“What then are your plans, lord Marcus?”
“To go to my own house near the Baths of Agrippa. The Triumph must pass there, and if Miriam is among the captives we shall see her. If not, then either she is dead or already sold, or perchance given as a present to some friend of Cæsar’s.”
Now they ceased talking, for the people were so many that they could only force their way through the press riding one after the other. Thus, Nehushta following Marcus, they crossed the Tiber and passed through many streets, decorated, most of them, for the coming pageant, till at length Marcus drew rein in front of a marble mansion in the Via Agrippa.
“A strange home-coming,” he muttered. “Follow me,” and he rode round the house to a side-entrance.
Here he dismounted and knocked at the small door for some time without avail. At length it was opened a little way, and a thin, querulous voice, speaking through the crack, said:
“Begone, whoever you are. No one lives here. This is the house of Marcus, who is dead in the Jewish war. Who are you that disturb me?”
“The heir of Marcus.”
“Marcus has no heir, unless it be Cæsar, who doubtless will take his property.”
“Open, Stephanus,” said Marcus, in a tone of command, at the same time pushing the door wide and entering. “Fool,” he added, “what kind of a steward are you that you do not know your master’s voice?”
Now he who had kept the door, a withered little man in a scribe’s brown robe, peered at this visitor with his sharp eyes, then threw up his hands and staggered back, saying: