“Very odd!” he said, “but she seems to have changed!  I thought her eyes were blue, and that she had curling black hair.  Now they are dark and she has straight hair.  Where’s the necklace, too?  Where’s the necklace?  Pearl-Maiden, what have you done with your necklace?  Yes, and why didn’t you wear the girdle I sent you to-day?”

“Sir,” answered the Jewess, “I never had a necklace——­”

“My lord Domitian,” began Saturius with a nervous laugh, “there is a mistake—­I must explain.  This girl is not Pearl-Maiden.  Pearl-Maiden fetched so great a price that it was impossible that I should buy her, even for you——­”

He stopped, for suddenly Domitian’s face had become terrible.  All the drunkenness had left it, to be replaced by a mask of savage cruelty through which glared the pale and glittering eyes.  The man appeared as he was, half satyr and half fiend.

“A mistake——­” he said.  “Oh! a mistake?  And I have been counting on her all these weeks, and now some other man has taken her from me—­the prince Domitian.  And you—­you dare to come to me with this tale, and to bring this slut with you instead of my Pearl-Maiden——­” and at the thought he fairly sobbed in his drunken, disappointed rage.  Then he stepped back and began to clap his hands and call aloud.

Instantly slaves and guards rushed into the chamber, thinking that their lord was threatened with some evil.

“Men,” he said, “take that woman and kill her.  No, it might make a stir, as she was one of Titus’s captives.  Don’t kill her, thrust her into the street.”

The girl was seized by the arms and dragged away.

“Oh! my lord,” began Saturius.

“Silence, man, I am coming to you.  Seize him, and strip him.  Oh!  I know you are a freedman and a citizen of Rome.  Well, soon you shall be a citizen of Hades, I promise you.  Now, bring the heavy rods and beat him till he dies.”

The dreadful order was obeyed, and for a while nothing was heard save the sound of heavy blows and the smothered moans of the miserable Saturius.

“Wretches,” yelled the Imperial brute, “you are playing, you do not hit hard enough.  I will teach you how to hit,” and snatching a rod from one of the slaves he rushed at his prostrate chamberlain, the others drawing back to allow their master to show his skill in flogging.

Saturius saw Domitian come, and knew that unless he could change his purpose in another minute the life would be battered out of him.  He struggled to his knees.

“Prince,” he cried, “hearken ere you strike.  You can kill me if you will who are justly angered, and to die at your hands is an honour that I do not merit.  Yet, dread lord, remember that if you slay me then you will never find that Pearl-Maiden whom you desire.”

Domitian paused, for even in his fury he was cunning.  “Doubtless,” he thought, “the knave knows where the girl is.  Perhaps even he has hidden her away for himself.”