“I will take good care to do nothing of the kind. We have no right in the world to do such a thing.”
“Well, at any rate, I will find out what he has done wrong. His torturer’s brutality makes me hot with indignation!”
So speaking he walked straight down the hill through the brushwood. Quintus followed, not over-pleased at the incident; and he was very near giving vent to his annoyance when a swaying branch hit him sharply on the forehead. But the native courtesy, the urbanity[79] or town breeding, which distinguished every Roman, prevailed, and in a few minutes they had reached the laurel-hedge. Quintus was surprised to find himself in front of a tolerably wide gap, which could not have been made by accident; but there the young men paused, for Quintus hesitated to trespass on the Empress’s grounds.
The sight which met his eyes was a common one enough to the blunted nerves of the Roman, but Aurelius was deeply moved. A pale, bearded man,[80] young, but with a singularly resolute expression, stood fettered to a wooden post, his back dreadfully lacerated by a stick or lash, while swarms of insects buzzed round his bleeding body.
“Hapless wretch!” cried Aurelius. “What have you done, that you should atone for it so cruelly?”
The slave groaned, glanced up to heaven and said in a choked voice:
“I did my duty.”
“And are men punished in your country for doing their duty?” asked the Batavian frowning, and, unable any longer to control himself, he went straight up to the victim and prepared to release him. The slave’s face lighted up with pleasure.
“I thank you, stranger,” he said with emotion, “but if you were to release me, it would be doing me an ill-turn. Fresh torture would be all that would come of it. Let me be; I have borne the like before now; I have only another hour to hold out. If you feel kindly towards me, go away, leave me! Woe is me if any one sees you here!”
Quintus now came up to him; this really heroic resignation excited his astonishment, nay, his admiration.