embling
companion by the wrist, soon found himself being carried down the long
flight of steps which leads from the heights crowned by Caligula's
palace to the Forum below. Without attempting to work against the crowd,
he presently crossed the Nova Via, and turning sharply on his left he
found himself behind the basilica whose every arcade and precinct was
densely packed with men and women and whose marble walls echoed and
re-echoed with a multitude of sounds.

The crowd!--always the crowd! Always these shouting men, these
screaming women, these puny crying children! It seemed as if their
numbers were being fed by invisible masses that came from out the
darkness which was closing in around. On ahead the height of the
Aventine hid the horizon line from view, and on its slopes tiny lights
began to appear that seemed to mock the weary fugitives by their
distance and their elusiveness.

Taurus Antinor had all along intended to reach the Aventine by a devious
way. Now the crowd had brought him and his companion to the river bank,
there where the Tiber winds its sudden curve at the foot of the three
hills. That curve of the river would have to be followed its whole way
along the bank, and the slope of the Aventine looked so immeasurably
far.

But progress had become more easy at last. Taurus Antinor pushed his way
along now as quickly as he dared. More than one angry glance followed
the tall, powerful figure as it forged a path for its burden, regardless
of obstruction; more than one oath was uttered in the wake of those
broad shoulders that towered above the rest of the crowd.

With a man who was shivering as with ague dragging upon his arm, with
his body racked with fever and his temples throbbing with pain, the man
set out with renewed energy upon this final stage of his journey.

In the constant pushing through the crowd the bandages on his shoulder
had shifted, and he could again feel the claws of the panther tearing at
his flesh, and the hot breath of the beast scorching his face. The
sodden garments clung cold and dank to his skin, he felt chilled down to
the marrow, and yet he felt as if the fire of his body would burn his
skin on to his bones.

Perhaps the physical misery which he endured numbed the more unendurable
agony of the soul; certain it is that a kind of torpor gradually
invaded his brain, leaving within it only the sensation of a terrible
longing to drop down on the wet ground and to yield to the unc