‘What is the matter?’ whispered the Phrygian, in alarm. ‘Is any one pursuing me?’
‘No,’ answered Ofellus, ‘but if the king sees you he will think you mean mischief.’
‘The king! What king?’
‘Don’t you know?’ said the boy. ‘Come and help me to drive in my goats, and I will tell you.’
When they were well out of the grove, and the goats, with their frisking kids, which gave Ofellus so much trouble, were safe in their pen, the boy said: ‘We may speak aloud now; but don’t you really know who the king is?’
‘I did not know that Romans had had a king since Tarquin the Proud,’ said Onesimus, laughing; ‘unless you mean some Jewish or Eastern Alabarch, like Herod or Izates.’
‘No, no,’ said Ofellus, ‘but the priest of yon temple has been called for ages “the King of the Grove.”’
‘I don’t know why, except that there are some sacrifices which only a king can offer; so they have to call him king, just as they call one of the priests at Rome “the King of the Sacred Rites.”’
‘Well, but why were you in such terror of this so-called king?’