Sagaris glared fiercely at her, and drew upon himself a look no less fierce.

‘Fool!’ she exclaimed, once more speaking in a natural voice.  ’How shall we live a month hence?  Have you a mind to steal away to the Goths?  If you do so, you can’t expect me to starve here alone.  Thick-willed slave!  Can you see no further than the invitation to sup with that thievish brute?—­which I should have accepted, had I not foreseen the necessity of explaining to your dulness all that might follow upon it.’

Esteeming himself the shrewdest of mankind, Sagaris deeply resented these insults, not for the first time thrown at him by the woman whom he regarded with an Oriental passion and contempt.

‘Of course I know what you mean,’ he replied disdainfully.  ’I know, too, that you will be no match for the Thracian robber.’

Heliodora caught his arm.

’What if I can make him believe that Belisarius has the Emperor’s command to send him in chains to Constantinople!  Would he not rather come to terms with Totila, who, as I know well, long ago offered to let him carry off half his plunder?’

‘You know that?  How?’

’Clod-pate I Have you forgotten your master whom Basil slew?  Did I not worm out of him, love-sick simpleton that he was, all the secrets of his traffic with Greeks and Goths?’

Again they glanced at each other like wild creatures before the leap.

‘Choose,’ said Heliodora.  ’Leave me free to make your fortune, for Totila is generous to those who serve him well; or stay here and spy upon me till your belly pinches, and the great opportunity of your life is lost.’

There was a silence.  The Syrian’s features showed how his mind was rocking this way and that.

‘You have not cunning for this,’ he snarled.  ’The Thracian will use you and laugh at you.  And when you think to come back to me. . . .’

He touched the dagger at his waist.

In that moment there came confused sounds from without the room.  Suddenly the curtain was pulled aside, and there appeared the face of a frightened woman, who exclaimed:  ’Soldiers, lady, soldiers are in the house!’

Heliodora started up.  Sagaris, whose hand was still on the dagger’s hilt, grasped her by the mantle, his look and attitude so like that of a man about to strike that she sprang away from him with a loud cry.  Again the curtain was raised, and there entered hurriedly several armed men.  Their leader looked with a meaning grin at the lady and her companion, who now stood apart from each other.

‘Pardon our hasty entrance, fair Heliodora,’ he said in Greek.  ’The commander has need of you—­on pressing business.’

‘The commander must wait my leisure,’ she replied with a note of indignation over-emphasised.

‘Nay, that he cannot,’ returned the officer, leering at Sagaris.  ’He is even now at supper, and will take it ill if you be not there when he rises from table.  A litter waits.’