ot above accepting double pay and letting me
into the secret, too. Besides that crafty old vulture Furca was closeted
with the Prefect for an hour by the clepshydra, and you always smell
carrion when he is hovering round."

"What is it all about?" asked Rufus. "I am sure Valeria is as much
beloved by the people as the old termagant Fausta is hated."

"There's the rub--a bit of spiteful jealousy," answered Calphurnius.
"But when that old basilisk hates, she will find a way to sting."

"But what have I to do with the quarrels of the palace?" asked Isidorus,
a little anxiously, for he knew not how far he might be compromised by
the commission he had executed, of which he had felt not a little proud.

"You know best yourself," answered Calphurnius with a laugh. "If you
have done a service to Valeria or the Christians, you have made an enemy
of Fausta and the Pagans."

"Is this what you spoke of last night, and promised to explain to-day?"
asked the Greek.

"Yes, I suppose so. I have no very distinct recollection of what I said.
I had been supping with Rufus here, and some other roystering blades,
and the Folernian was uncommonly good. Come, _amicus meus_," he went on
turning to Ligurius, "don't you want revenge for those sesterces you
lost last night?"

"I don't mind if I do punish you a little," yawned the young soldier.
"It will kill the time for awhile, at all events."

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XVI

THE GAMING TABLE.

Gaming was a perfect passion among the Romans, and indeed among most
ancient nations. Dice of bone and ivory, like those in use to-day, have
been found in the tombs of Thebes and Luxor. [AE]schylus and Sophocles
describe their use four hundred years before Christ, and in an ancient
Greek picture now before us, a female figure is shown tossing _tali_, or
gaming cubes, and catching them on the back of her hand, as children now
play "Jacks." Soldiers from the enforced idleness of much of their time
and the intense excitement of the rest of it, have in every age been
addicted to gambling to beguile the _ennui_ of their too ample
leisure--from those of Alexander down to the raw recruits of to-day. Our
friend, Ligurius Rufus, had undergone frequent experience of the pains
and pleasures of this siren vice; but was eager to return to its
embrace. Such vast estates had been squandered, and great families
impoverished, and large fortunes often staked upon a single throw of the
dice--beyond anythi