‘Well!’ said Fabricius, ‘go on! You have not come on your own account, but on that of a sick friend—what next?’
‘It concerns you also, and I was told to tell it to you alone,’ replied Cestus, with a glance at Natta. The shadow of a smile rested on the face of Fabricius as he signed to the slave to retire. Natta, however, feigned not to observe the motion, and did not move.
‘You may go, Natta,’ said his master, and the old porter had no alternative but to obey, which he did, with reluctant steps and sour suspicious looks at the visitor.
‘Now speak,’ said Fabricius; ‘I think I could guess at the nature of your message. Has it aught to do with a domestic matter of mine?’
‘So please,’ replied Cestus, ‘I will tell you exactly what I was told to tell, for I know nothing more. Lupus—that is my friend—has been hurt to death by a block of marble which slipped upon him whilst it was being slung from the ship on to the quay. He sent for me to-night, and I did but clean myself and come straight to your palace. He said, “I did a deed some years ago which has lain heavy on my mind ever since—heavier even than that cursed block from Luna which fell upon me yesterday. I am going fast; there is no hope, and I must ease my mind. On the top of Janiculum there dwells a nobleman named Fabricius. Seek him, and bring him hither back with thee, that I may tell him what I did, for my mind torments me more than my crushed body. He had a granddaughter, a little child—a little goddess; I can tell him of that child—bid him come with haste! Fourteen years ago I stole her from his door and sold her. She yet lives—a slave!”’
In spite of himself; in spite of the numberless plausible tales and previous disappointments, Fabricius felt his heart beat violently, and a tremor seize his limbs. Cestus’s small keen eyes noted the change of colour on his cheek.
‘Fourteen years!’ murmured Fabricius to himself; ‘right almost to the very month; how could he know that if—alas, my little darling—my little Aurelia! shall I be fooled again?’
‘I pray you, Fabricius, be speedy, out of pity for my poor comrade,’ urged Cestus; ‘he will soon be beyond reach. It was a sore sin against you, but your nobleness will pardon a dying man. And besides, you will forgive me, noble sir, for offering a suggestion of my own; if Lupus departs without seeing you, you may thus lose all chance of ever getting your lost grandchild again. Ah me, that one could do such a deed as rob a house of its sunshine for the sake of a few paltry sestertia!’
This was uttered in a sighing kind of sotto voce, and the old Senator, racked with doubt and eagerness, with hope and the fear of oft-repeated disappointment and disgust, passed his hand over his brow in poignant doubtfulness.
‘Go to the Esquiline to my nephew—but no! I forgot; his Greek boy came hither t’other day to say he was going to Tibur for a space. Phœbus aid me! Where does this comrade of thine dwell?’