In a supreme effort she strove to repulse him, exclaiming, "Away, Devil!... Why hast thou abandoned me, Lord?"
With his impious hands he tore off the black vestment. His soul was full of fear, but never before in his life had he known such intoxication in evil-doing. Ironically, with a smile of defiance, the Roman Cæsar gazed at the opposite corner of the cell, where in the feeble flicker of the lamp-light hung the great black crucifix....
XXI
More than two years had elapsed since the victory of Argentoratum. Julian had delivered Gaul from the barbarians. At the beginning of spring, when still at Lutetia for his winter quarters, he had received an important letter from the Emperor Constantius brought by the tribune Decensius.
Each new victory achieved in Gaul harried the soul of Constantius, and stabbed his vanity to the quick. This "street-urchin," this "magpie," this "monkey in the purple," this "pocket conqueror," to the indignation of Court scoffers had turned into a veritable victor.
Constantius writhed with jealousy. At the same time he sustained defeat after defeat in his own campaign against the Persians in the Asiatic provinces. He grew thin, sleepless, lost his appetite, and twice suffered from terrible attacks of vomiting. The Court physicians were in dismay.
Sometimes, during nights of insomnia, lying in bed under the sacred standard of Constantine, the Emperor mused:
"Eusebia deceived me! But for her I should have followed the wise counsel of Mercurius.... I should have had his throat cut in some dark corner! I should have exterminated this serpent from the Flavian nest!... Imbecile that I was!... It was I, myself, who let him escape! And who knows?... Perhaps Eusebia herself was his mistress?"
A long-delayed jealousy made his envy bitterer still. He could not revenge himself on the Empress Eusebia, who was dead. His second wife, Faustine, was an empty-headed little woman for whom he felt nothing but contempt.