The other came by a Roman courier, who had landed an hour before from one of the swift-going triremes which had left Ravenna three days later than the passenger boat that had brought Marsyas' tidings.
The message also was written in a woman's hand and was no less enraging than the other:
"ROME, Kal. Jul. X, 790.
"This bulletin to tell thee, O my raging corybant, that thy cause hath ceased to prosper for the past three days. Mine own part was well performed as was thine other minion's, the bewitching Eutychus, but desperate work hath been done which bids fair to upset thee and me and preserve thine enemies.
"First and above all things, thou wilt remember that it was not in the pact that I should do more than lead the Herod out of the path of domestic uprightness and hold off my hands. This hath been already done, but the Parcæ have grown weary of yielding thee favor, so read, here, following, disaster!
"Herod and his friend, the Essene Marsyas, who had become a dangerous Roman, filled with a Jew's cunning and the boldness of a wolf-suckled Romulus, till misfortune cut him down—this same fallen Herod and his friend have dropped out of sight, except as Death may bare its arm and reach down to cut off the head of the one and the income of the other. This much in three days; but Rome hath taught herself to forget in a twinkling.
"But Cæsar hath been for many days troubled of a dream. He telleth it thus, in no more words, no fewer: 'I cast dice with Three; three grisly hags, and I lose, though the tesseræ were cogged!' His collection of soothsayers, the completest in the world, offered as many readings as there are numbers of them in the court. But Tiberius drew his lip and bared his teeth at them and called them pea-hens and cockchafers. Even Thrasullus, he lampooned—Thrasullus, whom once he feared.
"Whereupon, the store of haruspices and augurs that feed upon superstitious Rome were brought in—only to furnish mirth for the court and victims for Tiberius.
"Then Macro, rummaging about in musty and alien-peopled corners of the Imperial City, brought forth a wonder!
"It—and would I could call the sex of the creature—came hither from the Orient. On that naked fact, Rome is left to build its biography, describe its looks and fathom its purpose. For it came before Cæsar, and stood, a column in white—hooded, mummied, shawled, veiled in white! The court hath had spasms, since, fearing that it might have been a leper, but I say that there was no sick frame within those cerements! It had the stature and brawn of a man, but it managed its garments with the skill of a woman. It came, heard Cæsar's dream, plucked off a husk of its wrappings, produced pigment and stylus and wrote thereon.