"Great Mother!... and what did they do?"
"They lifted him as best they could; for the praefect is over tall and mightily powerful. But they succeeded in laying him back on to the couch, and Dion ran to rouse the physician."
"And now?"
"The physician hath given the praefect a drug to make him sleep, for it seems that fever was upon him with the pain of his wounds and he talked incoherently like one bereft of reason."
"Hush!..." interrupted Dea Flavia hurriedly, "not before Licinia."
Even as she spoke the old woman returned, carrying a robe of dove grey cloth, the darkest one that she could find. She had collected the tire-women round her, and they flocked in her wake like frightened sheep that have been driven into a pen. Licinia herself was evidently the prey of abject terror, for her teeth were chattering, and all the while that she helped her mistress to make a hasty toilet, she uttered low moans as if she were in pain.
"The traitors! the miscreants!" she murmured at intervals.
But Dea Flavia paid no heed to her. Her women had brought her fresh water, perfumes and fine cloths, and she was hastily bathing her face and hands. Then, she slipped on the dull-coloured robe and Licinia's trembling fingers fastened a girdle round her waist.
And all the while, from far away, came the dull sound of Jove's thunders hurled by his wrath, and above it as a constant din, like the roaring of a tempestuous sea, the hoarse cries which—borne upon the wings of the oncoming storm—seemed to gain distinctness as their echo reached this distant house.
"Dost hear the cries, Blanca?" asked Dea Flavia, as the young slave, leaning out of the narrow window tried to peer out into the street.