"Miserable lies," shrieked Herculanus, stamping his foot. "The wench wants to become my uncle's wanton and ruin his nephew, the heir. The whole story is an invention,--the entire tale of hiding in the tree! When I came in here she stood watching beside the tent."
"That is a base falsehood," said Rignomer, stepping forward. "I swear that she has just come down from the tree: I had been following her--unseen--for half an hour."
"Aha, do you hear, uncle? Another lover!" sneered Herculanus.
"No," said the Tribune, "it was done by my order."
But Rignomer had flushed crimson with rage and shame. Shaking his clenched fist at Herculanus, he said, laughing grimly: "Just wait--you fellow with your patched mantle. The child came down from the tree before my eyes. I was standing, hidden by the tent, six paces opposite to it. Two men came from the right and left, glided under the pine, whispered together, and then separated."
Davus grew even paler than before; he tottered and would have fallen but for the hands which grasped him. But Herculanus asked defiantly: "Did you recognize the two men in the dark? Or, at six paces distance, understand their whispers?"
"Neither. But the child slid down the tree directly after in the most frantic terror, called 'Murder! They will poison Ausonius!' and ran with me here. The last part of the way I carried her."
"So the two Barbarians conspired against me!" cried Herculanus.
Saturninus went up to the slave, who hung with shaking knees between the two Thracians. "You know what terrible tortures threaten the slave who tries to murder his own master?"
Davus sank to the ground; the two men could scarcely drag him up again.