Friend, lend me thy cudgel; and I will engage to set thy beasts and thee
too in motion. If not, consider that we are new comers, and Romans
withal, and that we deserve some regard.'

'Romans!' screamed he: 'may curses light on you You swarm here like
locusts, and like them you come but to devour. Take my counsel: turn your
faces the other way, and off to the desert again! I give you no welcome,
for one. Now pass on--if on you still will go--and take the curse of
Hassan the Arab along with you.'

'Milo,' said I, 'have a care how you provoke these Orientals. Bethink
yourself that we are not now in the streets of Rome. Bridle your tongue
betimes, or your head may roll off your shoulders before you can have time
to eat your words to save it'

'I am a slave indeed,' answered Milo, with some dignity for him, 'but I
eat other food than my own words. In that there hangs something of the
Roman about me.'

We were now opposite what I discovered, from the statues and emblems upon
it and surrounding it, to be the Temple of Justice, and I knew therefore
that the palace on the other side of the street, adorned with porticos,
and partly hidden among embowering trees and shrubs, must be the dwelling
of Gracchus.

We turned down into a narrower street, and after proceeding a little way,
passed under a massy arched gateway, and found ourselves in the spacious
court-yard of this princely mansion. Slaves soon surrounded us, and by
their alacrity in assisting me to dismount, and in performing every office
of a hospitable reception, showed that we were expected guests, and that