“NEVER WOULD I RAISE MY SACRILEGIOUS HAND AGAINST ROME.” Page 22.
“Nay—it is Rome that cries out to be rid of a man that makes her the scorn of the world.”
“She has not spoken. She has not released me of my oath.”
“Because her mouth is gagged. As the Gods love me, they say that the god Caius (Caligula) named his horse Consul. Rome may have a monkey as her prince and Augustus for aught I care, were it not that by such a chance the handle is offered for you to upset him and seat yourself and me at the head of the universe.”
“No more of this,” said the general. “A good soldier obeys his commander. And I have an imperator,” he touched his breast; “a good conscience, and I go nowhere, undertake nothing which is not ordered by my master there.”
“Then I wash my hands of the result.”
“Come hither!” Corbulo called, and signed to his daughter who, with a flush of pleasure, left her kid and ran to him.
He took both her hands by the wrists, and holding her before him, panting from play, and with light dancing in her blue eyes, he said, “Domitia, I have not said one grave word to thee since we have been together. Yet now will I do this. None can tell what may be the next turn up of the die. And this that I am about to say comes warm and salt from my heart, like the spring hard by, at the Bath of Helene.”
“And strong, father,” said the girl, with flashes in her speaking eyes. “So strong is the spring that at once it turns a mill, ere rushing down to find its rest in the sea.”
“Well, and so may what I say so turn and make thee active, dear child,—active for good, though homely the work may be as that of grinding flour. When you have done a good work, and not wasted the volume of life in froth and cascade, then find rest in the wide sea of——”