predicted. He remembered little, and everything he said was hostile to the son’s claim. The brass scales had not been struck by the ingot of lead and so he was certain that the transaction he witnessed had not been an adoption. Acquaintances of the dead Ignatius testified that he had made no effort to put authority of any kind in the hands of the man who claimed to be his adopted son and that the position of the latter had seemed to be that of a beneficiary being supported while he developed his talents. Men in trade reported their impressions of the relationship, always unfavorable to Basil. Persis had not been allowed to attend and, when Quintus Annius did not appear, Basil’s hopes expired. The young Roman, it seemed, had preferred at the last to consult his own interests.
Basil knew that his father had intended to summon a panel of witnessesand to acknowledge before them that he, Basil, was his adopted son. Because Ignatius had died too soon, it was now necessary to stand in court in front of a corrupt judge and listen to an unctuous statement of the decision.
He reached the street, where the sun blazed down on the white walls of the great buildings. “This is a world of cruelty and dishonesty,” he said to himself, staring tautly at the crowds which passed along the Colonnade. “I, who should have been the richest man in Antioch, am now a slave. I own nothing and I have no rights in life.”
Persis had dressed herself in the expectation of a rightful verdict. Over the intimate undergarment, which was white and sleeveless and of cool linen, she had draped her gayest
palla
. It was of Tyrian purple, the most prized of colors and the only one which aided her fading charms. Her hair had been curled and plaited and she wore a wreath of gold with precious stones in each leaf, the last gift of her uxorious husband.
But when she trailed her long draperies across the marble floor of her room to meet Basil on his return, her attire had fallen into sad disorder. Her hair hung on her forehead in straight, damp wisps. Her face looked wrinkled and thin.
“My poor boy, my poor boy!” she whispered, pressing her clenched knuckles to her lips. “What will become of you now? What—what will become of me?”
“I would have been a failure, Mother, as the head of the family.” Basil paused and achieved a feeble smile. “I must not call you that again. The court has ruled I am not your son.”
“You are my son!” She seemed to have taken fire at last. Her eyes lost their listlessness; she reached out to place a possessive hand on his shoulder. It was no more than a passing phase, and almost immediately she lapsed again into a mood of resignation. “He always resented you,” she said in a low voice, as though afraid of being heard by other ears. “I could see it in his face. He intended to do this from the very first. Prying into the books and bribing the servants!” Her eyes were now filled with tears of self-pity. “He hated me because I complained to my husband of him once. Basil, Basil, is there nothing you can do to help us both?”
The dispossessed heir looked down at her with burning eyes. “Not immediately, Mother. Linus has won. He will be master here.” His hands were so tightly clenched at his sides that he could feel the nailscut into his skin. “But I haven’t given up hope, Mother. I am going to fight him. There is still one chance. I shall go on fighting him if—if they kill me for it!”
Persis was weeping loudly now. “Oh, why did my husband leave things like this? He was so careful about everything else. Ignatius, come back to your distracted wife and the son who has been robbed of his rights, and tell us what we should do!”
Basil was conscious of eyes on his back as he descended the stairs to the main floor and of anxious faces peering at him from around corners and out of darkened doorways. The silence of intense fear hung over the slave quarters. Castor met him in the lower hall,