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Thus are leaders made one bold movement whilst others sit still, one step forward whilst the others wait. "Thy chance, O Hortensius Martius," whispered Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, close to the young man's ear. "Escanes and the rest of us will be ready when the time comes, mayhap before thou dost return to us from below." Escanes' hand beneath his tunic closed upon the dagger.
He was standing now in the midst of a compact group composed of those men who had been present two days ago at the banquet in Caius Nepos' house. They stood close to one another whispering eagerly amongst themselves. Hortensius Martius was obviously their chief centre of interest, and young Escanes held his hand concealed within the folds of his tunic.
Young Escanes was now there, he who wanted a cook, and Caius Nepos the praetorian praefect who was in search of pretty waiting-maids. "Hast had speech with Anglicanus?" asked the latter in a whisper to Hortensius. "Aye! a few words," replied the other, "but he warned me of spies." "Will he join us, thinkest thou?" "I think that he will sup with thee, O Caius Nepos, but as to joining us in "
The Augustas too like to have me beside them, to talk pleasing gossip in their ears. 'Twill be easiest for me, at a signal given, to strike with my dagger in the Cæsar's throat." "Thine shall be that glory, O Escanes, since thou dost will it so," said Caius Nepos, not without a touch of irony. "Directly the deed is done, the praetorian guard shall raise the cry: 'The Cæsar is dead!"
Now there was only a group of men left around the rostrum; Hortensius Martius still lounging aimlessly, young Escanes who had not yet found the paragon amongst cooks, and a few others who eyed the final proceedings with the fashionable expression of boredom. "I wonder we have not seen Dea Flavia this day," remarked Escanes to the praefect. "Dost think she'll come, Taurus Antinor?"
"Dost think it likely that the Augusta favours him?" asked the host ironically. "No but " "Then what hast thou to fear?" "As for me," interposed young Escanes in a thick voice broken by hiccoughs, "I am ready to swear as Marcus Ancyrus directs. If we are not satisfied with the new Cæsar, whoever he may be, my dagger will not rust in the meanwhile; I can easily whet it again."
Caius Julius Cæsar Caligula prepared to have her sought for throughout the length and breadth of his Empire, and would no doubt have succeeded in time in this search had not a few months later Chaerea, the praetorian tribune, done the work with his hands which the dagger of young Escanes had failed to do. The winter had been slow in coming, but it had come at last.
The army is apt to forget a tyrant's crime, and to think of him only as a leader to be obeyed. But when the guard hear my voice, they will understand and will be true to me." "'Tis I will strike," now broke in young Escanes, with all the enthusiasm of his years.
What say you, my lord Escanes, is not that hair worthy to be immortalised by a painter's hand?" And preceded by her lictors, who made a way for her through the crowd, Dea Flavia advanced even to the foot of the catasta.
"Aye! as to that," said Escanes hotly, "if I slay the tyrant to-morrow with mine own hand, then must I know at least for whom I do the deed." There was silence after that. Everyone seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Dreamy eyes gazed abstractedly in crystal goblets, as if vainly trying to trace in its crimson depths the outline of an imperial sceptre.
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