he
commander-in-chief. "Good-night, gentlemen; we meet to-morrow."

The council broke up, and filed out of the tent. Lentulus Spinther
paused to cast a look of savage anger at Scipio, who lingered behind.
The contest over the pontificate still rankled in his breast. That
four and twenty hours hence both of these aristocratic gentlemen might
have more pressing things to think of seemingly entered the head of
neither. Lentulus Crus, Domitius, and Scipio waited after the others
were gone.

"I have been wondering all day," said the genial Domitius, when the
tent had emptied, "how Caesar will comport himself if he is taken
prisoner and not slain in battle. I give him credit for not being
likely to flee away."

"I trust he will die a soldier's death," replied Pompeius, gloomily.
"It would be a grievous thing to have him fall into my hands. He has
been my friend, my father-in-law. I could not treat him harshly."

"Doubtless," said the ever suave Lentulus Crus, "it would be most
disagreeable for you, Magnus, to have to reward such an enemy of the
Republic as he deserves. But your excellency will, of course, bow to
the decrees of the Senate, and--I fear it will be very hard to
persuade the conscript fathers that Caesar has earned any mercy."

"_Vah!_ gentlemen," retorted Pompeius, pressing his hands together,
and walking up and down: "I have been your tool a long while! I never
at heart desired this war! A hundred times I would draw back, but you
in some way prevented. I have been made to say things that I would
fain have left unsaid. I am perhaps less educated and more
superstitious than you. I believe that there are gods, and they punish
the shedders of innocent blood. And much good Roman blood has been
shed since you had your way, and drove Caesar into open enmity!"

"Of course," interposed Domitius, his face a little flushed with
suppressed anger, "it is a painful thing to take the lives of
fellow-countrymen; but consider the price that patriots must pay for
liberty."

"Price paid for liberty," snorted Pompeius, in rising disgust,
"_phui!_ Let us at least be honest, gentlemen! It is very easy to cry
out on tyrants when our ambition has been disappointed. But I am
wasting words. Only this let me say. When, to-morrow, we have slain or
captured our enemy, it will be _I_ that determine the future policy of
the state, and not _you_! I will prove myself indeed the Magnus! I
will be a tool no longer."

The three consular