woman maltreated and
wounded to the heart's core--to bear arms in her service till she gives
you the signal for making an end of the dastardly blood hound!"

The brothers gazed at one another pale and speechless, till at last
Nemesianus ventured to say "He deserves to die, we know, a thousand
deaths, but we are neither judges nor executioners. We can not do the
work of the assassin."

"No, lady, we can not," added Apollinaris, and shook his wounded head
energetically.

But the lady, nothing daunted, went on: "Who has ever called Brutus a
murderer? You are young--Life lies before you. To plunge a sword into the
heart of this monster is a deed for which you are too good. But I know a
hand that understands its work and would be ready to guide the steel.
Call it out at the right moment and be its guide!"

"And that hand?" Apollinaris asked in anxious expectation.

"It is there," replied Berenike, pointing to Martialis, who entered the
room at that moment. Again the brothers interchanged looks of doubt, but
the lady cried: "Consider for a moment! I would fain go hence with the
certainty that the one burning desire shall be fulfilled which still
warms this frozen heart."

She motioned to the centurion, left the apartment with him, and preceded
him to her own room. Arrived there, she ordered the astonished freedman
Johannes, in his office as notary, to add a codicil to her will. In the
event of her death, she left to Xanthe, the wife of the centurion
Martialis, her lawful property the villa at Kanopus, with all it
contained, and the gardens appertaining to it, for the free use of
herself and her children.

The soldier listened speechless with astonishment. This gift was worth
twenty houses in the city, and made its owner a rich man. But the
testator was scarcely ten years older than his Xanthe, and, as he kissed
the hem of his mistress's robe in grateful emotion, he cried: "May the
gods reward you for your generosity; but we will pray and offer up
sacrifices that it may be long before this comes into our hands!"

The lady shook her head with a bitter smile, and, drawing the soldier
aside, she disclosed to him in rapid words her determination to quit this
life before the praetorians entered the house. She then informed the
horror-stricken man that she had chosen him to be her avenger. To him,
too, the emperor had dealt a malicious blow. Let him remember that, when
the time came to plunge the sword in the tyrant's heart