“Ingrate,” I exclaimed, “you make me hate human nature! Better that I had left you to be trampled like the viper that you are.”
The dark eye of the general, again turned on Septimius, seemed to require a graver explanation.
“Ingrate!” retorted he. “By Jupiter, the fellow’s insolence is superb. For what should I be grateful? but for my escape from his detestable hands. Very probably he figured among the rabble that would have murdered me as they did the rest of us; grateful, yes, I ought to be for the lesson never to venture within his walls on the faith of the traitors that hold them. But let me be allowed to say, most noble Titus, that you condescend too much in listening to any of this rabble; nay, that you hazard the safety of the state in hazarding your person within the reach of one of a race of assassins.”
Titus smiled, and waved back his companions, who, on the surmise, were approaching him.
“Let me be honored with your commands,” urged Septimius, “to take this person in charge; felon or insane, I shall speedily put him in the way of cure.”
A tribune, breathless with haste, came in at the moment with a letter, which he gave to Titus, and retired to a distant part of the tent to await the answer. The color rose to the Roman’s cheek as he looked over the paper; he showed it to his companions, and then put it into my hand. I read the words:
“An assassin, hired by the chiefs of Jerusalem, yesterday passed the gates. His object is the life of the Roman general. He goes under the pretense of recovering one of his family, supposed to be carried off from the city, but who has never left his house. He has communications with the camp, by which he can enter at pleasure, and the noble Titus can not be too much on his guard.”
Held in Custody
The note was in an enclosure from Cestius, stating that it had just been transmitted to him from a high authority in Jerusalem. I flung it on the ground with the scorn due to such an accusation, declaring that it was unnecessary for “my enemy Cestius to have put his name to a document which so easily revealed its writer.”
“You, of course, Septimius,” said the general, fixing his penetrating gaze on him, “could know nothing of this letter.”