United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nemestronia has offered you the use of her lower garden. You are to have it all to yourself, whenever you want it, as long as my directions to Agathemer permit you to remain in it; and you need not remain a moment unless you enjoy being there." I understood without asking any questions. Nemestronia's palace was one of the most desirable, magnificent and spacious abodes in Rome.
I was strolling unhurriedly back to the seat I had left and was perhaps half way to it, when I heard, loud and clear, the long-drawn, blood- curdling hunting-squall of Nemestronia's pet leopard; heard in it more of menace, more of adult ferocity, more of the horrible joy of the power to kill than I had ever heard before. Instantly I comprehended what had happened.
Under the mellow light shed by the numerous hanging lamps, against the intricate particolored patterns of the wall between the statue-niches, I saw the vacuous baby face of Asellia, Bambilio's pretty doll of a wife, between Vedia's countenance cleverly assuming a normal social expression after her brief glare at me, and Nemestronia's mask of horror, accentuated by the agony of the gripping spasm which throttled her, for the pain in her chest was induced by anything which startled her, and was not assumed.
Before the ladies, facing Nemestronia, stood Agathemer; behind and about him Nemestronia's six big, husky, bull-necked slave-lashers, the two head- lashers with their many-lashed scourges. I realized at once what had happened. Nemestronia had needed no one to inform her that it was through Agathemer's negligence or mismanagement that the leopard had escaped from the wild-garden.
He had me summon Agathemer and repeated to him much of what he had said to me. "He might go out at once," he said, "but we had best be cautious. Limit him to morning outings in Nemestronia's gardens. He may, however, see friends, one at a time, according to his wishes and your directions. And be particular as to his diet. Give him more of each viand at each feeding. Feed him as soon as he wakes.
Vedia clung to me, shuddering. "You have saved me, Caius," she said. "As you did on the terrace at Nemestronia's." Naturally, for a while, we exchanged kisses and caresses without any intermingled words. When, she spoke she said: "How do you come to be alive?" "That," I said, "is thanks to Agathemer and is a long tale.
If I had had any sense I'd have been here not much after noon. As it is I have wasted most of the day." When we went into the hot room, I asked him, "Where did you get your new bearers? They look to me like Nemestronia's. What have you done with your Saxons?" "Nemestronia has them," he explained, "and my Nubians were hers.
Also I had to express my approbation of Nemestronia's orders, and had to sit there and chat with the ladies, seven of whom were inclined to be facetious over the figure I had cut sprawling on the mosaic walk, tussling with that abominable leopard. They thanked me for saving their lives, or at least, the life of some one of them.
It always has been tame and is tame with everybody, not only with all Nemestronia's household, not only with frequenters of her reception rooms, but also with casual visitors, total strangers to it. Nobody would think it anything wonderful for Hedulio to handle Nemestronia's leopard." "I do not mean merely handling," said Agathemer respectfully. "I mean something quite amazing in itself.
It was, it certainly was, the very same man I had seen in the very same guise on the road below Villa Andivia as Tanno and I passed by on our way to our fatal brawl at Vediamnum; the very man who had peered in at me and Capito during his fatal conference with me in Nemestronia's water-garden, the man whom Tanno had asserted that he knew for an Imperial spy.
Word Of The Day