ter it
has been with me as always heretofore--either no luck at all, or too
much. How often have I not passed a campaign without taking a prisoner,
while they fell in crowds to all around me? And when at last I gained my
share, when was it ever of any value to me, being hundreds of miles from
a market? And here it is the same again. For months, no slave at all;
and then all at once there are two, and I shall be,eaten out of my
house.'

'Two, father?'

'Listen to me. No sooner did your honored lord send me this dwarf, than
arrives Tisiphon of the twelfth cohort. He had long owed me a slave; and
now that a captive, poor and feeble, and likely to die, had fallen into
his hands, he thought it a fair opportunity to acquit himself toward me.
But for once Tisiphon has cheated himself. The slave he brought was weak
and sick, but it was only from want of food and rest. The fellow will
recover, and I will yet make much of him. Would you see him? Look out of
the back window there. He will turn out a fine slave yet, and, if this
dwarf had not come, would be right pleasing to me. But two of them! How
shall I find bread for both?'

AEnone walked to the window, and leaned out. The courtyard behind was but
limited in size, containing a few squares of burnt brick arranged for
pavement around a small plot of grass at the foot of a single plane
tree. The slave of whom the centurion spoke was seated upon this plot,
with his back against the tree, and his head bent over, while, with
vacant mind, he watched the play of a small green lizard. As she
appeared at the window, he raised his eyes toward her, then dropped them
again upon the ground. It was hardly, in fact, as much as could be
called a look--a mere glance, rather, a single tremor of the drooping
lid, a mute appeal for sympathy, as though there had been an inner
instinct which, at that instant, had directed him to her, as one who
could feel pity for his trouble and desolation. But at that glance,
joined to something strangely peculiar in the captive's figure and
attitude, a nervous thrill shot through AEnone's heart, causing her to
hold her breath in unreasoning apprehension; a fear of something which
she could not explain, a dim consciousness of some forgotten association
of the past arising to confront her, but which she could not for the
moment identify. And still she looked out, resisting the impulse of
dread which bade her move away, fixing a strained gaze upon the captive,
i