Aquila, the emissary, showed the immemorial composure in the face of disaster that was the badge of the Roman in the days of the degenerate Caesars, and, mounting his horse when the rest of the party were in their places, headed the procession toward the northeast.
From an upper window behind a lattice, Hannah cried her farewells and fluttered her scarf.

She was smiling the drawn, white smile of a mother who is forcing herself to be cheerful in the face of danger, for the peace of those she loves.

Laodice understood the tender deception and when a sharp turn of the street cut off the sight of the plumy trees of the garden, she covered her face and wept inconsolably.
On either side of the passage there came muffled sounds from houses; out of open alleys leading into interior courts stole the fetor of death that even the spice of burning unguents could not smother.

The whole air shuddered with the drumming of heathen physicians in the pagan quarters, through which the silence of long stretches of ominously quiet houses shouted its meaning.

At times frantic barefoot flights could be glimpsed as households deserted stricken houses, but whatever outcry arose came from bedsides.