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Updated: May 2, 2025
Slowly Taurus Antinor turned to him, and Hortensius Martius appeared just then so like a naughty child, that the look of harshness died out of the praefect's eyes, and a smile almost of amusement, certainly of indulgence, lit up for a moment the habitual sternness of his face. "Loyalty to Cæsar," he said simply, "doth not mean obsequiousness, as all Roman patricians should know, oh Hortensius!"
"I'll come with thee," said Caligula at last, and now his voice sounded more firm, even whilst his hands released their grip on the praefect's arm and his short body straightened itself out upon his trembling limbs. "I'll come with thee, but may thy flesh wither on thy bones, thy hands be palsied and thine eyes become sightless if thou hast a thought of betraying thy Cæsar."
This vast hall was deserted, but from an inner room on the left there came to the praefect's ear a curious sound like the snarl of an angry feline creature, a sound which he knew could only come from one human throat. Without hesitation he turned to whence that sound had come.
The lictors had sprung forward in a moment and tried to seize the woman who had dared to push her way to the praefect's closely guarded presence, and was crouching there, her arms encircling his thighs, her face pressed close against his knees.
At the praefect's bidding he cracked his knuckles or showed his teeth, strained the muscles of his arm to make them stand up like cords, turned a somersault, jumped, danced or stood on his head if ordered so to do.
Menecreta, paralysed by this sudden and final shattering of her every hope, uttered moan after moan of pain, and as the pitiful sounds reached the praefect's ears, a smothered oath escaped his tightly clenched teeth.
As the praefect's firm tread resounded from end to end of the colonnaded hall and woke the slumbering echoes of the deserted palace, weary, lack-lustre eyes were turned in his direction, and now when his tall figure appeared between two pillars the men recognised him, for his head was uncovered.
"When I am in safety I will see to it," said Caligula with sudden blandness, "thou saidst it thyself there is no time to lose." "There is time to fulfil a promise and time to take what is the most important measure for thy safety," rejoined Taurus Antinor. "Thou dost not trust thy Cæsar," said Caligula with a vicious snarl. "No," was the praefect's curt reply.
The frown on the praefect's forehead became even more marked than before. He had seen the young idlers who, but a moment ago, were fawning round Dea Flavia's litter turning eagerly back towards the rostrum, where Hun Rhavas' cries and moans had suggested the likelihood of one of those spectacles of wanton and purposeless cruelty in which their perverted senses found such constant delight.
Cheiron paused, hammer in hand, his lips parted for the very words which he was about to utter, his round open eyes wandering irresolutely from the praefect's face to that of the speaker with the melodious voice. And on the hot noonday air there trembled a long sigh of pain, like the breaking of a human heart. But the same voice, soft and low, was heard again: "The girl pleases me!
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