It was really as Zercho the bondman had believed: Bissula had become the captive, not of Ausonius, but another; and his captive she remained. To the extreme surprise, nay, barely repressed indignation of the Prefect of Gaul, the younger man had asserted his claim according to the rights of war. Ausonius had no claims whatever to the prisoner; that was clear. His nephew undoubtedly might have raised them, and at first he did make the attempt. But he grew strangely silent when the Tribune--scarcely in absolute harmony with the truth--said in his uncle's presence: "The girl had escaped again. I was the first to catch her finally. Shall I call her, that she may tell you the whole story herself?"

Herculanus, with a venomous glance, left the tent.

But Ausonius did not understand the imperious rudeness of the brave soldier who was usually so devoted to him. When the Tribune curtly appealed to the right of war, Ausonius, deeply offended, pondered over all the reasons which, as he thought, must induce his friend not to yield his legal right in this instance to him. The poet, seeking motives for the act, of course first grasped the nearest: all the men in the camp gazed at the peculiar beauty of the child with unconcealed admiration. It was no wonder then that the Illyrian, in the full vigor of manhood, should also be seized with ardent love for the beautiful creature who had fallen into his hands and, without really having any evil design, wanted to keep her in his power until either from affection or obedience the captive should yield to her master.

But this anxiety, which at first had weighed heavily upon him, was soon relieved. With the keen distrust of jealousy, he watched his rival sharply at every meeting; but even suspicion could discover nothing that would have warranted this conjecture. Quiet, unmoved, and steadfast as ever was the Tribune's bearing in her presence, which he neither shunned nor sought, but treated with indifference. He looked into the wonderful eyes no more frequently than occasion required, and his glance was calm, his voice did not tremble. So Ausonius regarded his friend's act as a soldier's strange whim, and did not doubt that he would soon give it up. But this proved an error.

On returning to the camp Ausonius entreated his friend, without renouncing his right of possession, to place the young girl in the tent next to the Prefect's, now occupied by slaves and freedwomen, whom he would remove. But Saturninus insisted that Bissula should be lodged among the wives of the freedmen and female slaves who occupied some tents a long distance from the Prefect's. The young girl herself paid little heed to the discussion between the two Romans, whose meaning she scarcely understood.

Released by the Tribune from the fear of death, and soothed by the presence of her honored friend, her young cheerful heart soon accommodated itself to the new condition of affairs,--not through recklessness, but through childish ignorance of the perils which possibly threatened her. Her grandmother was not discovered; her faithful servant had not been captured; she herself was certainly secure in the presence and under the eyes of her friend, the most aristocratic man in the Roman camp. He would not let a hair of her head be harmed, she knew.

True, the thought weighed heavily upon her heart as soon as she was captured that she herself was solely to blame for her misfortune. If she had obeyed the well-meant counsel--she was on the verge of tears; experience had taught the value of the advice--she would now have been safe and sheltered with her grandmother, though also with Adalo. And owing him a debt of gratitude! She crushed the tears on her long lashes. No, she would not admit that he was right. Now she owed the haughty Adeling nothing: that was certainly an advantage. "And"--she shook her waving locks back defiantly--"they won't eat me here! Only don't be afraid, Bissula," she said to herself; "and don't submit to anything!"

She had trembled only a moment after her escape from Herculanus, when her powerful deliverer measured her whole dainty figure with a look under which she lowered her eyes in confusion. But when she again raised those innocent child-eyes, the expression had vanished. And it never returned.

Her master allowed her to spend the whole day with her "Father Ausonius": only when it grew dark he appeared, with inexorable firmness, to take her away; and he went with her himself to the tent assigned to her, before which he stationed one of his Illyrian countrymen as a sentinel all night.

Bissula never saw her friend's nephew, whom she feared, alone. She confidently expected the restoration of her liberty when the camp should be broken up and the Romans should withdraw from the country. There would be no fighting, Ausonius repeatedly told her. So the light-hearted girl regarded her captivity, which had lost all its terrors, as an adventure that afforded her an opportunity for the conversations with her friend which she had missed so long.

Many of her young playmates had lived as hostages and probably as captives in Roman camps and in the fortresses on the southern shore, and been restored to liberty uninjured when truce or peace was declared. That she could be detained or carried away against her will she did not fear: the most powerful man in the camp was her protector. Yet this peril constantly threatened her more and more closely.

Ausonius kept a sort of diary, in which before going to sleep he recorded events, impressions, sketches of poems, and short bits of verse--a custom whose regular observance he scarcely omitted even in camp. A touch of pedantry was one of his characteristics. Yet the diary was not a monologue, rather a sort of dialogue; for he addressed it in the form of a letter to his oldest and most intimate friend, Arius Paulus of Bigerri, rhetorician, but also an old soldier. Every three months he collected what he had written and forwarded it to him to receive his criticisms and answers on the margin of the manuscript when returned.

So, during these days of involuntary leisure he wrote.