r! Death!"

Caligula's face was contorted with terror, his cheeks were grey like
those of the dead. He made a quick movement forward and suddenly
clutched Dea's wrist.

"Dost hear them?" he said in a hoarse whisper.

And she nodded in response.

"They want to kill me ... they have set fire to my house ... I escaped
through the crypta.... But they were hard on my heels...."

And as if to confirm his words, the cries of "Death!" again rose in the
air; the tramping of feet, the angry murmurs became more loud and
appeared to be filling the street close by and tending toward the very
door of Dea Flavia's house.

"Ah, monsters! miserable monsters!" shouted the Caesar, crazy with fear,
"to-morrow will come the awful reprisals ... to-morrow ..."

"To-day," broke in Dea Flavia coldly, "the Caesar is in danger of his
life."

"They'll kill me," he cried, whilst once more trembling--akin to
palsy--seized his limbs. "They'll kill me, Augusta ... hide me, hide me
ere they come."

And he fell on his knees, grovelling on the floor like a fawning beast,
with quivering hands clutching the young girl's robe, his forehead
beating the ground at her feet.

"Hide me, Augusta," he murmured through his groans, "hide me!... Do not
let them kill me."

She drew back in horror and disgust, closing her eyes lest she should
see this degradation of the Caesarship, this breaking down of her highest
ideals.

But two days ago this same abject creature had stood beside her,
demanding from her obedience and loyalty which she was fully prepared to
accord to him. He had called on her fealty in the very name of that
Caesarship which she worshipped and which he was now degrading and
lowering to the dust.

Then as now Jove's thunders from afar had proclaimed the wrath of the
gods. Then as now Jove thundered his warnings to that man not to defile
the majesty of the Caesars. But two days ago she had still believed in
and acknowledged that majesty, she had bent her will, curbed her
inclinations, smothered her every girlish inspiration, her every womanly
instinct to the dictates of that power which came straight from the
hands of the gods; now she felt actual physical nausea at the sight of
this pitiable coward, who--wallowing in his own cruelty--had not even
the unreasoning pluck of a brute defending its life.

Involuntarily her thoughts flew back to the man who was lying helpless
in her house. She saw him in her mind as she had seen him yesterd