has concealed weapons! Is that fair? Is that like a gentleman and a gladiator? No, indeed, I scorn such fellows.' With that she contemptuously turned her back on the gladiator, and hastened to examine the condition of her husband.
But he, as much inured to the constitutional exercises as an English bull-dog is to a contest with a more gentle antagonist, had already recovered himself. The purple hues receded from the crimson surface of his cheek, the veins of the forehead retired into their wonted size. He shook himself with a complacent grunt, satisfied that he was still alive, and then looking at his foe from head to foot with an air of more approbation than he had ever bestowed upon him before:
'By Castor!' said he, 'thou art a stronger fellow than I took thee for! I see thou art a man of merit and virtue; give me thy hand, my hero!'
'Jolly old Burbo!' cried the gladiators, applauding, 'staunch to the backbone. Give him thy hand, Lydon.'
'Oh, to be sure,' said the gladiator: 'but now I have tasted his blood, I long to lap the whole.'
'By Hercules!' returned the host, quite unmoved, 'that is the true gladiator feeling. Pollux! to think what good training may make a man; why, a beast could not be fiercer!'
'A beast! O dullard! we beat the beasts hollow!' cried Tetraides.
'Well, well said Stratonice, who was now employed in smoothing her hair and adjusting her dress, 'if ye are all good friends again, I recommend you to be quiet and orderly; for some young noblemen, your patrons and backers, have sent to say they will come here to pay you a visit: they wish to see you more at their ease than at the schools, before they make up their bets on the great fight at the amphitheatre. So they always come to my house for that purpose: they know we only receive the best gladiators in Pompeii—our society is very select—praised be the gods!'
'Yes,' continued Burbo, drinking off a bowl, or rather a pail of wine, 'a man who has won my laurels can only encourage the brave. Lydon, drink, my boy; may you have an honorable old age like mine!'
'Come here,' said Stratonice, drawing her husband to her affectionately by the ears, in that caress which Tibullus has so prettily described—'Come here!'
'Not so hard, she-wolf! thou art worse than the gladiator,' murmured the huge jaws of Burbo.
'Hist!' said she, whispering him; 'Calenus has just stole in, disguised, by the back way. I hope he has brought the sesterces.'
'Ho! ho! I will join him, said Burbo; 'meanwhile, I say, keep a sharp eye on the cups—attend to the score. Let them not cheat thee, wife; they are heroes, to be sure, but then they are arrant rogues: Cacus was nothing to them.'
'Never fear me, fool!' was the conjugal reply; and Burbo, satisfied with the dear assurance, strode through the apartment, and sought the penetralia of his house.
'So those soft patrons are coming to look at our muscles,' said Niger. 'Who sent to previse thee of it, my mistress?'
'Lepidus. He brings with him Clodius, the surest better in Pompeii, and the young Greek, Glaucus.'
'A wager on a wager,' cried Tetraides; 'Clodius bets on me, for twenty sesterces! What say you, Lydon?'
'He bets on me!' said Lydon.
'No, on me!' grunted Sporus.
'Dolts! do you think he would prefer any of you to Niger?' said the athletic, thus modestly naming himself.
'Well, well,' said Stratonice, as she pierced a huge amphora for her guests, who had now seated themselves before one of the tables, 'great men and brave, as ye all think yourselves, which of you will fight the Numidian lion in case no malefactor should be found to deprive you of the option?'
'I who have escaped your arms, stout Stratonice,' said Lydon, 'might safely, I think, encounter the lion.'
'But tell me,' said Tetraides, 'where is that pretty young slave of yours—the blind girl, with bright eyes? I have not seen her a long time.'
'Oh! she is too delicate for you, my son of Neptune,' said the hostess, 'and too nice even for us, I think. We send her into the town to sell flowers and sing to the ladies: she makes us more money so than she would by waiting on you. Besides, she has often other employments which lie under the rose.'
'Other employments!' said Niger; 'why, she is too young for them.'
'Silence, beast!' said Stratonice; 'you think there is no play but the Corinthian. If Nydia were twice the age she is at present, she would be equally fit for Vesta—poor girl!'
'But, hark ye, Stratonice,' said Lydon; 'how didst thou come by so gentle and delicate a slave? She were more meet for the handmaid of some rich matron of Rome than for thee.'
'That is true,' returned Stratonice; 'and some day or other I shall make my fortune by selling her. How came I by Nydia, thou askest.'
'Ay!'
'Why, thou seest, my slave Staphyla—thou rememberest Staphyla, Niger?'
'Ay, a large-handed wench, with a face like a comic mask. How should I forget her, by Pluto, whose handmaid she doubtless is at this moment!'
'Tush, brute!—Well, Staphyla died one day, and a great loss she was to me, and I went into the market to buy me another slave. But, by the gods! they were all grown so dear since I had bought poor Staphyla, and money was so scarce, that I was about to leave the place in despair, when a merchant plucked me by the robe. "Mistress," said he, "dost thou want a slave cheap I have a child to sell—a bargain. She is but little, and almost an infant, it is true; but she is quick and quiet, docile and clever, sings well, and is of good blood, I assure you." "Of what country?" said I. "Thessalian." Now I knew the Thessalians were acute and gentle; so I said I would see the girl. I found her just as you see her now, scarcely smaller and scarcely younger in appearance. She looked patient and resigned enough, with her hands crossed on her bosom, and her eyes downcast. I asked the merchant his price: it was moderate, and I bought her at once. The merchant brought her to my house, and disappeared in an instant. Well, my friends, guess my astonishment when I found she was blind! Ha! ha! a clever fellow that merchant! I ran at once to the magistrates, but the rogue was already gone from Pompeii. So I was forced to go home in a very ill humor, I assure you; and the poor girl felt the effects of it too. But it was not her fault that she was blind, for she had been so from her birth. By degrees, we got reconciled to our purchase. True, she had not the strength of Staphyla, and was of very little use in the house, but she could soon find her way about the town, as well as if she had the eyes of Argus; and when one morning she brought us home a handful of sesterces, which she said she had got from selling some flowers she had gathered in our poor little garden, we thought the gods had sent her to us. So from that time we let her go out as she likes, filling her basket with flowers, which she wreathes into garlands after the Thessalian fashion, which pleases the gallants; and the great people seem to take a fancy to her, for they always pay her more than they do any other flower-girl, and she brings all of it home to us, which is more than any other slave would do. So I work for myself, but I shall soon afford from her earnings to buy me a second Staphyla; doubtless, the Thessalian kidnapper had stolen the blind girl from gentle parents. Besides her skill in the garlands, she sings and plays on the cithara, which also brings money, and lately—but that is a secret.'
'That is a secret! What!' cried Lydon, 'art thou turned sphinx?'
'Sphinx, no!—why sphinx?'
'Cease thy gabble, good mistress, and bring us our meat—I am hungry,' said Sporus, impatiently.
'And I, too,' echoed the grim Niger, whetting his knife on the palm of his hand.
The amazon stalked away to the kitchen, and soon returned with a tray laden with large pieces of meat half-raw: for so, as now, did the heroes of the prize-fight imagine they best sustained their hardihood and ferocity: they drew round the table with the eyes of famished wolves—the meat vanished, the wine flowed. So leave we those important personages of classic life to follow the steps of Burbo.
CHAPTER II