Alexis's eyes shown, but Alyrus cast a malignant glance at Martius,
whose face was flushed.
"What a strange song!" repeated the lawyer. "It seems to be religious
in its type, yet I never heard it at our functions or in the temples.
Who was that man, Alyrus? Thou, who sittest ever at the doorway and
hast an insatiable curiosity about our neighbors, wilt surely know."
Alyrus frowned at the implied reproof which was, after all, for the
Moor kept closely to himself, except when information could serve some
end.
"It is Lucius, the water-carrier," he said, as shortly as he dared
speak to his master. "It is a Christian song that he is singing."
"Ah!"
Aurelius selected a large, rosy peach, covered with burnished down and
deliciously cold, from the dish presented to him by Alexis. The figs,
grapes and peaches were laid in snow and cracked ice, brought from
distant lands and preserved in this tropical clime by some process
known to the Romans. If Aurelius Lucanus had not been one of the most
prominent advocates in the city, receiving a large pension from the
Emperor himself, he could not have afforded these luxuries.
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