“He is looking uncommonly grave over it, is Barbillus.”
“Perhaps he is thinking, that the same fate may overtake him and his Isis-creed, as has fallen on the Nazarenes.”
“Nonsense,” laughed Lycoris. “He is in high favor with the chamberlain.”
“Do you see any more acquaintances near us?”
“Acquaintances, oh yes! But no one I care about. There sits that most ridiculous creature—do you know her, the silly Gaditanian, Melinno?—I think I wrote to you about her. A Hispanian knight—she is his freedman’s wife—brought her here a few weeks since, and now the simpleton tries to ape me and my way of living, thinking to put me out of fashion. Why, she even attempted to get up a recitation; Statius was to do her the honor.—Oh! she is exquisitely funny with her affectation of culture; and all the time she cannot even read.”
Leaina colored, for she was conscious of being equally ignorant, and to change the subject she hastily enquired as to the order of the games and fights. Lycoris could not give her much information on the subject. She only knew, that the master of the festival had paid particular attention to the variety and due alternation of the different entertainments, so that, on each of the three days, every kind of fight should be represented, and in typical completeness.
“You may be sure of good entertainment, ladies,” said a well-dressed young man with an ingratiating smile; he was sitting a row above them, and had heard their last words. “Women even are to fight with knives—indeed the condemned Nazarenes are more than half of them women.”
“And are they supposed to be able to defend themselves?” asked Lycoris. “Against lions and tigers?”
“As well as they may,” said the lad, shrugging his shoulders. “Some of the men are to have swords. I do not know whether the women are to be so armed.”
“What can it matter?” said Leaina. “They are bound to die as criminals.”