‘The children of nobles are not put into the hovels of potters,’ returned the Emperor contemptuously.
‘She was stolen and brought to me when an infant.’
‘Then your head is in danger.’
‘I knew it not until within the last few weeks—she was delivered to me as an orphan child of poor parents—I was childless and I took her in.’
‘Dare you tell fables to me—go!’
‘It is truth, before the gods—she is a noble’s daughter and cannot come!’ cried the potter in reckless desperation.
‘Away—you destroy all lenience,’ said Tiberius, starting up with a terrible frown; ‘cannot come—insolent! Ho! Zeno! Who waits there?’
Both the steward and the soldier on guard appeared in the room, almost as soon as the words had left the Emperor’s lips. By the wrathful tone and the angry glow in their master’s eyes, they expected a summary order. The Pretorian’s heavy grasp had already fallen on the potter’s shoulder, but Tiberius merely waved his hand impatiently toward the door, and fell back on his cushions.
‘Quick, you fool!’ whispered Zeno in Masthlion’s ear, and, aided by the Pretorian on the other side, the wretched potter was hurried staggering from the room.
‘Haste!’ said the steward again, when outside, ‘before he changes his mind.’ He dragged his charge along through the mazes of the palace, without stop, until he deposited him, more like a man in a dream, in the narrow little closet which contained his sleeping pallet.