“And who”—the fellow was glowering, his heavy jaw thrust out—“are you, by the gods, to be giving me orders?”
Aroused by the angry words outside the fire chamber, a man rushed from the near-by furnace-shed office. “Porcius, you insolent, blundering fool, put down that whip!” he bellowed. “Don’t you know the centurion”—he gestured toward Longinus—“is the son of Senator Piso, who owns this plant? And the other one is his friend. Now you get back to your work!”
“But first let him get this poor old slave some water.”
“Yes, Centurion.” He turned fiercely to the overseer. “You heard the centurion. Go! And bring a cloth, too, to bathe his face.”
“O Zeus, mercy. Water.” The old man’s plea was hardly a whisper. “Mercy, O....”
Longinus pointed. “Water will do him no good now, Cornelius.”
The wizened, gaunt slave’s eyes, wide-open, were setting in an agonized, frightened stare; his head was stretched back, and Cornelius, looking into his blackened and bony face, saw that it was pitted and scarred from innumerable small burns; the eyebrows and eyelashes were completely gone, singed away in the intolerable heat of the glass furnaces.
The overseer returned with the water and a smudged cloth.
“No need now,” the plant superintendent said. “He’s dead.”
The overseer nodded. “Shall we....?” He paused. “The usual way?”
“Not for the moment. Put him over there under the shed. Later, when....”
“When we have left, eh?” Cornelius was pointedly sarcastic. “What is the usual way?”
“I’ll tell him, Lucius,” Longinus spoke out unconcernedly. “Usually, Cornelius, they are thrown into the furnaces they have been tending, provided, of course, that the heat is so intense that such disposition of the cadaver will not endanger the mixture in the glassmaking. Oftentimes they end up over there, in the deserted area behind that sand dune, with the vultures picking their ill-padded bones. But every now and then, when they do drag one over there, particularly if the breeze is from the land, they shovel a bit of sand over him.” He shrugged and thrust out his hands solemnly. “Of course, doing it that way provides a more pleasant atmosphere for working.”
Cornelius appeared not to have heard his friend’s poor attempt at humor. He stared at the dead slave on the ground and slowly shook his head. “He was calling upon Zeus, a Greek. He might have been another Pheidias.” He shook his head ruefully. “Slaves both, but what a difference in their lots.”