“Idiot!” exclaimed the Emperor angrily, “how am I to reach the terrace? There is no door, and the window must be a man’s height at least from the ground.”
“It is your only chance of life, illustrious!” observed Esca impatiently. “Guide us to the window, friend,” he added, turning to Spado, who looked from one to the other in helpless astonishment, “and tear that shawl from the couch; we may want it for a rope to let the Emperor down.”
A fresh shout from the combatants at the gate, while it completely paralysed the eunuch, seemed to determine Vitellius. He moved resolutely forward, followed by his two companions, Spado whispering to the Briton, “You are a brave young man. We will all escape together, I—I will stand by you to the last!”
They needed but to cross a passage and traverse another room. Cæsar peered over the window-sill into the darkness below, and drew back.
“It is a long way down,” said he. “What if I were to break a limb?”
Esca produced the shawl he had brought with him from the adjoining apartment, and offered to place it under his arms and round his body.
“Shall I go first?” said Spado. “It is not five cubits from the ground.”
But the Emperor thought of his brother Lucius and the cohorts at Terracina. Could he but gain the camp there he would be safe, nay more, he could make head against his rival; he would return to Rome with a victorious army; he would retrieve the diadem and the purple, and the suppers at the palace once more.
“Stay where you are!” he commanded Spado, who was looking with an eager eye at the window. “I will risk it. One draught of Falernian, and I will risk it and be gone.”
He turned back towards the banqueting-room, and while he did so another shout warned him that the gate was carried, and the palace in possession of the conspirators.