military service against his will;
whereupon, some of those who heard looked serious, for this seemed
reasonable, and brought the possibility of evil unpleasantly home to
them. Finally, he congratulated them upon this marvellous, new-found
freedom which the Carthaginian alliance had brought, and which they had
been celebrating so earnestly.

Perolla and his companions had found themselves crushed against the
portico of the temple of Hercules, in which, only the day before, had
been established, also, the worship of the Tyrian Melkarth, out of
compliment to the new alliance.

At first they had realized but little of what was going on before and
around them. They had listened vacantly to crazy rumours of how the
statue of Jupiter in the Senate House had bowed to Hannibal as he
entered, and how the Senate had forthwith saluted him as a god and
declared him the patron and protector of the city; and, again, to other
rumours even more wild of how the wives of all the Capuans had been
decreed to be given to the Carthaginians, in return for which the women
of Rome were to be surrendered to the Capuans by their victorious
allies.

When Decius Magius was led out in custody of the soldiers, Perolla was
trying to think whether, after all, he would not prefer Marcia to
Cluvia. Then followed the passage through the crowded Forum, straight
toward the exit beside the temple of Hercules, and Perolla found
himself within a spear's length of his captive friend, whose words of
protest and warning fell upon his ears like molten lead, and whose
reproachful eyes gazed into his own, piercing through them to his brain
and dissipating the fumes of intoxication as sunlight melts the fog.
Decius had not spoken to him, for he was mindful that such speech might
bring suspicion upon the younger man, but his look had said all that
his tongue refrained from saying, and Perolla realized his degradation
and his shame.

He started forward and cried out:--

"I was mad, my father; _mad_! do you hear? It was because I knew
suddenly that I loved her, and that she would never love me! and then I
rushed out and met others who were drinking, and we feasted and drank
until I knew nothing. Pardon! pardon!"

Suddenly he became conscious that Decius and his guards were gone. Had
he heard his plea? Surely yes, for did not he, Perolla, now hear his
friend's eyes saying to him that he was but a fool who had added to
folly, philosophy, and to both, weakn