Hippias pushed the gladiators on before him, with boisterous good-humour and considerable violence; as they crowded through the narrow entrance, he remained behind for a moment, and whispered to Esca—
“You will take the girl home, comrade. Can I trust you?”
“Trust me!” was all the Briton answered, but the tone in which he spoke, and the glance he exchanged with Mariamne, might have satisfied a more exacting inquirer than the captain of gladiators.
“Fare thee well, lad,” said Hirpinus, “and thee, too, my pretty flower. I would go with you myself, but it is a long way from here to Tiber-side, and I must not be missing to-night, come what may.”
“Begone, both of you!” added Hippias hurriedly. “Had it not been for the plunder, I should scarce have found my lambs so reasonable to-night; were you to fall in with them again, the Vestals themselves could not save you. Begone, and farewell.”
They obeyed and hastened off, while the fencing-master, with a well-pleased smile, clapped Hirpinus on the shoulder, and accompanied him into the house.
“Old comrade,” said he, “we will drink a measure of the tribune’s Cæcuban to-night, come what may. To-morrow we shall either be on our backs gaping for the death-fee, or pressing our lips to nothing meaner than a chalice of burnished gold. Who knows? Who cares?”
“Not I for one,” replied Hirpinus; “but I am strangely thirsty in the meantime, and the tribune’s wine, they tell me, is the best in Rome.”