The gate was drawn up, and over the drawbridge, which at the same time fell across the moat, the men hastened out of the town.
Very few guards were left on the walls. Women and children now hurried from their houses, mounted the ramparts, and looked after their dear ones, who at a quick march were advancing towards the bridge below the town, the west end of which, as we have seen, had been in the morning barricaded and occupied by a small troop.
CHAPTER VIII.
At mid-day, when the Alemannian horsemen had first become visible, Leo the Tribune was lying in his richly-furnished chamber in the high tower of the Capitol, on a soft couch over which was spread a lion's skin. He felt in his best mood.
His knee pained and hindered him no longer.
He comfortably stroked the rich black beard which encircled a face--bronze-brown, small, originally nobly formed, but long since become terrible by passions.
Before him, on a table of citron-wood, there stood, half-emptied, a large jug of fiery Siculer wine, and a silver drinking-cup.
Two Greek slaves, father and son, were in attendance on him.
The elder slave, raising his finger in warning, brought the mixing-cup. But, laughing, his master put it aside. "North of the Alps," said he, "nature herself mixes too much coldness in our blood; we do not need to dilute the wine. Is it not so, my demure Antinoüs? There, drink!" And he offered the cup to a third servant, a handsome boy of some fifteen years, who was crouching on the ground in the extreme corner of the room, as far as possible from Leo, and turning his back to his master. He wore only a purple petticoat round his loins. His other garments the Tribune had stripped off, that he might gaze on his splendid limbs. Without turning his beautiful, sad face, the prisoner shook his head, round which flowed long golden hair.
Defiantly, threateningly, he then spoke: "My name is not Antinoüs; my name is Hortari. Set me free! let me go back to my own people in the rustling forests of the Danube! or else kill me! For know this, shameful man, never will I comply with thy orders."