gly, as she rose from her knee.
"A close bandage so that it will not bleed--that is all we shall want,
for my strength must remain with me yet a little while, if we would
truly go to Rome and not to the realms of the dead."

She said nothing, but, tearing strips from her stole, proceeded deftly
to bind them around the leg.

"Agathocles himself could not do better--nay, I doubt Aesculapius--"
but she rose again quickly and placed her finger upon his lips.

"It is the gods who have saved us to each other. Do not make them
angry, lest they withdraw their favour. I am ready to follow you, my
lord Lucius."

Standing erect, he raised both hands in invocation.

"A shrine to Venus the Preserver!--to Apollo the Healer!"

Then, stooping quickly, he drew the long, dark robe of Iddilcar from
where it lay entangled about the legs of the corpse. Fortunately it
had slipped down from the Carthaginian's shoulders early in the
struggle; perhaps he had tried to free himself from it; perhaps it had
been partly torn away; but, in either event, it had fallen where it
must have hampered his movements even more seriously, and where it was
less stained with his blood than might have been expected.

Sergius threw it over his own tattered, blood-stained garments,
striving to hide the rents, and raising it high about his neck so as to
conceal his face as much as possible. Meanwhile, Marcia, having bound
on her sandals, had of her own accord donned the mantle Iddilcar had
brought for her, and which had fallen by the door of the apartment.
Then, gathering up her long, thick hair, she confined it close above
her head, drawing down upon it the hat that lay beside the cloak--a
broad-brimmed Greek petasus, admirably adapted for concealment as well
as protection.

"I am ready," she said eagerly. "Let us make haste."

Sergius was stooping over the dead man, searching for something.

"It is the ring," he said; "the ring with the seal of the Great Council
of which he spoke. How else should we pass the guard at the gate?"

A moment later he rose, and, going to the light, examined carefully the
several rings taken from the priest's-fingers.

One by one they dropped and rolled away over the floor. The last only
remained, and Marcia, looking over his shoulder, saw a heavy, gold
signet bearing the device of a horse under a palm tree.

"Come now," he said, taking her hand. He had thrust the long knife of
Iddilcar into the girdle of his tuni