No matter who it be--were it even the lord Basil--you will answer in the same words, saying that I am still in Rome.

You understand me?
Were it even lord Basil who asked ?' 'It shall be as my lord commands,' replied the slave, his face set in unctuous solemnity.
'Go, then.

Lose not a moment.' Marcian watched him ride away in the blaze of the cloudless sun.

The man's head was sheltered with a broad-brimmed hat of the lightest felt, and his horse's with a cluster of vine-leaves.

He rode away at a quick trot, the while dust rising in a cloud behind him.
And Marcian lived through the day he knew not how.