The monotonous song of the rowers, keeping time with each dip of
the broad-bladed oars, rose and fell in answer to the beats of
the master's silver baton, and Helena too followed the measure
with the tap, tap, of her sandaled foot.
Suddenly there shot out around one of the frequent turns in the
river, the gleam of other oars, the high prow of a larger galley,
and across the water came the oar-song of a larger company of
rowers. Helena started to her feet.
"Look, Cleon," she cried, pointing, eagerly towards the
approaching boat, " 't is my father's own trireme. Why this haste
to return, think'st thou?"
"I cannot tell, little mistress," replied the freedman Cleon, her
galley-master; "the king thy father must have urgent tidings, to
make him return thus quickly to Camalodunum."
Both the girl and the galley-master spoke in Latin, for the
language of the Empire was the language of those in authority or
in official life even in its remotest provinces, and the
galley-master did but use the name which the Roman lords of
Britain had given to the prosperous city on the Colne, in which
the native Prince, King Coel, had his court--the city which
to-day is known under its later Saxon name of Colchester.
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