“Oh!” said Miriam, blushing to her eyes, “tell me, sir, is he well?”

“Not so well but that such a look as that, lady, would better him, or any other man, could he be here to see it,” answered the Roman, gazing at her with admiration.

“Did you then leave him ill?  I do not understand.”

“Nay, his health seemed sound, and his uncle Caius being dead his wealth can scarce be counted, or so they say, since the old man made him his heir.  Perhaps that is why the divine Nero has taken such a fancy to him that he can scarce leave the palace.  Therefore I cannot say that Marcus is well to-day, since sometimes Nero’s friends are short-lived.  Nay, be not frightened, I did but jest; your Marcus is safe enough.  Read the letter, lady, and waste no time.  As for me, my mission is fulfilled.  Thank me not; it is reward enough to have seen that sweet face of yours.  Fortunate indeed is the star of Marcus, and, though I am jealous of the man, for your sake I pray that it may lead him back to you.  Lady, farewell.”

“Cut the silk, Nou,” said Miriam when the Captain Gallus had gone.  “Quick.  I have no knife.”

Nehushta obeyed smiling and the letter was unrolled.  It, or those parts of it which concern us, ran thus: 

“To the lady Miriam, from Marcus the Roman, her friend, by the hand of the Captain Gallus.

“Dear friend and lady, greeting.  Already since I came here I have written you one letter, but this day news has reached me that the ship which bore it foundered off the coast of Sicily.  So, as Neptune has that letter, and with it many good men, although I write more ill than I do most things, I send you another by this occasion, hoping, I who am vain, that you have not forgotten me, and that the reading of it may even give you pleasure.  Most dear Miriam, know that I accomplished my voyage to Rome in safety, visiting your grandsire on the way to pay him a debt I owed.  But that story you will perhaps have heard.

“From Tyre I sailed for Italy, but was cast away upon the coasts of Melita, where many of us were drowned.  By the favour of some god, however—­ah! what god I wonder—­I escaped, and taking another ship came safely to Brundisium, whence I travelled as fast as horses would carry me to Rome.  Here I arrived but just in time, for I found my uncle Caius very will.  Believing, moreover, that I had been drowned in the shipwreck at Melita, he was about to make a will bequeathing his property to the Emperor Nero, but by good fortune of this he had said nothing.  Had he done so I should, I think, be as poor to-day as when I left you, dear, and perhaps poorer still, for I might have lost my head with my inheritance.