Читать книгу No. XIII; or, The Story of the Lost Vestal онлайн

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“I would I could take your place,” said Claudius, “but my old father would not hear of it if your father agreed thereto. He looks upon me as the guardian of Junia, though, forsooth, I am but a poor guardian. She springs like a tigress if I attempt to check her in any wild course,” Claudius sighed. “Now, you have a sister who is like a daughter of the gods. You may well be ready to lay down your life for her. How can her parents send her hence?”

“It is all from the same cause, the dread of the Christian superstition,” Casca said. “They dread her being infected by poor Ebba’s teachers. The poor wretch seldom spoke of her new religion; until the day of Alban’s execution she kept silence. I trust we shall be spared the sickening spectacle of her head brought back. I can never forget the horror when the ghastly head of the runaway Syra was brought into the atrium,” and Casca shuddered.

“Nay, Casca, thou wert surely not designed by the gods for a Roman. Thou shouldst have been born in one of those far-off islands in the south, where the effete Greeks lie in flower-wreathed bowers, and, chewing the leaves of the lotus, pass away life in alternate slumber and song. Especially, good Casca, wert thou never designed by the gods to live in our own rude country and associate with us poor Britons.”