“No,” he replied, “save that he is of the Imperial household, and must not be offended.”
“He must be escaped,” she replied decidedly. “It is not the dog only that he wants, and he looks a son of Belial. The Imperial household is said to be a sink of iniquity; we must never sell these children into that.”
He was silent; heart and conscience were with her, but he murmured sullenly—
“I told thee these Gentile strangers were no merchandise for us.”
“The God of the fatherless sent them to us,” she replied; “and our own child is fatherless and motherless; and if we suffer God’s orphans to be ruined, how are we to ask Him to care for our own?”
“We are no princes now,” he answered, “to have young men and maidens in our service, and beasts of the chase. What would you do?”
“They have a tablet from that young Roman officer,” she said. “A letter to his family in a palace on the Aventine.”
“What of that?” he grumbled.
“I will go to-morrow,” she said, “with the maiden, to see the lady on the Aventine, the young Roman noble’s mother, and tell her all. Perchance she will have compassion on these Christian captives, and help them and us.”
“Thou wilt do what seemeth thee best,” he rejoined, in a tone of oppressed acquiescence. “If we are ruined, we are ruined; and the All-Merciful have mercy on thee and our lost child.”