“I saw no flash,” said the prince, “yet lightning falls somewhere, maybe to kindle the pyre on which that sorcerer will burn; I care not. Fire of heaven fall and strike where and whom thou wilt!”
He went again to the window and looked forth. The air was still and close. The sky was enveloped in vapor and not a star could be seen. A continuous quiver of electric light ran along the horizon. Then the heavens seemed to be rent asunder and a blaze of lightning shot forth, blinding to the eyes.
Domitian turned away, and laid the tablets on the marble sideboard as he pressed his hands to his eyeballs.
“By the Gods!” he exclaimed a moment later, “here comes the rain; it descends in cataracts; it falls with a roar.”
He paced the room, halted, stood in front of the clepsydra and looked at the dropping water. The water had been reddened, and it seemed like blood sweated out of the silver globe. At that moment the wheel revolved, and sent a crimson gush into the receiver. With a jerk Saturn raised his scythe and indicated the hour ten.
The Emperor turned away, and came in front of Domitia.
“None have ever loved me,” he said bitterly, “how then can it be expected that I shall love any? my father disliked me, my brother distrusted me—and you—my wife, have ever hated me. I need not ask the cause of that. It is Lamia, always Lamia. Because he has never married you think he still harbors love for you; and you—you hate me because of him. It is hard to be a prince, and to be alone. If I hear a play—I think I catch allusions to me; if it be a comedy—there is a jest aimed at me; if a tragedy, it expresses what men wish may befall me. If I read a historian, he declaims on the glories of a commonwealth before these men, these Cæsars became tyrants, and as for your philosophers—away with them, they are wind-bags, but the wind is poisonous, it is malarious to me. When I am at the circus, because I back green—you, the entire hoop of spectators cheer, bet on the blue—to show me that they hate me. At the Amphitheatre, if I favor the big shields, then every one else is for the small targets. A prince is ever the most solitary of men. If you had protested that you loved me, had fondled me, I would have held you in suspicion, mistrusted your every word and look and gesture. Perhaps it is because that you have never given me good word, gentle look, and gesture of respect that I feel you are true—cruelly true, and I have loved you as the only true person I know. Now answer me—you asked after my death?”
“Yes,” answered Domitia.
“I knew it.”
“And,” said she, in cold, hard tones, looking straight into his agitated, twitching countenance, “I bear to you a message.”