The atriensis had meanwhile summoned the master of admissions, who beckoned to Paulus, and he, followed by Benigna, now entered the hall, which was flagged with lozenge-formed marbles of different hues, and supported by four pillars of porphyry. The adventurers passed the perpetual fire in the ancestral or image-room, and saw the images of the Mamurras, dark with the smoke of many generations; they crossed another chamber hung with pictures, and went half round the galleried and shady impluvium, inclosing a kind of internal garden, where, under the blaze of the sunlight, from which they were themselves sheltered, they beheld, like streams of shaken diamonds, the spray of the plashing fountains, the statues in many-tinted marble, and the glowing colors of a thousand exquisite flowers. Near the end of one wing of the colonnaded quadrangle they arrived at a door, which they were passing when their guide stopped them, and as the door flew open to his knock, he made them a bow and preceded them through the aperture.
They noticed, as they followed, that the slave who had opened this door was chained to a staple. Several slaves, who scarcely looked up, were writing in the room which they now entered.
The master of admissions, glancing round the chamber, said, addressing the slaves in general, "Claudius is not here, I perceive; let some one go for him, and say that the daughter of Crispus, of the One Hundredth Milestone, has been charged to communicate to him the pleasure of Tiberius Cæsar touching his immediate manumission; and that I, the master of admissions in the Mamurran palace, am to add a circumstance or two which will complete the information the damsel has to give. Let some one, therefore, fetch Claudius forthwith, and tell him that he keeps us waiting."
During this speech, which was rather pompously delivered, Paulus noticed that, close to a second door in the chamber at the end opposite to that where they had entered, a young slave was seated upon a low settle, with a hide belt round his waist, to which was padlocked a light but strong brass chain, soldered at the nether link to a staple in the floor. This slave now rose, and opening the door, held it ajar till one of the clerks, after a brief whisper among themselves, was detached to execute the errand which the steward had delivered. The slave closed the door again, the clerks continued their writing, the steward half-shut his eyes, and leaned against a pillar in an attitude of serene if not sublime expectation; and Paulus and Benigna waited in silence.
During the pause which ensued, Paulus beheld the steward suddenly jump out of his dignified posture, and felt a hand at the same time laid lightly on his own shoulder. Turning round, he saw the youth who had a few minutes before descended from the bronze chariot.
"Ought I not to be an acquaintance of yours?" asked the new-comer with an agreeable smile. "You are strikingly like one whom I have known. He was a valiant Roman knight, once resident in Greece; I mean Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, who helped, with Mark Antony, to win the great day of Philippi."
"I am, indeed, his only son," said Paulus.
"You and a sister, I think," returned the other, "had been left at home, in Thrace, with your nurse and the servants, when some business a little more than three years ago brought your father and his wife, the Lady Aglais, to Athens. There I met them. Alas! he is gone. I have heard it. But where are your mother and your sister?"
Paulus told him.
"Well, I request you to say to them that Dionysius of Athens—so people style me—remembers them with affection. I will visit them and you. Do I intrude if I ask who is this damsel?" (glancing kindly toward Benigna, who had listened with visible interest.)