Though as lame as a gull, by his highness possessed,

She shouldered her crutch, and danced with the best.

“She stamped and she twirled in the shade of the yew,

Till her gossips and chums of the city danced too;

They never are slack when there’s mischief to do.

“She danced and she coaxed, but he was no fool;

He’d be his own master, he’d not be her tool:

Not the little black moor should send him to school.”

He then turned to Cæcilius and whispered, “You see, old father, that others, besides Christians, can forgive and forget. Henceforth call me generous Juba.” And he tossed his head.

By this time they had got to the bottom of the hill, and the deep shadows which filled the hollow showed that the sun was rapidly sinking in the west. Suddenly, as they were crossing the bottom as it opened into the plain, Juba seized and broke the thong which bound Cæcilius’s arms, and bestowing a tremendous cut with it upon the side of the ass, sent him forward upon the plain at his greatest speed. The youth’s manœuvre was successful to the full. The asses of Africa can do more on an occasion of this kind than our own. Cæcilius for the moment lost his seat; but, instantly recovering it, took care to keep the animal from flagging; and the cries of the mob, and the howlings of the priests of Cybele cooperated in the task. At length the gloom, increasing every minute, hid him from their view; and even in daylight his recapture would have been a difficult matter for a wearied-out, famished, and intoxicated rabble. Before Cæcilius well had time to return thanks for this unexpected turn of events, he was out of pursuit, and was ambling at a pace more suitable to the habits of the beast of burden that carried him, over an expanse of plain which would have been a formidable night-march to a fasting man.