Page:Ben-Hur a tale of the Christ.djvu/254

Rh &quot;A man who knows everything! Herele! the oracles would die. What wouldst thou with such a monster?&quot;

&quot;Answer to one question, my Flavius; then, perpol! I would cut his throat.&quot;

&quot;And the question?&quot;

&quot;I would have him tell me the hour— Hour, said I?—nay, the minute—Maxentius will arrive tomorrow.&quot;

&quot;Good play, good play! I have you! And why the minute?&quot;

&quot;Hast thou ever stood uncovered in the Syrian sun on the quay at which he will land? The fires of the Vesta are not so hot; and, by the Stator of our father Romulus, I would die, if die I must, in Rome. Avernus is here; there, in the square before the Forum, I could stand, and, with my hand raised thus, touch the floor of the gods. Ha, by Venus, my Flavius, thou didst beguile me! I have lost. O Fortune!&quot;

&quot;Again?&quot;

&quot;I must have back my sestertium.&quot;

&quot;Be it so.&quot;

And they played again and again; and when day, stealing through the skylights, began to dim the lamps, it found the two in the same places at the same table, still at the game. Like most of the company, they were military attachés of the consul, awaiting his arrival and amusing themselves meantime.

During this conversation a party entered the room, and, unnoticed at first, proceeded to the central table. The signs were that they had come from a revel just dismissed. Some of them kept their feet with difficulty. Around the leader’s brow was a chaplet which marked him master of the feast, if not the giver. The wine had made no impression upon him unless to heighten his beauty, which was of the most manly Roman style; he carried his head high raised; the blood flushed his lips and cheeks brightly; his eyes glittered; though the manner in which, shrouded in a toga spotless white and of ample folds, he walked was too nearly imperial for one sober and not a Cæsar. In going to the table, he made room for himself and his followers with little ceremony and no apologies; and when at length he