In searching for the Emperor, Placidus and his myrmidons had scoured several apartments without success. Finding the palace thus unoccupied, and now in their own hands, the men had commenced loading themselves with valuables, and prepared to decamp with their plunder, each to his home, as having fulfilled their engagement, and earned their reward. But the tribune well knew that if Vitellius survived the night, his own head would be no longer safe on his shoulders, and that it was indispensable to find the Emperor at all hazards; so gathering a handful of gladiators round him, persuading some and threatening others, he instituted a strict search in one apartment after another, leaving no hole nor corner untried, persuaded that Cæsar must be still inside the palace, and consequently within his grasp. He entertained, nevertheless, a lurking mistrust of treachery roused by the late appearance of Euchenor at supper, which was rather strengthened than destroyed by the Greek’s unwillingness to engage in personal combat with the Germans. Whilst he was able to do so, the tribune had kept a wary eye upon the pugilist, and had indeed prevented him more than once from slipping out of the conflict altogether. Now that the Germans were finally disposed of, and the palace in his power, he kept the Greek close at hand with less difficulty, jeering him, half in jest and half in earnest, on the great care he had taken of his own person in the fray. Thus, with Euchenor at his side, followed by Hippias, and some half-dozen gladiators, the tribune entered the room in which the Emperor had supped, and from which a door, concealed by a heavy curtain, led into a dark recess originally intended for a bath. At the foot of this curtain, half-lying, half-sitting, grovelled an obese unwieldy figure, clad in white, which moaned and shook and rocked itself to and fro, in a paroxysm of abject fear. The tribune leapt forward with a gleam of diabolical triumph in his eyes. The next instant his face fell, as the figure, looking up, presented the scared features of the bewildered Spado. But even in his wrath and disappointment Placidus could indulge himself with a brutal jest.
“Euchenor,” said he, “thou hast hardly been well blooded to-night. Drive thy sword through this carrion, and draw it out of our way.”
The Greek was only averse to cruelty when it involved personal danger. He rushed in willingly enough, his blade up, and his eyes glaring like a tiger’s; but the action roused whatever was left of manhood in the victim, and Spado sprang to his feet with the desperate courage of one who has no escape left. Close at his hand lay a Parthian bow, one of the many curiosities in arms that were scattered about the room, together with a sandal-wood quiver of puny painted arrows.
“Their points are poisoned,” he shouted; “and a touch is death!”
“’Their points are poisoned’, he shouted”
Then he drew the bow to its full compass, and glared about him like some hunted beast brought to bay. Euchenor, checked in his spring, stood rigid as if turned to stone. His beautiful form indeed, motionless in that lifelike attitude, would have been a fit study for one of his own country’s sculptors; but the surrounding gladiators, influenced only by the ludicrous points of the situation, laughed till their sides shook, at the two cowards thus confronting each other.
“To him, Euchenor!” said they, with the voice and action by which a man encourages his dog at its prey. “To him, lad! Here’s old Hirpinus come to back thee. He always voted thee a cur. Show him some of thy mettle now!”
Goaded by their taunts, Euchenor made a rapid feint, and crouched for another dash. Terrified and confused, the eunuch let the bowstring escape from his nerveless fingers, and the light gaudy arrow, grazing the Greek’s arm and scarcely drawing blood, fell, as it seemed, harmless to the floor between his feet. Again there was a loud shout of derision, for Euchenor, dropping his weapon, applied this trifling scratch to his mouth; ere the laugh subsided, however, the Greek’s face contracted and turned pale. With a wild yell he sprang bolt upright, raising his arms above his head, and fell forward on his breast, dead.
The gladiators leaping in, passed half a dozen swords through the eunuch’s body, almost ere their comrade touched the floor. Then Lutorius and Eumolpus tearing down the curtain disappeared in the dark recess behind. There was an exclamation of surprise, a cry for mercy, a scuffling of feet, the fall of some heavy piece of furniture, and the two [pg 305]emerged again, dragging between them, pale and gasping, a bloated and infirm old man.