"Welcome, Beric!" he said warmly.

"All hail, preceptor!" the lad replied. "Are all well here?"

"All well, Beric. We had looked to see you before, and Berenice
has been constantly asking me when you were coming."

"I had been absent over four years, you see," Beric replied, "and
it was not easy to get away from home again. Now I must speak to
Caius." He crossed the apartment, and stood at the entrance to the
tablinum. Caius looked up from a military treatise he was perusing.

"Ah, Beric! it is you! I am glad to see you again, though I am
sorry to observe that you have abandoned our fashions and taken to
the native garb again."

"It was necessary, Caius," Beric said. "I should have lost all
influence with the tribe had I not laid aside my Roman dress. As it
is, they regard me with some doubt, as one too enamoured of Roman
customs."

"We have heard of you, Beric, and, indeed, report says that you
speak well of us, and are already famous for your relations of our
history."

"I thought it well that my countrymen should know your great deeds,"
Beric said, "and should see by what means you have come to rule
the world. I received nought but kindness at your hands, and no
prisoner's lot was ever made more easy than mine. To you and yours