‘Humph!’ said his patron, too sulky in his wounded self-conceit to care about anybody else.
He clapped his hands for Lygdus, and ordered him to restore the tablets to their former state, in readiness for their owner.
‘Come, we can go now. There is one thing certain, that we must be somewhere in the close vicinity of that same white rock this night.’
CHAPTER VI.
We noticed Martialis in the last chapter issuing from the villa Jovis. The sparkle in his eye and the half smile on his lips, as he hummed an air during his rapid walk down to the little southern landing-place, betokened an errand of an agreeable nature. He rowed himself across to the mainland in a fisherman’s skiff, and, thence, taking the road to Surrentum, was not long ere he stood in the shop of Masthlion, with the joyful and surprised Neæra in his arms.
‘You grow more beautiful each time I see you, Neæra,’ he said, pressing a kiss on her lips.
‘Foolish!’ she murmured, smiling, and sinking her eyes before his fervent gaze. ‘And you, Lucius,’ she added, laying the point of her finger on his toga, ‘you are no Centurion to-day—you are in plain woollen—you are not for the road?’
‘I have reached the end of my journey,’ he replied, drawing her nearer.