He might have beheld a vision of
himself, bald, corpulent and thin-legged, but wearing the imperial robes
of Caesar, rolling in a frantic struggle for life upon the floor of his
bed-chamber, at death grips with one Stephanus, while an old chamberlain
named Saturius drove a dagger again and again into his back, crying at
each stroke:
"Oho! That for thy rods, Caesar! Oho! Dost remember the Pearl-Maiden?
That for thy rods, Caesar, and that--and that--and _that_----!"
But Domitian, weeping himself to sleep over the tale of the wrongs of
the god-like Achilles, which did but foreshadow those of his divine
self, as yet thought nothing of the rich reward that time should bring
him.
On the morrow of the great day of the Triumph the merchant Demetrius
of Alexandria, whom for many years we have known as Caleb, sat in the
office of the store-house which he had hired for the bestowal of his
goods in one of the busiest thoroughfares of Rome. Handsome, indeed,
noble-looking as he was, and must always be, his countenance presented
a sorry sight. From hour to hour during the previous day he had fought a
path through the dense crowds that lined the streets of Rome, to keep as
near as might be to Miriam while she trudged her long route of splendid
shame.
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