He hesitated. Then Domitia said:—
“Look at my hand, it is firm, it does not tremble. Nothing that I hear can be worse than what I have seen.”
“Lady—your strength has already failed.”
“And now I have gathered my resolution together, and can bear anything. I adjure you, by your duty to me—answer me, what is taking place in the comitium, what is it that causes the streets leading thereto to be impassable.”
“If I must reply——”
“If you do not, I will have you scourged.”
“Nay, lady, that is not like thee. It is not fear that will make me speak, but because I know that if I do not, the information can be got from another.”
“Well—what is it?”
“The knight Celer, on the same charge as that which lost the Great Mother Cornelia, is being whipped to death with the scorpion.”[15]
“By the same orders? To my mother’s in the Carinæ.”