"And," concluded Cappadox, "it went on in this way till the day before yesterday. Then they had finished, and went away. At first I was afraid, and trembled when I saw all these splendid things growing out of the earth. I thought, if Master Corbulo has to pay for all this, then mercy on my poor back! and I wanted to come and tell you. But they would not let me go; and besides, I knew you were not at home. And when I saw what a ridiculous amount of money the intendant had with him, and how he threw the gold pieces about, as children throw pebbles, I got easier by degrees, and let things go on as they would. Now, master, I know well that you can set me in the stocks, and have me whipped with the vine-branch or even with the scorpion; for you are the master, and Cappadox the servant. But, master, it would scarcely be just! By all the saints and all the gods! For you set me over a few cabbage-fields, and see! they have become an Emperor's garden under my care!"
Camilla had long since dismounted and disappeared, when the servant ended his account.
Her heart beating with joy, she hurried through the garden, the bowers, the house; she flew as if on wings; the active Daphnidion could scarcely follow her. Repeated cries of astonishment and pleasure escaped her lips. Whenever she turned the corner of a path, or round a group of trees, a new picture of the garden at Ravenna met her delighted eyes.
But when she entered the house, and in it found a small room painted, furnished, and decorated exactly like the room in the Imperial Palace, in which she had played away the last days of her childhood, and dreamed the first dreams of her maidenhood; the same pictures upon the hempen tapestry; the same vases and delicate citrean-wood[2] boxes; and, upon the same small tortoise-shell table, her pretty little harp with its swan's wings; overpowered by so many remembrances, and still more by the feeling of gratitude for such tender friendship, she sank sobbing on the soft cushions of the lectus.
"There are still noble hearts in the world; there are still friends of the house of Boëthius!" and she breathed a prayer of deep thankfulness to Heaven.
When her mother arrived the next day, she was scarcely less moved by the strange surprise. She wrote at once to Cethegus in Rome, and asked: "In which of her husband's friends she should seek this secret benefactor?" Within her heart she hoped that it might turn out to be himself.