“By those same gray temples, I do!  And hold thy peace about my white hairs.  Nothing made them so but thyself—­and this evil plot in which I am tangled.  What does Julian mean to do with this poor creature?”

“He has not got her yet and by the complication thou seest now, wearing its turban over one ear in yonder howdah, it may come to pass that he will never have her—­and her dowry.”

“Pfui!  How little you know this Julian!  Besides, I am pledged to deliver him—­at least the treasure.”

“And thou meanest to line his purse with this great treasure because he paid thee to do it?”

“I shall; and be rid of it!”

The woman smiled sarcastically.

“And scorn it for thyself?”

Aquila made no answer, but rode on in sulky silence.

“Perpol, it must be pleasant to be a queen,” the woman observed with an assumption of childishness in her voice.

“Peril’s own habit!” Aquila declared.

“Peril!  Fie!  That is half the pleasure of this game of life.  It is tiresome to live any other way than hazardously.”

“Thou shalt have pleasure enough in this journey thou art to take,” Aquila declared a little threateningly.

The woman laughed.  When Aquila spoke again, his voice was full of concern.

“I was a fool for not forcing you to stay in Ascalon.  You are reckless—­reckless!”

“It was that which made me attractive,” the woman broke in, “to Nero, to Vitellius and to you.”

“Reckless and useless!” Aquila went on decisively.  “Hear me, now; I trifle no longer.  Sometime to-night thou’lt leave us and journey to Emmaus and inform Julian what has wrecked his plans, and send him with despatch to Zorah.  This thou wilt do, by all the Furies, or when I do catch thee as I shall, since there is no other fool in Judea who will undertake to feed thee, I shall leave the print of my displeasure on thee from thy head to thy heel!  Mark me!”

The woman laughed aloud, with such peculiar insolence and amusement that one of the servants heard her and turned his head that way.

“Pah!  What a timid villain thou art,” the woman said, when the servant looked away again.  “How much better it would have been had Julian fixed upon me as his confederate!”

“Not for Julian!  You plot against him even now.  But say what you will, you go to Emmaus to-night, without fail.  I have spoken!”

Aquila touched his horse and riding away from the woman came up beside Costobarus who was gazing over the country through which they were passing.