"Leave us, pretty ones, awhile. Is it the first time men have left your arms to discuss affairs?"
Eunice, the tall Greek, went willingly, but Sada clung to her lover and would not go.
"Nay, I'll not leave thee. Speak as ye will—what is it to me? I have no call to remember."
"See, friend, I like thee, and I see no reason why we should not be comrades, for the better gain of both," said Wulf, with all frankness. "We be of one nation, as against these haughty Roman lords who soon must yield to us the field. Oh, but I long for a half-hundred kindred souls to take with me this chance! What chance, say you?—the chance of gain, of wealth and fortune past all dreams. Why should they have all, these haughty lords, while we have nothing? Why should not something of their wealth profit us?"
Wardo shook his muddled head solemnly over this problem old as the ages.
"They have gained it," he muttered, with an air of profound wisdom.
"They have gained it, quotha! Ay, truly, but how? By rapine, taxation, wars, plunder! Therefore why shall not others use like means? If it be fair for them, I say it is fair for us!" Wulf brought down his fist upon the table with a blow that made the cups rattle. "Therefore now is our chance, say I! All is confusion; the lords fight amongst themselves; we are slowly gaining the ground they lose—let us also gain wealth with it!"
He discoursed at great length, repeating himself incessantly, losing himself in endless trains of argument which nobody contradicted. It was not very clear what he wanted, even to himself, it would seem. But he was quite convinced that existing conditions were altogether wrong and something should at once be done about it. What the something should be he did not take the trouble to state. Wardo dozed peacefully, his head on Sada's breast. No one in the room paid the least attention to them.
Wardo roused, in time, reaching out blindly for his cup, and caught a word of Wulf's oration:
"... Gold for the taking. Had I but a half hundred—"