d a thud in the night, which roused them from a brief sleep
which they had snatched, for they were very tired ... their long hunt in
the Amphitheatre...."

"Yes! yes! go on! I know that they slept ... and they heard a thud ...
what was it?"

"They ran to the resting-chamber, gracious lady, and found the praefect
of Rome lying senseless on the floor."

"Great Mother!... and what did they do?"

"They lifted him as best they could; for the praefect is over tall and
mightily powerful. But they succeeded in laying him back on to the
couch, and Dion ran to rouse the physician."

"And now?"

"The physician hath given the praefect a drug to make him sleep, for it
seems that fever was upon him with the pain of his wounds and he talked
incoherently like one bereft of reason."

"Hush!..." interrupted Dea Flavia hurriedly, "not before Licinia."

Even as she spoke the old woman returned, carrying a robe of dove grey
cloth, the darkest one that she could find. She had collected the
tire-women round her, and they flocked in her wake like frightened sheep
that have been driven into a pen. Licinia herself was evidently the prey
of abject terror, for her teeth were chattering, and all the while that
she helped her mistress to make a hasty toilet, she uttered low moans as
if she were in pain.

"The traitors! the miscreants!" she murmured at intervals.

But Dea Flavia paid no heed to her. Her women had brought her fresh
water, perfumes and fine cloths, and she was hastily bathing her face
and hands. Then, she slipped on the dull-coloured robe and Licinia's
trembling fingers fastened a girdle round her waist.

And all the while, from far away, came the dull sound of Jove's thunders
hurled by his wrath, and above it as a constant din, like the roaring of
a tempestuous sea, the hoarse cries which--borne upon the wings of the
oncoming storm--seemed to gain distinctness as their echo reached this
distant house.

"Dost hear the cries, Blanca?" asked Dea Flavia, as the young slave,
leaning out of the narrow window tried to peer out into the street.

"I hear them, gracious lady," replied the girl in an awed whisper.

"And canst distinguish any words?"

"Aye, one word, gracious lady ... Hark!"

And that word sent its dismal echo even to Dea Flavia's ear.

"Death!"

Then Blanca uttered a terrified scream and quickly drew away from the
window; from beyond the Palace of Tiberius, there where the new Palace
of Caligula reared its