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"Daddy!" Brinnaria cried. "Only don't have me made a Vestal and I'll do anything. I'll forget there ever was an Almo. I'll be sweet as honey to Pulfennius till he loves me better than Secunda, and I'll marry Calvaster; I'll marry anybody. Why, Daddy, I'd marry a boar pig rather than be a Vestal." Her father smiled.
When she was standing firm on the top step on the level of the Quay platform, she raised both hands until the sieve was level with her chin. "You have won," Commodus exclaimed. "You have demonstrated your Goddess's favor. The test is over." An arm's length away stood Calvaster. "It's a trick!" he cried. "That is not water." "Not water!" cried Brinnaria.
Commodus, like the overgrown boy he was, burst into roars of laughter. The Pontiffs laughed, the Senators laughed, even Manlia and Gargilia laughed. "It's a trick!" Calvaster repeated. On the face of Commodus mirth gave place to wrath. "Isn't that enough water for you?" he roared. "Anybody would think, the way you behave, that I am the minor Pontiff and you the Emperor. I'll teach you!"
"You in that room!" she called, "unbolt that door and come out, or it will be the worse for you. I'll count ten and then order the door burst open." She began to count. She heard the bolt shot back. She nodded to Guntello. He gave the door a push. Before them stood Calvaster, his attitude and countenance expressing cringing cowardice, cloaked by ill-assumed effrontery.
If I could have some plain sign that Vesta understands and condones your past irregularities as I do, that Vesta approves of you and is pleased with you as I am, if I could feel Vesta corroborating my feelings, if I could evoke an unmistakable token of her will, I'd not hesitate. I'd scout the suggestion of a trial; I'd squelch Calvaster; I'd absolve you."
Brinnaria did not retort. She had climbed out of the tank and was seated on the edge, the drops streaming off her in rivulets, watching the ripples her toes' made in the water. "Facts are facts," she echoed, "and conjectures are merely conjectures; what is more, conjectures ought to have some basis in fact. You assert, as if you know it to he true, that Calvaster expected Almo to meet me to-day.
"Grab him with both your hands," the Emperor commanded, "and pitch him into the river." Over went Calvaster with a mighty splash. As all Romans were excellent swimmers he came to the surface almost at once. A few strokes in front of him was the boat with the sieves. To it he swam and Truttidius hauled him aboard and located him on a thwart.
As the two regarded each other they could hear the faint splash of the fountain in the tank midway of the courtyard. Her father, a true Roman to his marrow, with all a Roman's arbitrary instincts, reverted to the direct attack. "You will marry Pulfennius Calvaster," he commanded. "I will not!" she declared. He temporized. "Why not?" he queried.
When Brinnaria's term of service was drawing to an end and only about eleven months of it remained, all Roman society was convulsed by what was variously referred to as the Calvaster scandal, the great poisoning trial or the murder of Pulfennia. Pulfennia Ulubrana, one of Calvaster's great-aunts, was a dwarfish creature, humpbacked and clubfooted.
They stood in a row fidgeting and glancing at each other. "Now," she demanded of Calvaster, "point out which one you bribed." Calvaster remained motionless and mute. "Hurt him, Guntello," said Brinnaria. Guntello applied a few. simple twists and squeezes, such as schoolboys of all climes employ on their victims. Calvaster yielded at once and indicated one of the suspects.
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