“When, Lady Augusta, was this said?”
“The Emperor is this day returned from Albanum, and the threat was made but yesterday. Who can say but that the order has already been given for thy arrest, and for the gathering together of the dogs that are to rend thee.”
The man became alarmed and moved uneasily.
“Magus,” said Domitia, “I cannot save thee, thine own wits must do that. Find it written in the stars that thy life is so bound up with that of the Cæsar, that the death of one is the extinction of the other; or that thou holdest so potent a charm that if thou wilt thou canst employ it for his destruction. It is not for me to point out how thou mayest twist out of his grasp—thou art a very eel for slipperiness, and a serpent for contrivance. What I desire to know is—How much longer is this tyranny to last, and how long am I to suffer?”
Then the magician looked round the room, to make sure that he was unobserved; he raised the curtain at the door to see that none listened outside, and satisfied that he was neither observed nor overheard, he pointed to a clepsydra.
This was an ingenious, but to our minds a clumsy, contrivance for measuring time. It consisted of a silver ball, with a covered opening at the top, through which the interior could be replenished. About the base of the globe were minute perforations through which the liquid that was placed in the vessel slowly oozed, and oozing ran together into a drop at the bottom which fell at intervals into the bucket of a tiny wheel.
When the bucket was full, the wheel revolved and decanted the liquid whilst presenting another bucket to the distilling drops.
At each movement of the wheel a connection with it gave motion to the hand of a statuette of Saturn, who with his scythe indicated a number on an arc of metal. The numbers ranged from one to twelve, and the contrivance answered for half the twenty-four hours.
“Lady,” said the Magus, “before Saturn has pointed to the twelfth hour——”
Steps were heard, approaching the room, along the mosaic-laid passage, and next moment, the curtain was snatched aside, and Domitian, his face blazing with anger, entered the apartment of his wife.