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Then followed the passage through the crowded Forum, straight toward the exit beside the temple of Hercules, and Perolla found himself within a spear's length of his captive friend, whose words of protest and warning fell upon his ears like molten lead, and whose reproachful eyes gazed into his own, piercing through them to his brain and dissipating the fumes of intoxication as sunlight melts the fog.
"Here, in your forum, and now," he said, "provided you would give prompt warning to such vermin." The Capuan shifted uneasily and looked down. Several of the soldiers had already lifted Perolla to his feet, and, holding him upright, had torn away what remained of his garments; others sent for the executioners, and, in a moment, these appeared with the instruments of their calling.
Marcia was led to the head of the lowest couch, next to the Carthaginian leader, where she found Pacuvius Calavius reclining below her, as the phrase went; while on the couch directly opposite lay the priest of Melkarth in the lowest place, and Perolla in the highest.
As for our horsemen, it is easy to see that their safety demands an apparent friendship for Rome. It is not wise for three hundred to revile thirty thousand." Hannibal had continued to keep his gaze upon Perolla, scarcely listening to his father's words. In the young man's face something of surprise had mingled with his half-defiant, half-moody expression.
Men offered the soldiers money for free passage or news; women offered them kisses for money; and the soldiers took both and gave nothing but jeers and blows. Perolla and his drunken company had but just poured out to swell the tide of this ocean of popular passion, when a commotion of a different character began at the other end of the Forum.
"Put up your sword, my Perolla," said the newcomer, speaking in low tones and throwing aside his mantle. "Decius Magius, by all the gods!" cried the young man; "but why are you disguised?" "Because, my friend," said Magius, slowly "Capua is no longer free; because spies of the Carthaginian and of our senate are watching my house, making ready to seize me.
When Decius Magius was led out in custody of the soldiers, Perolla was trying to think whether, after all, he would not prefer Marcia to Cluvia.
Is not my beauty worth the purchase of a few paltry months? And then comes the winter, bringing safety." Still Magius said nothing for several minutes, and when he spoke, it was in harsh, quick tones. "Yes, it is all possible, as you say it." "Hannibal to surrender his plans for a woman?" cried Perolla, scornfully. "Surely, my Decius, you jest.
"So you doubted her truth, my Perolla," he said softly. "That is because you have not felt her hand tremble, and because you are too young and too much of a philosopher to judge of the honesty of a woman's face.
"Still Minerva does not favour me," said Perolla, shaking his head; but Marcia went on in a high, nervous voice and with a gayety that made the older man draw his cloak up to his face in pity: "Come, my philosopher, you are indeed stupid to-night. If you did not observe it at the house of the Ninii, you should have heard me just now when I told the story of the banquet to my lord Decius.
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