href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@47221@[email protected]#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor pginternal" id="FNanchor_6" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[6] from his tunic.[7] “Are those rocks only Capreae?”

“Thou sayest, O Herodianus! Out there on the heights to the right, hardly visible yet, stands the palace of the glorified Caesar Tiberius.[8] Do you see that steep cliff, straight down to the sea? That was where such useless fellows as you were dropped over into the water by Caesar’s slaves.”

“Chrysostomus, do not be impudent! How dare you, a common ship’s-mate, make so bold as to scoff at me, the companion and confidential friend of the illustrious Caius Aurelius? By the gods![9] but it is beneath me to hold conversation with you, an ignorant seaman—a man who carries no wax-tablets[10] about him, who only knows how to handle the tiller and not the stylus—a common Gaul who is ignorant of all history of the gods—such a man ought not even to exist, so far as the friend of Aurelius is concerned.”

“Oho! you are dreaming! you are not his friend, but his freedman."[11]

Herodianus bit his lip; as he stood there, his face flushed with anger and turned to the growing day, he might have been taken for an ill-natured and vindictive man. But good temper and a genial nature soon reasserted themselves.

“You are an insolent fellow,” he said laughing, "but I know you mean no harm. You sea-folks are a rough race. I will burn a thank-offering to all the gods when this accursed sea-saw on the waves is over at last. Was there ever such a voyage! from Trajectum[12] to Gades[13] without landing once! And at Gades hardly had we set foot on shore, when we were ordered on board again! And if Aurelius, our noble master, had not had business to settle in Panormus[14] with his deceased father’s host, I believe we should have made the whole voyage from Hispania to Rome without a break. I will dance like the Corybantes,[15] when I am once more allowed to feel like a man among men! How long will it be yet before we reach Ostia?”[16]

“Two days, not more,” replied Chrysostomus.

“Aphrodite Euploia be most fervently thanked!”

“What are you talking about? Who is that you are blessing?”

“To be sure, my good Chrysostomus,” replied the other with a triumphant smile, “I was forgetting that a seaman from the land of the Gauls is not likely to understand Greek. Euploia, being interpreted, means the goddess who grants us a good voyage. Do not take my observation ill, but surely you might have picked up so much Greek as that in the course of your many voyages with the lamented father of our lord Aurelius.”

“Silly stuff!” retorted Chrysostomus. “Besides, I never sailed in the Greek seas. Ten times to Ostia, eight times to Massilia,[17] twelve times to Panormus and a score of times northwards to the seas of the Goths up by the land of the Rugii[18]—that is the sum total of my annals. But Latin is spoken everywhere; even the Frisii[19] can make themselves understood more or less in the language of Rome; among the Rugii, to be sure, we talked in Gothic.”

“A poor excuse!” said Herodianus pathetically. “However I have talked till I am thirsty! I will be on the spot again when the master appears.”

He carefully replaced his little ivory map in the bosom of his under-garment, and was about to withdraw, when a tall youth, followed by two or three slaves, appeared on the steps from below. The ship’s crew hailed their master with a loud shout, and Caius Aurelius, thanking them for their greeting, went forward while the slaves prepared breakfast[20] under an awning over the cabin roof; only one of them followed him.

It was by this time broad daylight; the whole eastern sky glowed with flame behind the blue Campanian hills, a light breeze curled the no less glowing sea into a thousand waves and ripples, and the prow of the galley, which was decorated with a colossal ram’s-head[21] in brass, threw up the water in sparks of liquid gold. The palace of Tiberius on the top of the rocky isle seemed caught in sudden fire, at every instant the glory spread lower, kindling fresh peaks and towers, and up rose the sun in all the majesty and splendor of his southern might from behind the heights of Salernum.

Herodianus, who had taken his place officiously close to his master, appeared to promise himself immense satisfaction in interpreting the young man’s mood of devout admiration by a long quotation of Greek poetry. He had already thrown himself into a pathetic attitude and laid his finger meditatively on his cheek, when Aurelius signed to him that he wished to be left undisturbed. The freedman, somewhat offended, drew back a step or two while Aurelius, standing by the side of his favorite slave Magus,[22] who preserved a discreet silence, leaned over the bulwark for a long space lost in thought, letting his eye wander over the open sea and linger for a while on the fantastic shapes of the rocks