"I spoke not of an emperor, gracious lady," he said simply.
"But thy thoughts were of one whose empire was mightier than that of Rome."
"My thoughts," he said, "were of a Man Whom I saw whilst travelling through Judæa a few years ago. He was poor and dwelt among the fishermen of Galilee. They stood around Him and listened whilst He talked; when He walked they followed Him, for a halo of glory was upon Him and the words which He spoke were such that once heard they could never be forgotten."
"Didst thou too hear those marvellous words, O Taurus Antinor?" she asked.
"Only twice," he replied, "did I hear the words which He spoke. I mingled with the crowd, and once when His eyes fell upon me, it seemed to me as if all the secrets of life and death were suddenly revealed to me. His eyes fell upon me.... I was one of a multitude ... but from that moment I knew that life on this earth would never be precious to me again—since the most precious gift man hath is his immortality."
"Thou speakest of strange matters, O praefect," she rejoined, "and meseems there's treason in what thou sayest. Who is this man, whose very look hath made a slave of thee?"
"A slave to His will thou sayest truly, O daughter of Cæsar! Could I hear His command I would follow Him through life and to death. At times even now meseems that I can hear His voice and see His eyes ... thou hast never seen such eyes, Augusta—fixed upon my very soul. I saw them just now, right across the Forum, when the wretched freedwoman clung shrieking round my shins. They looked at me and asked me to be merciful; they did not command, they begged ... asking for the pity that lay dormant in my soul. And now I know that if those same eyes looked at me again and asked for every drop of my blood, if they asked me to bear death, torture, or even shame, I would become as thou truly sayest—a slave."
Once or twice whilst he spoke she had tried to interrupt him, but every time the words she would have spoken had died upon her lips. He looked so strange—this praefect of Rome—whose judgments everyone feared, whose strict adherence to duty the young elegants of the day were ever fond of deriding. He looked very strange now and spoke such strange words—words that she resented bitterly, for they sounded like treason to the House of Cæsar of which she was so coldly proud.
To her Cæsar was as a god, and she as his kinswoman had been brought up to worship in him not the man—that might be vile—but the supreme power in the Empire which he represented. She did not pause to think if he were base, tyrannical, a half-crazy despot without mind or heart or sensibilities. She knew what was said about him, she had even seen at times things from which she recoiled in unspeakable horror; but her soul, still pure and still proud, was able to dissociate the abstract idea of the holy and mighty Cæsar from its present hideous embodiment. And this same holy reverence for Cæsar she looked for in all those who she deemed were worthy to stand—not as his equals, for only the gods were that—but nigh to his holy person—his own kinsmen first, then his Senate, his magistrates, and his patricians, and above all this man—almost a stranger—whom the Cæsar had deigned to honour with his confidence.
And yet this same stranger spoke calmly of another, of a man whom he would obey as a slave in all things, whom he would follow even to death; a man whose might he proclaimed above that of Cæsar himself.