"Incomparably beautiful! What a figure and what a face! Still, I cannot
wish that he were my son."

"The Emperor's favorite!"

"For that very reason. Why, he looks already as if he had tried every
pleasure, and could never know any farther enjoyment."

............................

On a little level close to the sea-shore, and sheltered by crumbling
cliffs from the east wind, stood a number of tents. Between them fires
were burning, round which were gathered groups of Roman soldiers and
imperial servants. Half-naked boys, the children of the fishermen and
camel-drivers who dwelt in this wilderness, were running busily hither
and thither, feeding the flames with dry stems of sea-grass and dead
desert-shrubs; but though the blaze flew high, the smoke did not rise;
but driven here and there by the squalls of wind, swirled about close to
the ground in little clouds, like a flock of scattered sheep. It seemed
as though it feared to rise in the grey, damp, uninviting atmosphere.
The largest of the tents, in front of which Roman sentinels paced up and
down, two and two, on guard, was wide open on the side towards the sea.
The slaves who came out of the broad door-way with trays on their cropped
heads-loaded with gold and silver vessels, plates, wine-jars, goblets,
and the remains of a meal had to hold them tightly with both hands that
they might not be blown over.

The inside of the tent was absolutely unadorned. The Emperor lay on a
couch near the right wall, which was blown in and bulged by the wind; his