Then all vanished.
Then the only sound he heard was of the first flies, humming in a nook out of the wind, on the white warm-sunned wall, by the seashore. And he was blissfully watching sails bathed in the infinite softness of the blue Propontic Sea, and he believed himself alone in a delicious solitude, undisturbed by a single face, and, like the little dancing gnats of the white wall, luxuriated in sheer happiness of living, in the sunlight, in the calm.
Suddenly, half-waking, Julian remembers that he is in the heart of Persia; that he is the Roman Emperor; that he alone is responsible for the lives of sixty thousand legionaries; that the gods are no more, that he has thrown down the altar of sacrifice. He shivers, and an icy chillness invades his body. He is falling, falling through the void, with nothing, nothing in the universe to arrest his fall.
Perhaps an hour, perhaps twenty-four hours, may have elapsed in this kind of half-slumber.
Then no longer dreaming, but in reality, he hears his faithful slave saying, as he thrusts his head under the door-curtain:
"Cæsar, I am afraid of disturbing you, but I dare not disobey. It was your order that you should be immediately informed.... The chief Ariphas has just arrived in the camp...."
"Ariphas!" exclaimed Julian, rising, "Ariphas!... Bring him, bring him here quickly!"
This was one of his bravest commanders, sent with a detachment to ascertain whether the auxiliary army of thirty thousand men, under the command of Procopius and Sebastian, was not coming, with the troops of his ally Arsaces, to join the Emperor under the walls of Ctesiphon. Julian had long been awaiting this help, on which the fate of the principal army depended.
"Bring him!" exclaimed the Emperor ... "or no, I myself will...."
But his weakness was not yet dissipated, despite this momentary over-excitement. His head swam, he closed his eyes and had to support himself against the canvas wall of the tent.