The
messenger arrived at Phaon's house, and brought the letter in. Nero
seized it from Phaon's hands, and read it. "What is the ancient
manner?" he asked, in a tone of great anxiety and terror. They told
him that it was to be stripped naked, and then to be secured by
having his head fastened in a pillory, and in that position to be
whipped to death. At hearing this, Nero broke forth in fresh groans
and lamentations. He could not endure such a death as that, he said,
and he would kill himself, therefore, at once, if they would give
him a dagger.

There were daggers at hand. Nero took them, examined the points of
them with a trembling touch, seemed undecided, and finally put them
away again, saying that his hour was not yet quite come. Presently
he took one of the daggers again, and made a new attempt to awaken
in himself sufficient resolution to strike the blow, but his courage
failed him. He moaned and raved all this time in the most incoherent
and distracted manner. He even begged that one of the attendants who
were with him would take the dagger and kill himself first, in order
to encourage Nero by letting him see that it was not after all so
dreadful a thing to die. But no one of the attendants seemed
sufficiently devoted to his master to be willing to render him such
a service as this.

In the midst of this perplexity and delay a noise was heard as of
horsemen riding up to the door. Nero was terrified anew at the
sound. They were coming, he said, to seize him. He immediately drew
one of the daggers, and putting it to his throat, attempted
desperately to nerve himself to the work of driving it home. But he
could not do it. The noise at the door in the mean time increased.
Nero then gave the dagger to one of the men standing by, and begged
that he would kill him. The man took the dagger with great
reluctance, but presently gave the fatal stab, and Nero sank down
upon the ground mortally wounded.

At this moment the door was suddenly opened, and the soldiers that
had just arrived came in. They had been sent by the Senate to search
for the fugitive and bring him back to Rome. The centurion who
commanded these men, advanced into the room, and looked at the
fallen emperor, as he lay upon the floor, weltering in his blood. He
had been commanded to bring the prisoner to the city, if possible,
alive; and he accordingly ordered the soldiers to come to the dying
man and endeavor to stanch his wounds and save him. But it