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The party who had arrived by water were not allowed to occupy the tents which had been pitched for them not far from his, because he desired to be alone, quite alone, with his anguish of spirit. Mastor, whom he had hitherto regarded rather a useful chattel than as a human creature, now grew nearer to him had he not been the one witness of his darling's strange disappearance.
"Oh!" exclaimed Antinous, joyfully clapping his hands. "Evoe Bacche!" cried Hadrian, tossing up his cup that stood on his table. "You are free till this evening, Mastor, and you my boy, go and talk to Pollux, the sculptor. He shall be our guide and he will provide us with wreaths and some mad disguise. I must see drunken men, I must laugh with the jolliest before I am Caesar again.
"I am," replied the old man, and as soon as he learnt what Mastor required as a commission from the controlling architect, he pointed out some young slaves who quickly brought the water that he needed.
"What does this mean?" he asked Mastor, and as soon as he had been informed that the workmen and slaves had just been let out to give themselves up to the pleasures of their holiday, he muttered to himself: "These creatures can riot, shout, dress themselves with garlands, forget themselves in a debauch and I, I whom all envy I spoil my brief span of life with vain labors, let myself be tormented with consuming cares I " here he broke off and cried in quite an altered tone: "Ha! ha!
"Stay-stop! hapless boy, come back!" shouted the slave, and leaping into a boat he followed that of the Bithynian, which, impelled by strong and steady strokes, flew away into the current. Mastor rowed with all his might, but he could not gain upon the boat he was pursuing. Thus in a wild race both reached the middle of the stream.
The story told by Mastor which had so greatly agitated Pollux and had prompted him to his mad flight was the history of events which had taken place in the steward's rooms during the hours when the young artist was helping his parents to transfer their household belongings into his sister's tiny dwelling.
His pupil, after he had accomplished the easy transfer of his parents, had returned to the palace, and there, to his delight, came across Mastor, who soon fetched him the garments and masks that he had lent the day before to Hadrian and Antinous.
He began to regret his hardness upon the old woman for had she not, without knowing who he was, been most friendly to him and to his favorite. "Where is Antinous?" he asked Mastor. "He went out to the gate-house." "What is he doing there?" "I believe he meant there, perhaps he " "The truth, fellow!" "He is with Pollux the sculptor." "Has he been there long?" "I do not exactly know."
And the men marvelled at the birds when they had sight of them, and pondered in their hearts the things that should come to pass. Yea and the old man, the lord Halitherses son of Mastor spake among them, for he excelled his peers in knowledge of birds, and in uttering words of fate.
In spite of the rain, which began to fill more violently, he went out into the open air, of which the sweltering oppressiveness had helped to fetter his feeble volition, and called to the dogs, with whose help he proposed seeking the Emperor; but just then he heard the bark of Argus, and soon after Hadrian and Mastor stepped out of the darkness into the brightness which shone out from the tent, where lights were burning.
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