Julia's laugh rang merrily through the arches of the portico.

'Truly,' said she, 'I was glad to use any sudden conceit by which to gain
a more solitary ride than I was like to have. It was my ambition to be
Piso's companion, that I might enjoy the pleasure of pointing out to new
eyes the beauties of the country. I trust I was rightly comprehended by
our grave counsellors.'

'Assure yourself of it,' said Longinus; 'and though we could not but part
from you with some unwillingness, yet seeing whom we were to join, we bore
the loss with such philosophy as we were able to summon on the sudden.'

Zenobia now led the way to the banqueting hall, where tables loaded with
meats, fruits, and wines, offered themselves most temptingly and
seasonably, to those who had ridden, as I have said, twenty Roman miles.

This villa of the Queen, for its beauty and extent unrivalled in all the
East, I would that I could set before you, so that you might form some
conception of its greatness and variety. The palace stands at the northern
extremity of a vast plain, just where the wild and mountainous region
ends, and the more level and cultivated begins. To the North stretches a
savage country, little inhabited, and filled with the wild animals which
make the forests of Asia so terrible. This is the Queen's hunting-ground.
It was here that, with Odenatus, she pursued the wild boar, the tiger, or
the panther, with a daring and a skill that astonished the boldest
huntsmen. It was in these forests, that the wretch Maesonius, insolently
throwing his javelin at the game, just as he saw his uncle was about to
strike, incurred that just rebuke, which however his revengeful nature
never forgave, and which was appeased only with the blood of the royal