the floor; while the leeches, who, as
Alexandrians for the most part, were anxious not to rouse the despot's
rage, assured him that to all appearance the lion, who had been highly
fed and getting little exercise, had died of a fit. The poison had indeed
worked more rapidly than any the imperial body physician was acquainted
with; and he, not less anxious to mollify the sovereign, bore them out in
this opinion. But their diagnosis, though well meant, had the contrary
effect to that they had intended. The prosecution and punishment of a
murderer would have given occupation to his revengeful spirit and have
diverted his thoughts, and the capture of the criminal would have
pacified him; as it was, he could only regard the death of the lion as a
fresh stroke of fate directed against himself. He sat absorbed in sullen
gloom, muttering frantic curses, and haughtily desired the high-priest to
restore the offering he had wasted on a god who was so malignant, and as
hostile to him as all else in this city of abomination.

He then rose, desired every one to stand back from where the lion lay,
and gazed down at the beast for many minutes. And as he looked, his
excited imagination showed him Melissa stroking the noble brute, and the
lion lashing the ground with his tail when he heard the light step of her
little feet. He could hear the music of her voice when she spoke
coaxingly to the lion; and then again he started off to search the rooms
once more, shouting her name, heedless of the bystanders, till Macrinus
made so bold as to assure him that the slaughterer's report must have
been false. He must have mistaken some one else for Melissa, for it was
proved beyond a doubt that Melissa had been burned in her father's house.

At this Caesar looked the prefect in the face with glazed and wandering
eyes, and Macrinus started in horror as he suddenly shrieked, "The deed,
the deed!" and struck his brow with his fist.

From that hour Caracalla had lost forever the power of distinguishing the
illusions which pursued him from reality.

CHAPTER XXXV.

A week later Caracalla quitted Alexandria to make war on the Parthians.
What finally drove the unhappy man to hurry from the hated place was the
torturing fear of sharing his lion's fate, and of being sent after the
murdered Tarautas by the friends who had heard his appeal to fate.

Quite mad he was not, for the illusions which haunted him were often
absent for several hours, when he