THE FLIGHT.
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
Cicero.
His heart was a living hell, as he rushed homeward. Cut off on every side, detected, contemned, hated, what was left to the Traitor?
To retrace his steps was impossible,—nor, if possible, would his indomitable pride have consented to surrender his ambitious schemes, his hopes of vengeance.
He rushed homeward; struck down a slave, who asked him some officious question; spurned Orestilla out of his way with a bitter earnest curse; barred himself up in his inmost chamber, and remained there alone one hour.
One hour; but in that hour what years, what ages of time, what an eternity of agony, was concentrated!
For once in many years he sat still, motionless, silent, while thought succeeded thought, and passion passion, with indescribable rapidity and vividness.
In that one hour all the deeds of his life passed before him, from his wild and reckless boyhood to his atrocious and dishonored manhood.
The victims of his fiendish passions seemed to fleet, one by one, before his eyes, with deathlike visages and ghastly menace.