hopelessly.

The handsome face of Pratinas was a study. His nostrils dilated; his
lips quivered; his eyes were bright and keen with what evidently
passed in his mind for a great discovery.

"Eureka!" cried the Greek, clapping his hands. "My dear Lucius, let me
congratulate you! You are saved!"

"What?" exclaimed the young man, starting up.

"You are saved!" repeated Pratinas, all animation. "Drusus's sesterces
shall be yours! Every one of them!"

Lucius Ahenobarbus was a debauchee, a mere creature of pleasure,
without principle or character; but even he had a revulsion of spirit
at the hardly masked proposal of the enthusiastic Greek. He flushed in
spite of the wine, then turned pale, then stammered, "Don't mention
such a thing, Pratinas. I was never Drusus's enemy. I dare not dream
of such a move. The Gods forefend!"

"The Gods?" repeated Pratinas, with a cynical intonation. "Do you
believe there are any?"

"Do you?" retorted Lucius, feeling all the time that a deadly
temptation had hold of him, which he could by no means resist.

"Why?" said the Greek. "Your Latin Ennius states my view, in some of
your rather rough and blundering native tetrameters. He says:--

"'There's a race of gods in heaven; so I've said and still will say.
But I deem that we poor mortals do not come beneath their sway.
Otherwise the good would triumph, whereas evil reigns to-day.'"

"And you advise?" said Ahenobarbus, leaning forward with pent-up
excitement.

"I advise?" replied Pratinas; "I am only a poor ignorant Hellene, and
who am I, to give advice to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, a most noble
member of the most noble of nations!"

If Pratinas had said: "My dear Lucius, you are a thick-headed,
old-fashioned, superstitious Roman, whom I, in my superior wisdom,
utterly despise," he would have produced about the same effect upon
young Ahenobarbus.

But Lucius still fluttered vainly,--a very weak conscience whispering
that Drusus had never done him any harm; that murder was a dangerous
game, and that although his past life had been bad enough, he had
never made any one--unless it were a luckless slave or two--the victim
of bloodthirsty passion or rascality.

"Don't propose it," he groaned. "I don't dare to think of such a
thing! What disgrace and trouble, if it should all come out!"

"Come, come, Ahenobarbus," thrust in Marcus Laeca, who had been
educated in Catilina's school for polite villains and cut-throats.
"Pratina