ow no one to enter."

But scarce had these words crossed her lips than there rose from the
atrium behind her a series of weird sounds, cries, and imprecations,
calls for the Augusta and curses on her slaves, as from one who is
bereft of reason and screams in his madness.

"The Caesar!" she murmured, as white to the lips now, she stood rigid by
the door whilst her hand fell from the latch.

"Augusta! Augusta!" came the hoarse cries from the atrium, and the
hideous, familiar sound of leather thongs whistling through the air
reached her straining senses.

She put a finger to her lips, with a quick peremptory gesture to Dion,
then she recrossed the studio with a firm step and the curtains of the
inner door fell back behind her with a swish.

The next moment she was standing in the atrium facing Caligula, the
Caesar.

CHAPTER XXVII

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning!"--ISAIAH XIV. 12.

He had a score or so of his guard with him and they remained at some
little distance, in a compact group, with their short, bronze-hilted
swords naked in their hands.

Caligula was livid. He had donned a dark woollen robe and his head was
uncovered. His knees, arms and hands were shaking and his mouth opened
and closed as if he were gasping for breath. His eyes were bloodshot and
staring out of his head like those of a man who is being strangled.

"Gracious Caesar!" exclaimed Dea Flavia as soon as she was before him,
and with the instinct born of long usage, she bent the knee before him.

"They have trapped me," he murmured inarticulately whilst weird choking
sounds escaped his throat. "They have trapped me, hast heard?"

"Alas!"

"The miscreants! the sacrilegious miscreants! the hideous monsters! the
villainous reptiles! Aye! punishment will overtake them; they shall rue
this day! All Rome shall rue this day: her streets shall flow with blood
and I'll invent such tortures for every man as will turn the firmament
red with horror ... I'll...."

His mouth was twitching convulsively and his hands clutched
spasmodically at his throat. Dea Flavia had risen to her feet, she stood
before this raging madman erect and calm, with eyes downcast, for the
sight of him filled her with loathing.

Suddenly he ceased in his ravings; a loud crash as of crumbling walls
had rent the air, followed by shrieks and loud hissing sounds and that
perpetual cry, awesome in its weird monotony:

"Death to the Caesa