the best of the statues were gone, with which a few centuries previously the art-loving Lagides had decorated this residence--besides which they had another, still larger, on the Bruchiom. In the midst of a vast marbled hall stood an elegantly-wrought fountain, connected with the fine aqueduct of the city. A draught of air rushed through this hall, and in stormy weather switched the water all over the floor, now robbed of its mosaics, and covered, wherever the foot could tread, with a thin, dark green, damp and slippery coating of mossy plants and slime. It was here that Keraunus leaned breathless against the wall, and, wiping his brow, panted rather than said: "At last, this is the end!" The words sounded as if he meant his own end and not that of their excursion through the palace, and it seemed like a mockery of the man himself when Pontius unhesitatingly replied with decision: "Good, then we can begin our re-examination here, at once." Keraunus did not contradict him, but, as he remembered the number of stairs to be climbed over again, he looked as if sentence of death had been passed upon him. "Is it necessary that I should remain with you during the rest of your labors, which must be principally directed to details?" asked the prefect of the architect. "No," answered Pontius, "provided you will take the trouble to look at once at my plan, so as to inform yourself on the whole of what I propose, and to give me full powers to dispose of men and means in each case as it arises." "That is granted," said Titianus. "I know that Pontius will not demand a man or a sesterce more or less than is needed for the purpose." The architect bowed in silence and Titianus went on. "But above all things, do you think you can accomplish your task in eight days and nine nights?" "Possibly, at a pinch; and if I could only have four days more at my disposal, most probably." "Then all that is needed is to delay Hadrian's arrival by four days and nights." "Send some interesting people--say the astronomer Ptolemaeus, and Favorinus, t
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