"Now, though I saw not the cloth of revelation, nor heard the emperor's plans, I knew then, as I know now, that the mysterious soothsayer wrote that the dream meant that Cæsar and the Destinies should choose the coming emperor, and bade him proceed by these means.
"And I, dutiful lady to an engaging prince, took Caligula, nothing loath, and went privately into the interior of the island to that small wasp-nest palace clinging to the side of the cruelest precipice in these bad hills of Capri.
"But in the night, while yet Caligula lingered at the board, because forsooth the slaves had carried me away first, there came the thunder of hoofs without, sentries and servants, asleep or drunken or afraid, fell right and left, flying feet rang upon the pavement, and before any could resist, Caligula was snatched up, rushed out and away into the night—and not any one saw the face of his abductor.
"But when my father duly emerged from the emperor's bed-chamber there stood without, not little Tiberius, but Caligula, drenched as if he had been soused in a horse-trough to sober him, with immense dazed eyes and trembling like an aspen.
"When he was led within, Cæsar started up and glared at him with baleful eyes.
"'I was sent by a Dream,' Caligula whispered. 'What wilt thou have of me?'
"And Tiberius, struggling with an apoplexy, fell back and made no instant answer. But presently he said,
"'Perpol! I cogged the dice for myself, but it was the Destinies who threw them! Oh, well, it was written, and had to come to pass!'
"Where was the little Tiberius? Being assured that naught should prevent his election, he lingered for his breakfast. O fatal appetite of lusty youth! He lost an empire by it. For Cæsar, still afraid of the mysterious Thing from the Orient, ratified the choke of the Destinies.
"But Caligula hath discovered the identity of the Dream that fetched him; which being very substantial and human stands in high favor with the prince imperial. And so, through him as well as through the Herod's own claim on Caligula, Agrippa's hopes are brighter.