Duilia sat upright on her seat, and her eyes roamed searchingly in every direction.
“I never met with such a child anywhere, it is the Corbulo blood in her, not mine. The Gods forbid! O Morals!”
“Madam,” said a slave-girl coming up. “I saw her with Eboracus.”
“Well, and where is Eboracus. They are always together. He spoils the child, and she pays him too much consideration. Where are they?”
The slaves, male and female, looked perplexedly in every direction.
“Perhaps,” said Plancus, “she has gone to the altar of Poseidon to offer there thanks for the return of her father.”
“Poseidon, nonsense! That is not her way. She has been in a fever ever since the vessel has been sighted, her cheeks flaming and in a fidget as if covered with flying ants. Find the girl. If any harm shall have come to her through your neglect, I will have you all flayed—and hang the cost!”
She plucked a bodkin from her dress, and ran it into the shoulder of the slave-woman, Favonia, who stood near her, and made her cry out with pain.
“You are a parcel of idle, empty-headed fools,” exclaimed the alarmed and irritated mother, “I will have the child found, and that instantly. You girls, you have been gaping, watching the sailors, and have not had an eye on your young mistress, and no concern for my feelings. There is no more putting anything into your heads than of filling the sieves of the Danaides.”
“Madam,” said Plancus, for once without a smile on his unctuous face, “you may rest satisfied that no harm has befallen the young lady. So long as Eboracus is with her, she is safe. That Briton worships her. He would suffer himself to be torn limb from limb rather than allow the least ill to come to her.”