“What have you—what are your words intended to convey?”
Hadrian turned suddenly and full upon the steward; in his eyes sparkled that annihilating fire which few could endure to gaze on and his deep voice rolled sullenly through the room as he said to the miserable man:
“My words are intended to convey that you have been an unfaithful steward, that I know what you would rather I should not know, that I have learned how you deal with the property entrusted to you, that you—”
“That I?”—cried the steward trembling with rage and stepping close up to the Emperor.
“That you,” shouted Hadrian in his face, “tried to sell this picture to this man; in short that you are a simpleton and a scoundrel into the bargain.”
“I—I,” gasped Keraunus slapping his hand on his fat chest. “I—a—a—but you shall repent of these words.”
Hadrian laughed coldly and scornfully, but Keraunus sprang on Gabinius with a wonderful agility for his size, clutched him by the collar of his chiton and shook the feeble little man as if he were a sapling, shrieking meanwhile:
“I will choke you with your own lies—serpent, mean viper!”
“Madman!” cried Hadrian “leave hold of the Ligurian or by Sirius you shall repent it.”
“Repent it?” gasped the steward. “It will be your turn to repent when Caesar comes. Then will come a day of reckoning with false witnesses, shameless calumniators who disturb peaceful households, while credulous idiots—”