The shepherd rose and picked up his staff.
"Lidia, it is Alyrus who has wrought all this. He and the priests of Jupiter. I will seek out Lycias, the gladiator. He will know what to do."
A warm red shone in Lidia's thin, sallow cheeks.
"Thou wilt greet him from me, father?"
He nodded, and walked rapidly away, while Lidia, taking another path, ran toward the gates of Rome. Inside the walls, she almost collided with Alyrus, the Moor, who strode by not recognizing her. Slipping along in the shadows, she followed him eagerly, as intently as her father would have done, through the streets, into the Forum to the Temple of Jupiter, and saw him enter the side door.
Then she hastened back to her duties, going into the house which was very still and deserted. Only a few of the many slaves owned by Aurelius the lawyer, remained to guard his interests. When the displeasure of an emperor falls on a man, it means disaster.
She looked in at her mistress' door and found her sleeping, moaning as she slept. She went to the servant's quarters. On her humble couch lay the Old One, who had been a Princess in the court of Herod sixty years before, beautiful, admired. Her face was very quiet and the expression was sweet. Death had touched her lightly when he bore her into the presence of the Lord whom she had loved. The finished rug which she had made for Virgilia's wedding present lay under the scarlet and white awning on the Terrace.
Alyrus had come into his reward. He was free, and Sahira his daughter was free, a purse of gold was in his hand and a ship lay waiting in the harbor, to carry them away to their home by the desert.
Alyrus was not ready to go, yet. He wanted first to see all the amusement which there would be in Rome. He could not miss the climax of what he had intrigued for. He knew nothing of that Judas who had sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver, or he might have likened himself to this traitor.
No, he would not leave until the games were over. The scheme had worked well. There had not been the slightest hitch from the moment that they left the gate of Octavia's villa, until the bearers, who were in the plot, carried Virgilia into the Temple of Jupiter, and Martius and Alexis, little noticed in the unusual excitement stirred up by the priests, were easily overpowered and cast into one of the lowest dungeons.