t.
He skirted the temple and anon stood looking down on the panorama of
Rome stretched out at his feet: the Palatine sloping downwards in a
gentle gradient--covered with the dwellings of the rich patricians which
formed here a network of intricate and narrow streets; below these the
great Circus redolent of the memories of the past four-and-twenty hours;
beyond it the Aventine and the winding ribbon of the Tiber now lost in a
leaden-coloured haze.

The streets from the valley upwards all round the hill were swarming
with men, who from this distance looked like pygmies, fussy and
irresponsible, spectral too in the rain-laden mist as they appeared to
be running hither and thither in compact groups, but with seeming
aimlessness, whilst shouting, always shouting, that perpetual call for
vengeance and for death.

The watcher looked down in silence, for that crowd of Pygmies was the
people of Rome, who at a word from him would proclaim him Caesar and
master of the world. The immensity of the sky was above him, the far
horizon partly hidden in gloom, but down there were the people whose
voice was raised to deify their chosen hero in the intervals of
demanding the death of a tyrant.

And the people were the lords of Rome just now. Entrenched in the narrow
streets a crowd--one hundred thousand or more strong--held the imperial
hill in a solid blockade. Down below, in and around the Circus, steel
and bronze glittered in the distant vapours. One thousand men of the
praetorian guard, cut off from the Caesar, had been unable to forge a way
through the serried ranks of the populace.

Dark masses--that lay immovable and stark in the open space around the
Circus--spoke mutely of combats that had been fierce and bloody: but the
people had remained victorious; the people held their ground. One
hundred thousand fists and staves, a few agricultural and building
implements had asserted their mastery over one thousand swords and
shields.

The people were the masters of Rome, and they had chosen their Caesar in
the hero whom they had already deified.

Taurus Antinor's gaze swept over the vista that lay stretched out before
him: it pictured the entire political situation of the world-city. With
treachery lurking on the hill and a determined mob in the valley, the
murder of the Caesar was but a question of hours.

And after that?

After that the Empire of Rome and the dominion of the world for this man
who stood here on the watch. He