"Do not fear, father;" Calavius frowned slightly at the venerable title, and shook out his robe that the odours might permeate the air. "Do not fear but that I was as cunning as your Campanians. I told him I was a Roman—wherefore not? For the matter of that, he divined it. He is Mago, the brother of Hannibal—"
"And he brought you here?" cried Calavius, trembling now in good earnest. "Surely it was done to ruin me; but whose plot?—whose plot?"
"It is not necessary I should be your guest," said Marcia, with well-feigned indifference. "Doubtless there are inns; but he guided me here because I asked for your house, imagining that my father's friend would have a welcome for my father's daughter."
Calavius instantly recovered his composure.
"Ah! dear lady," he began, in a voice from which all the tremor had vanished, "and do you dream for a moment that you should taste of other hospitality than mine? Will you not descend—nay, I will help you—and let us enter quickly. These are indeed troublous days, and every door creaks a warning; troublous days, with each man's hand against his neighbour, plotting by necessity, often, rather than by preference. What! your attendants are hurt?" Again his voice shook. "A brawl? that is bad; but come within. It is there you shall tell me of it all."
So speaking, he assisted Marcia to descend, and, summoning his servants, gave the rheda and its guardians into their care. Then he led the way into his house, carefully fastening the street door behind them, for the porter evidently had not halted in his flight, short of the slaves' apartments upstairs.
Marcia followed, wondering at the magnificence of the decorations. She passed through passages lighted by hanging-lamps of gold and silver and bronze; past walls rich with frescoes in black and yellow and red; panels and pictures such as Caius Fabius Pictor could never have dreamed when he ornamented the Temple of Safety; frescoes that so far surpassed the work of Damophilus and Gorgasus upon the walls of Ceres, as these had surpassed the art of Pictor himself. Then came courts surrounded by rows of fluted columns, set with fountains that threw light sprays of scented water over the flowers and the garments of the passers; then more passages, with paintings of even greater merit and delicacy of execution, mingled, here and there, with scenes where the delicacy was of the execution alone, and that brought hot blushes to her cheek. Amid all, were scattered richly carved pedestals bearing beautiful statues done in marble or bronze, or great vases, black or terra-cotta, with intricately composed groups of figures in the opposite tint. It came like a veritable revelation to one who had known nothing but the crude art of the Etruscans and the cruder handicraft of her own people, tempered, as they were, by the taste of such Greek artists as fell so far short of their native ideals as to be willing to waste their skill upon barbarians. She had heard of the wealth and luxury of the Capuans, but it had never entered her mind to imagine that the luxury of Capua could demand, or the wealth of Campania purchase, pictures whose distance and proportions were true to life itself, and statues that seemed veritably to live and breathe. Her eyes were big with wonder and admiration, when her guide and host turned sharply to the right and ushered her into a small room that looked out through a row of slender pillars into a portico beyond, and thence into a garden that seemed a very forest of small rose trees. Around the walls ran a shelf upon which were set a number of circular boxes, while lying upon the table were several bulky rolls of papyrus, in parchment wrappers stained yellow or purple.
"My library," said Calavius, in a careless tone, but with a wave of his arm that showed his pride in its possession. "Three hundred and eighty-nine works—the best, and of the most excellent authors:—poets, philosophers, historians, rhetoricians—all that is worth reading. No man in Capua has a better show of literature—unless, perhaps, it be Decius Magius," and his voice sank, as if the name had brought him back to a realization of circumstances. "Here I can read without disturbance, and here we can talk without fear of interruption or listening ears. There are slaves always stationed at both ends of the portico, to insure quiet."
"And you are the man who has dared to turn Capua over to the enemies of Rome! Truly, I cannot understand."
Marcia could not restrain the words, and Calavius flushed.