Some time had thus passed when a confused sound made the Senator start up.  He beheld his daughter and her escort within the lower court, but the slaves were hastily barring the gates behind them, and loud cries of “Justice!  Vengeance!” in the Gothic tongue, struck his only too well-accustomed ears.

Columba flung herself before him, crying—­

“O father, have pity!  It was for our holy faith.”

“He blasphemed,” was all that was uttered by Verronax, on whose dress there was blood.

“Open the gates,” called out the Senator, as the cry outside waxed louder.  “None shall cry for justice in vain at the gate of an AEmilius.  Go, Marcus, admit such as have a right to enter and be heard.  Rise, my daughter, show thyself a true Roman and Christian maiden before these barbarians.  And thou, my son, alas, what hast thou done?” he added, turning to Verronax, and taking his arm while walking towards the tribunal, where he did justice as chief magistrate of the Roman settlement.

A few words told all.  While Columba was engaged with her sick widow, a young stranger Goth strolled up, one who had stood combing his long fair hair, and making contemptuous gestures as the Rogation procession passed in the morning.  He and his comrades began offensively to scoff at the two young men for having taken part in the procession, uttering the blasphemies which the invocation of our Blessed Lord was wont to call forth.

Verronax turned wrathfully round, a hasty challenge passed, a rapid exchange of blows; and while the Arvernian received only a slight scratch, the Goth fell slain before the hovel.  His comrades were unarmed and intimidated.  They rushed back to fetch weapons from the house of Deodatus, and there had been full time to take Columba safely home, Verronax and his dog stalking statelily in the rear as her guardians.

“Thou shouldst have sought thine impregnable crag, my son,” said the Senator sadly.

“To bring the barbarian vengeance upon this house?” responded Verronax.

“Alas, my son, thou know’st mine oath.”

“I know it, my father.”

“It forbids not thy ransoming thyself.”

Verronax smiled slightly, and touched the collar at his throat.

“This is all the gold that I possess.”

The Senator rapidly appraised it with his eye.  There was a regular tariff on the lives of free Romans, free Goths, guests, and trusted men of the King; and if the deceased were merely a LITE, or freeman of the lowest rank, it was just possible that the gold collar might purchase its master’s life, provided he were not too proud to part with the ancestral badge.

By this time the tribunal had been reached—­a special portion of the peristyle, with a curule chair, inlaid with ivory, placed on a tesselated pavement, as in the old days of the Republic, and a servant on each side held the lictor’s axe and bundle of rods, which betokened stern Roman justice, wellnigh a mockery now.  The forum of the city would have been the regular place, but since an earthquake had done much damage there, and some tumults had taken place among the citizens, the seat of judgment had by general consent been placed in the AEmilian household as the place of chief security, and as he was the accredited magistrate with their Gothic masters, as Sidonius had been before his banishment.