"Well then! What matters your miserable body! I will secure your safety of life and limb--in the Emperor's name--you shall merely go to the lead mines, if you confess at once."
"Thank you, my lord, a thousand thanks," groaned the slave. "Yes, yes. It is all as they say. For a year he has been tempting and urging! The demon of gold blinded me. It is all true!"
"Ha," shouted Herculanus, struggling against his guards, "so the slave, too, is in the conspiracy against me?"
"Give the wine in the Emperor's goblet to a dog, and see how long it will live," said Davus. "It is hemlock! In my tunic--feel there--I have a small vial which contains the rest."
"I don't doubt it: poison in the goblet--the same poison in the vial. Of course," cried Herculanus with an angry laugh, "the slave put it into both. But Ausonius will not die until he has altered his will and disinherited his nephew; for the Barbarian girl appeared just at the right moment as a deliverer."
Meanwhile the Tribune had taken from the slave's breast a little amber vial and placed it on the table beside the goblet. Ausonius glanced at it mournfully; he seemed to recognize it.
"And what he put in there," Herculanus went on, "is to convict me?" "No," cried Davus, now angered, "you shall convict yourself. Tribune, feel in his tunic too; he has the same poison, in a similar vial, hidden there. Could I force him to do it? Or could I conjure it there by magic?"
Herculanus turned pale. Defiance, the hope of life, deserted him and, gnashing his teeth, he struggled fiercely in the Illyrians' grasp. But the latter held him firmly while their countryman, Saturninus, took from his tunic a similar amber vial and placed it beside the first one.
"Then go to Orcus together! I wish you all had poison in you!" shrieked Herculanus.
But Ausonius tore his gray locks, wailing: "Alas! alas! I know them well. I gave them myself, both vials, to my dear sister, his mother. Alas, my own sister's son! To murder me! For miserable money! I had left it all to him. Only I should have been glad to live a few years longer."