"Didst thou see him who entered the women's place by stealth to hold speech with thy mistress?"
Marcus nodded eagerly. His voice was drowned in Eudemius's exclamation of fury.
"So the fool spake truth when I thought she raved! Not so much fool after all, perhaps, but better fool than—" He checked himself on the word. "Who is the man?" Again his face grew distorted; on the hands that gripped his chair the veins stood out dark and swollen. Pain made him brutal; he glared at Marcus with the bloodshot eyes of a goaded beast. Marcus, with a hoarse cry, bowed himself to the ground, his hands before his face. Eudemius brought his fist down on the arm of his chair.
"Who is the man? Answer, slave, if thou wouldst keep the flesh on thy living bones! Who is the man, and what hath been his work?"
Then Marcus raised himself, with outstretched hands, gesticulating frantically. The effort he made to speak was fearful; his face became congested, his eyes seemed starting from his head. And his voice was as fearful, hoarse, bestial, with apish gibberings. But no words came; he could only beat the air and cry out in impotent despair.
"The man is mad!" Marius exclaimed, staring.
Eudemius lifted himself half out of his chair. Beads of sweat stood thick upon his forehead.
"Mad or sane, I'll have the truth from him!" he snarled. He caught the dog-whip from the back of his chair and lashed the slave across the face.
"Now speak!" he shouted. "Think not to shield him so, for I'll have thee flayed alive before thou shalt defy me thus!"
"I—I!" groaned Marcus. The word had a strange and guttural sound, but Eudemius did not notice.