have been torn from Rome, and were once members of her body.'

'Your emperor is gracious indeed!' replied the Queen, smiling; 'if he may
hew off my limbs, he will spare the trunk!--and what were the trunk
without the limbs?'

'And is this,' said Petronius, his voice significant of inward grief,
'that which I must carry back to Rome? Is there no hope of a better
adjustment?'

'Will not the Queen of Palmyra delay for a few days her final answer?'
added Varro: 'I see, happily, in her train, a noble Roman, from whom, as
well as from us, she may obtain all needed knowledge of both the
character and purposes of Aurelian. We are at liberty to wait her
pleasure.'

'You have our thanks, Romans, for your courtesy, and we accept your
offer; although in what I have said, I think I have spoken the sense of
my people.'

'You have indeed, great Queen,' interrupted Zabdas with energy.

'Yet I owe it to my trusty counsellor, the great Longinus,' continued the
Queen, 'and who now thinks not with me, to look farther into the
reasons--which, because they are his, must be strong ones---by which he
supports an opposite judgment.'

'Those reasons have now,' said the Greek, 'lost much or all of their
force,'--Zabdas smiled triumphantly--'yet still I would advocate delay.'