stum of which the poets of
ancient Rome had sung. She even recited some Latin verses, translating
them to her hearers so as to make them understand that the rose bushes
of this land used to bloom twice a year. Freya smoothed out her brow
and began to smile again. She forgot her recent ill humor and expressed
a great longing for one of the marvelous rose bushes: and at this
caprice of childish vehemence, Ferragut spoke to the custodian with
authority. He had to have at once a rose bush from Paestum, cost what
it might.

The old fellow made a bored gesture. Everybody asked the same thing,
and he who belonged to that country had never seen a rose of
Paestum.... Sometimes, just in order to satisfy the whim of tourists,
he would bring rose bushes from Capaccio Vecchio and other mountain
villages,--rose bushes just like others with no difference except in
price.... But he didn't wish to take advantage of anybody. He was sad
and greatly troubled over the possibility of war.

"I have eight sons," he said to the doctor, because she seemed to be
the most suitable one to receive his confidences. "If they mobilize the
army, six of them will leave me."

And he added with resignation:

"That's the way it ought to be if we would end forever, in one blow,
our eternal enmity with the Goth. My sons will battle against them,
just as my father fought."

The doctor stalked haughtily away, and then said in a low voice to her
companions that the old guard was an imbecile.

They wandered for two hours through the ancient district of the
city,--exploring the network of its streets, the ruins of the
amphitheater and the _Porta Aurea_ which opened upon a road flanked
with tombs. By the _Porta di Mare_ they climbed to the walls, ramparts
of great limestone blocks, extending a distance of five kilometers. The
sea, which from the lowlands had looked like a narrow blue band, now
appeared immense and luminous,--a solitary sea with a feather-like
crest of smoke, without a sail, given completely over to the sea-gulls.

The doctor walked stiffly ahead of them, still ill-humored about the
guide's remark and consulting the pages of her guide book. Behind her
Ulysses came close up to Freya, recalling their former contact.

He thought that it would be an easy matter now to get possession of
this capricious and free-mannered woman. "Sure thing, Captain!" The
rapid triumphs that he had always had in his journeys assured him that
there was not the sli