‘What have I done?’ he asked in Greek.
‘What have you done, you thievish rascal? You ask that, when we have caught you, axe in hand, hewing at and stealing the lead of the roof?’
The youth, who knew Latin imperfectly, was too much puzzled and confused to understand the objurgations addressed to him; but a crowd of idlers rapidly collected, and speaking to one of them, he was answered in Greek that the people of the neighbourhood had long been blamed for stealing the lead from the silversmiths. They had not done it, and were indignant at being falsely accused. And now, as he had been caught in the act, he would be haled off to the court of the City Prætor, and it would be likely to go hard with him. If he got off with thirty lashes he might think himself lucky. More probably he would be condemned to branding, or—since an example was needed—to the cross.
The youth could only cry, and wring his hands, and protest his innocence; but his protests were met by the jeers of the crowd.
‘Ah!’ said one, ‘how will you like to have the three letters branded with a hot iron right across your forehead? That won’t make the girls like your face better.’
‘Whose slave are you?’ asked another. ‘Won’t you catch it from your master! You’ll have to work chained in the slave-jail or at the mill, and may bid good-bye to the sunlight for a year or two at least.’
‘Slave?’ said another. ‘I don’t believe he’s a slave. He looks too ragged and starved. He’s had no regular rations for a long time, I’ll be bound.’
‘A runaway, I expect,’ said a third. ‘Well, anyhow he’ll have to give an account of himself, unless he likes to have a ride on the little horse,[31] or have his neck wedged tight into a wooden fork.’
‘Furcifer? Gallows-bird!’ cried others of the crowd. ‘And we honest citizens are to be accused of stealing because of his tricks!’
‘It’s a sad pity, too,’ said a young woman; ‘for look how handsome he is with those dark Asiatic eyes!’