Her voice trembled with anxiety as she spoke the words, for the dread,
which, she knew not why, had so long been tormenting her lest her father
should lose his place, seemed to affect her more than ever to-day.

"What! civil words after what has now happened?" cried Keraunus
indignantly, and as if something quite unheard of had been suggested to
him.

"Nay, nay, say what you mean," shrieked the old woman. "If such a thing
had occurred to your father he would have fallen on the strange builder
with a good thrashing."

"And his son Keraunus will not let him off," declared the steward,
quitting the room without heeding Selene's entreaty not to let himself be
provoked.

In the ante-chamber he found his old slave whom he ordered to take a
stick and go before him to announce him to Pontius' guest, the architect,
who was lodging in the rooms in the wing near the fountain. This was the
elegant thing to do, and by this means the black slave would meet the big
dog before his master who held him and all dogs in the utmost abhorrence.
As he approached his destination he found himself quite in the humor to
speak his mind to the stranger who had come here with a ferocious hound
to tear the members of his family.




CHAPTER XIV.