"Fellow-soldiers," he said, "watch me closely and listen carefully. What I do shall be as significant as what I say. I have pondered your charges since you made them this morning. In my mind I have run over all that I knew of this man's doings and sayings since I made him the guardian of my personal safety. I have let him hear your charges from my own lips and, like you, I have listened patiently to his brilliant and able speech in his own defence. I am Prince of the Republic and Emperor of its armies, to favor no man, to do and speak impartial justice to all men alike.
"You know what happens to the shirker who sleeps on his post when on sentry-duty about a camp at night in the face of the enemy. If guilty of what you charge any Prefect of the Praetorium deserves not otherwise than such a traitor. I have heard all this man has to say. I did not believe you this morning. I do not disbelieve you now. I do not believe this man, I believe he has been treacherous and that in his dexterous defence just now he lied. Watch me! I turn him over to you."
And, with a really magnificent gesture, he stepped half a pace away from Perennis, stretched out his left arm, the golden baton in his hand, and, with that fatal truncheon, touched him on the shoulder.
The roar that rose was the roar of wild beasts ravening for their prey. The men, packed as they were, somehow surged forward. On the shoulders of their fellow-centurions, a sort of billow of the foremost sergeants rose like surf against a rock; like surf breaking against a rock a sort of foam of them overflowed the front of the platform. For the twinkling of an eye I beheld above this rising tide of executioners the imperious dignity of the Emperor, master of the scene, self-confident and certain that all men would approve of his decision, magnificent in his military trappings; the incredulous amazement of Perennis, his pale, watery blue eyes bleared in his lead-colored, bloodless face, as he stood dazed and numb; the horror of his bedizened wife and sister, both fleshy women, dark-skinned and normally red-cheeked, now gray with despair, like the two wretched lads beside them; the cruelly feminine relish, as upon the successful fruition of long and tortuous intrigues, blazoned on the faces of Marcia and of Cleander's wife, a very showy woman with golden hair, violet eyes and a delicately pink and white complexion: a similar expression of relished triumph on the broad, fat, ruddy face of her big husband, who looked just what he had been; a man who had started life as a slave; whose master had thought him likely to be most profitably employed as a street porter, in which capacity he had for years carried packs, crates, bales, chests, rafters and such like immensely heavy loads long distances and had thriven on his exertions; who, whatever brains he had since displayed, however much character and merit had contributed to his dazzling rise in life, had retained and still possessed a hearty appetite, a perfect digestion, mighty muscles, hard and solid, all over his hulking frame, and the vast strength of his early prime; all these chief actors framed against a background of gaudily caparisoned officers and courtiers.
In scarcely more than the twinkling of an eye Perennis. was seized by four brawny frontier sergeants and hurled down among the men, among whom he vanished like a lynx under a pack of dogs. I caught no afterglimpse of him nor of his frayed corpse; I descried only a sort of whirlpool of active men about the spot where he had, as it were, sunk into their vortex.
When the flailing arms ceased flailing and the panting executioners stood quiet, the Emperor stretched out his right hand for silence; the rumbling snarls and growls of the mob abated till silence reigned. Into it he spoke:
"You know the custom of our fathers since Numa. The family of a traitor is abolished with him."
There came a second roar of the ravening, ferocious men, a second surge of the foremost up the face of the platform, and, instantly, the sons, wife and sister of Perennis were pushed from it, cast down among the mob, and never reappeared. After the mob quieted a second time Commodus again raised his hand for silence. Quicker than before the men were still. He spoke loud and clear: "You have saved me from a treacherous Prefect of the Praetorium. I have meditated whom to appoint to his vacant post. I have considered well. I now present him to you; my faithful henchman, Cleander of Mazaca, who, by his own deserts, has won citizenship in the Republic, equestrian rank and my favor and gratitude."
The mob cheered.