“Yes, I left the town three days ago. On that very morning an order arrived to prepare for the coming of the great and good Florus, who in his wisdom, feeling the want of gold, has determined to fill up the hollows of the military chest and his own purse by stripping the armory of everything that can sell for money. My intelligence is from the best authority. The governor’s principal bath-slave told it to one of the damsels of the steward’s department, with whom the Ethiopian is mortally in love, and the damsel, in a moment of confidence, told it to me. In fact, to let you into my secret, I am now looking out for Florus, in whose train I intend to make my way back into this gold-mine.”
“The villain!” cried the veteran; “disturb the arms of the dead! Why, they say that it has the very corselet and buckler that Mark Antony wore when he marched against the Idumeans.”
“I fear more the disturbance of the arms of the living,” said the Syrian; “the Jews will take it for granted that the Romans are giving up the business in despair, and if I’m a true man, there will be blood before I get home.”
“No fear of that, fellow soldier,” said the veteran gaily; “you have kept your two legs, and when they have so long carried you out of harm’s way, it would be the worst treatment possible to leave you in it at last. But there is something in what you say. I had a dream last night. I thought that I saw the country in a blaze, and when I started from my sleep, my ears were filled with a sound like the trampling of ten thousand cavalry.”
I drew my breath quickly, and to conceal my emotion, gathered up the fragments of our meal. On completing my work, I found the beggar’s eye fixed on me,—he smiled.
Salathiel Discovered
“I too had a dream last night,” said he, “and of much the same kind. I thought that I saw a cloud of cavalry, riding as fast as horse could lay hoof to ground; I never saw a more dashing set since my first campaign upon the highways of this wicked world. I’ll be sworn that whatever their errand may be, such riders will not come back without it. Their horses’ heads were turned toward Masada, and I am now between two minds, whether I may not mention my dream to the procurator himself.”
I found his keen eye turned on me again.
“Absurd!” said I; “he would recommend you only to his lictor.”
“I rather think he would recommend me to his treasurer, for I never had a dream that seemed so like a fact. I should not be surprised to find that I had been sleeping with my eyes open.”