The hours passed on. Would Caesar’s commands never come to end his terrible suspense?
The vast palace, gleaming in the sun, seemed to mock him as he watched its silent entrances with feverish glances. He knew not but what his home had already been invaded. Knew! No, he knew nothing, save that he was helpless.
More than once, despair urged him to force his way into the presence of the tyrant himself and demand his freedom, or to boldly pass the outer gate and gain the fishermen’s boats. But the madness of such an act was evident even to his own wild thoughts. At every outlet a guard was lolling lazily on his spear, his gilded panoply shining in the sun. One shadowy hope there was, that Cestus might have persuaded Neæra to proceed to Rome. But that was hoping against hope: the unhappy potter knew in his heart she would never consent. No—there she would remain until he returned, and there she would be the prey of the spoiler.
The big drops stood on his pale forehead as the agony of his mind tore him. His overloaded brain seemed to rock with a vague, hideous burden. Suddenly the sunlight brightened, as it were, into a fierce white glare. The vast fabric of the palace, with each neighbouring object, seemed to heave up round him with a motion which filled him with a deadly sickness, and caused him to spread out his arms, as if the surging masses were about to be launched upon him.
Out of the sky gigantic shapes whirled and swooped upon him; but when, as it seemed, they were on the point of crushing him, they dwindled and fled as suddenly away. His [pg 330]very brain seemed to contract and distend as rapidly in the same awful proportions. It was terrific—he strove to shout aloud in his terror, but his voice died within him, and his limbs were immovable.
The colossal masses and spheres which darted down upon him shot away again into tiny twinkling specks—so far away, into such immensity of space, that his soul shuddered with a frightful sensation at the awful gulf yawning before him. Back they came—swelling as they rushed, in the brief second of their career, like Titanic globes upon his paralysed vision. One of them took the semblance of a face, distorted and ghastly. Down it swooped in stupendous bulk, so close that his brain seemed to burst with its appalling proximity. His delirious senses saw in it a livid, grinning caricature of Caesar’s ghastly visage—he thrust out his arms at it and shrieked in terror—tottered and fell senseless to the ground.
* * * * * * *
When he recovered consciousness he found himself lying on the ground where he had fallen. A circle of faces surrounded him, and Zeno was kneeling beside him with a cup in his hand.
‘Ah, now he is coming to,’ said the Greek, as the potter gave a deep sigh and slightly opened his eyes. ‘Back, back—further back!’
The idle, gazing menials gave way, and Zeno held the cup to Masthlion’s lips. A few mouthfuls restored the potter, and he looked around. His faculties cleared, and he shuddered as his memory brought back those dread visions of his overstrained brain.