The wanderers had struck to their right and walked on some two hundred paces. Now they paused beside one of those square mud-walled boxes, of which they could only discern the narrow door made of unplaned wood, and through the chinks of which a faint light glimmered weirdly. Two or three steps fashioned in the earth itself led down toward the threshold. Taurus Antinor descended these and knocked boldly on the door.
It was opened from within, and under the rough lintel there appeared the figure of a man of short stature, clad in a long grey tunic. His head, which he held forward in an attempt to peer through the darkness, looked almost unnaturally large, owing to the mass of loose greyish hair that fell away from his forehead like a mane, and the long beard that straggled down upon his breast.
"May we enter, friend?" asked Taurus Antinor.
At the sound of the voice the man drew aside, and through the narrow doorway was now revealed the interior of the house—a straight, square room, with a few wooden seats disposed about, and at the top end an oblong table covered with a snow-white cloth. An aperture in the wall appeared to lead to an inner chamber, which must indeed have been of diminutive size, for the central room seemed to occupy almost the whole of the interior of the house. Suspended by an iron chain from the ceiling above there hung a small lamp in which flickered a tiny flame fed by some sweet-smelling oil. It threw but little light around and left deep and curious shadows in the angles of the room.
From out these, as the praefect entered, there emerged the figure of an old woman, with smooth grey hair half-hidden beneath a kerchief of strange oriental design, and straight dark robe, foreign in cut and appearance to those usually seen in the streets of Rome.
The massive figure of Taurus Antinor seemed almost to fill the entire room, but he stood to one side now disclosing the old slave and the girl Nola.
"This," he said, addressing the woman, "is the child of whom I spoke to thee. She is friendless and motherless, but she is free, and I have brought her so that thou mayest teach her all thou knowest."
In the meanwhile the man with the leonine head had closed the door on the little party. He came forward eagerly, and raising himself on the tips of his toes, he put his hands on Antinor's shoulder, and with gentle pressure forced him to stoop. Then he kissed him on either cheek.
"Greeting to thee, dear friend," he said cheerily. "Thou hast done well to bring the girl. My mother and I will take great care of her."
"And ye will teach her your religion," said Taurus Antinor earnestly; "because of that did I bring her. She is young and will be teachable. She'll understand as a child will, that which hardened hearts are unable to grasp."