Chapter 5 - Page 2

cheese.

"My good friends," said he, in a low voice, when the wine was served,
"we have with us an able officer in this young Manius, one of our
assessors in Jerusalem. I ask you to drink his health. Though I can
drink no wine, I can feel good sentiments."

One could not help remarking his fixed serenity of face and voice and
manner as he went on:

"Some time ago it came to my ear that he thought me a tyrant wallowing
in vulgar and ill-gotten luxury."

There was a little stir in those heads around the table, and in every
hand and face one might have seen evidence of quickened pulses. The
young officer was now staring through deathly pallor.

"My friends, it is not strange," said the great Augustus, mildly. "To
Jerusalem is quite two thousand miles; and, then he was very young when
he left the home of his fathers. Am I not right, Manius?"

"Your words are both true and kindly," said the young man.

"And you are discerning," said the emperor, with a smile. "Now, good
people, observe that I have invited our young officer to Rome for two
purposes: to show him, first, that I live no better than the poorest
nobleman; secondly, that I am only a servant of the people; for, since
he is an able officer, I shall resist my own will and keep him in the
public service."

"Bravo!" said they all, and clapped their hands.

A strange, inscrutable man was the emperor at that moment, the mildness
of a lamb in his voice and manner, the gleam of a serpent's eye under
his brows. And that right hand of his, clinched now and quivering a
little, had it grasped a reaching, invisible serpent within him?
Kindly? Yes, but with the kindness of a deep and subtle character who
saw in forbearance the best politics and the most effective discipline.
Lights were now aglow in a great candelabrum over the table and in many
tall lampadaria.

A slave, who was a juggler, came near and began to fill the gloom above
him with golden disks. From afar came the music of flutes and
timbrels. Julia retired presently, and returned soon with her pet
dwarf Cenopas. She stood him on a large, round table, and the guests
greeted him with loud laughter as he looked down. He had a hard,
unlovely face, that little dwarf. He suggested to Vergilius unwelcome
thoughts of a new sort of Cupid--deformed, evil, and hideous--typifying
the degenerate passions of Rome. There were in the quiver of this
Cupid arrows which carried the venom of the asp. Some at the table
mocked his grinning face and made a jest of his deformity. When he
could be heard he mimicked the speech and manners of public men.

"A Cupid with a knot in his