"The Cæsar hath much affection for me. I oft sat beside him in the Circus or at the games last year. The Augustas too like to have me beside them, to talk pleasing gossip in their ears. 'Twill be easiest for me, at a signal given, to strike with my dagger in the Cæsar's throat."
"Thine shall be that glory, O Escanes, since thou dost will it so," said Caius Nepos, not without a touch of irony. "Directly the deed is done, the praetorian guard shall raise the cry: 'The Cæsar is dead!'"
"And it should at once be followed by another," said Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, "by 'Hail to thee, O mighty Cæsar!'"
"'Tis thou shouldst raise that cry, O Caius Nepos," said Hortensius with a sarcastic curl of his lip.
"Oh! as to that——" began the other with some hesitation.
"Aye! as to that," said Escanes hotly, "if I slay the tyrant to-morrow with mine own hand, then must I know at least for whom I do the deed."
There was silence after that. Everyone seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Dreamy eyes gazed abstractedly in crystal goblets, as if vainly trying to trace in its crimson depths the outline of an imperial sceptre. At last Caius Nepos spoke:
"Let us be rid of the tyrant first. The army then will soon elect its new chief."
"And is it on the support of the army, O praefect! that thou dost base thine own hopes of supreme power?" asked Hortensius, whose ill-humour seemed to grow on him more and more.
"Nay!" retorted Caius Nepos, "I did not know that by so doing I was dashing thine!"