Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/140

Rh events, the trade is so grown that it will not brook interruption a day. Ye may also have heard of the Chersonesan pirates, nested up in the Euxine; none bolder, by the Bacchæ! Yesterday word came to Rome that, with a fleet, they had rowed down the Bosphorus, sunk the galleys off Byzantium and Chalcedon, swept the Propontis, and, still unsated, burst through into the Ægean. The corn-merchants who have ships in the East Mediterranean are frightened. They had audience with the Emperor himself, and from Ravenna there go to-day a hundred galleys, and from Misenum—&quot; he paused as if to pique the curiosity of his friends, and ended with an emphatic—&quot;one.&quot; &quot;Happy Quintus! We congratulate thee!&quot;

&quot;The preferment forerunneth promotion. We salute thee duumvir; nothing less.&quot;

&quot;Quintus Arrius, the duumvir, hath a better sound than Quintus Arrius, the tribune.&quot;

In such manner they showered him with congratulations.

&quot;I am glad with the rest,&quot; said the bibulous friend, &quot;very glad; but I must be practical, O my duumvir; and not until I know if promotion will help thee to knowledge of the tesseræ will I have an opinion as to whether the gods mean thee ill or good in this—this business.&quot; &quot;Thanks, many thanks!&quot; Arrius replied, speaking to them collectively. &quot;Had ye but lanterns, I would say ye were augurs. Perpol! I will go further, and show what master diviners ye are! See—and read.&quot;

From the folds of his toga he drew a roll of paper, and passed it to them, saying, &quot;Received while at table last night from—Sejanus.&quot;

The name was already a great one in the Roman world; great, and not so infamous as it afterwards became.

&quot;Sejanus!&quot; they exclaimed, with one voice, closing in to read what the minister had written.

&quot;, XIX. Kal. Sept.

&quot;Cæsar hath good report of Quintus Arrius, the tribune. In particular he hath heard of his valor, manifested in the western seas; insomuch that it is his will that the said Quintus be transferred instantly to the East.