too violently for sleep. At his bidding Epagathos and
Adventus followed the Indian into the adjoining room after extinguishing
the lamp. . . Caracalla was alone in the dark. Awaiting sleep, he
stretched himself at full length, but he remained as wide awake as by
day. And still he could not help thinking of the immediate past. Even his
enemies could not deny that it was his duty as a man and an emperor to
inflict the severest punishment on this town, and to make it feel his
avenging hand; and yet he was beginning to be aware of the ruthlessness
of his commands. He would have been glad to talk it all over with some
one else. But Philostratus, the only man who understood him, was out of
reach; he had sent him to his mother. And for what purpose? To tell her
that he, Caesar, had found a wife after his own heart, and to win her
favor and consent. At this thought the blood surged up in him with rage
and shame. Even before they were wed his chosen bride had been false to
him; she had fled from his embraces, as he now knew, to death, never to
return.

He would gladly have sent a galley in pursuit to bring Philostratus back
again; but the vessel in which the philosopher had embarked was one of
the swiftest in the imperial fleet, and it had already so long a start
that to overtake it would be almost impossible. So within a few days
Philostratus would meet his mother; he, if any one, could describe
Melissa's beauty in the most glowing colors, and that he would do so to
the empress, his great friend, was beyond a doubt. But the haughty Julia
would scarcely be inclined to accept the gem-cutter's child for a
daughter; indeed, she did not wish that he should ever marry again.

But what was he to her? Her heart was given to the infant son of her
niece Mammaea;--[The third Caesar after Caracalla, Alexander Severus]--in
him she discovered every gift and virtue. What joy there would be among
the women of Julia's train when it was known that Caesar's chosen bride
had disdained him, and, in him, the very purple. But that joy would not
be of long duration, for the news of the punishment by death of a hundred
thousand Alexandrians would, he knew, fall like a lash on the women. He
fancied he could hear their howls and wailing, and see the horror of
Philostratus, and how he would join the women in bemoaning the horrible
deed! He, the philosopher, would perhaps be really grieved; aye, and if
he had been at his side this morning everything might