Somebody cried out—
"Strike him! Knock him down!"
The crowd became tumultuous. Stones were thrown; the sham beggars of Agamemnon's company encircled him with drawn swords. At the first stroke the luckless leather-dresser was killed, and fell in a pool of blood. The red-headed boy was trampled under foot, and all faces were becoming ferocious, when at this juncture ten enormous Paphlagonian slaves bearing on their shoulders a purple litter impatiently thrust their way through the crowd.
"Saved!" cried the fair-haired young man, and vaulted into the litter with one of his fellows.
The Paphlagonians hoisted the pair on their shoulders and set off at sharp run. The infuriated crowd were making as if to dash in pursuit, with intent to stone them, when somebody called out—
"Citizens, don't you see that it is Cæsar himself—Gallus Cæsar!"
The mob halted, paralysed by fear, and the purple litter, swaying on the shoulders of the slaves like a skiff in a heavy sea, vanished into the darkness up the street.
Six years had elapsed since the incarceration of Julian and of Gallus in the Cappadocian fortress of Macellum. Constantius had restored them to favour. Julian, then twenty years old, was sent to Constantinople, and given leave to travel in Asia Minor. Gallus, the Emperor had named to be his co-regent, with the title of Cæsar. Nevertheless this unlooked-for favour was no valid earnest of good-will. Constantius loved to destroy his enemies after having lulled away mistrust by a display of exuberant affection.
"Well, Glycon, Constantia may beg me as much as she likes, in future, to go out in false hair! But it's all over for me! I've done with it!"