Will you respond to the offer which is made you in this country and the nineteenth century, and perfect and complete what may not unlikely be the last opportunity for achieving temporal prosperity in harmony with Catholic justice?
DION AND THE SIBYLS.
A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.
BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.
CHAPTER XII.
A short silence followed the concurring exclamations of Thellus and our hero, recorded in the last chapter; and then the lanista said,
"Before I leave you, I will speak one word which came of the chance of uttering while I brought you that letter, but which I would not have pronounced had I found you to be a person of a different sort. You are really Tiberius's prisoner, remember, although it is to Velleius Paterculus you have given your parole. I know, by personal experience and much observation, the men and the things of which you, on the other hand, can have only a suspicion. Now, I conjecture, it is hardly for your own sake that you are in custody. Beware of what may happen to those dear to you; and as they have given no parole, send them to some place of safety, some secret place. There is no place safe in itself in the known world. Roman liberty is no more; secrecy is the sole safety remaining. Vale."
With these words the lanista departed, leaving our young friend buried in thought. As he left the court of the impluvium to seek his mother, he remarked that Claudius had returned thither, and was occupied in watering some flowers in pots at the opposite angle. "I wonder," thought he, "can that fellow have overheard Thellus?"
Other and more important matters, however, were destined to invite his attention. We have said enough to justify us in passing over with a few words every interval void of more than ordinary daily occurrences of the age and land. What has been related and described will sufficiently enable a reader of intelligence to realize the sort of life which lay before Paulus, his mother, and Agatha during the next few days passed by them together at the inn of the Hundreth Milestone.