"It is something that I, at least, do not see," muttered the withered crone, whose own harsh features seemed the very incarnation of hatred and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under the decree," she went on, "we can, at least, in a surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba, here, has access to her person; and by her skilled decoctions can make her beauty waste, and her life flicker to extinction, like a lamp unreplenished with oil."
"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the Nile, some of the dark secrets of Egypt," whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African. "But it is very perilous to use them. The palace is full of suspicion; and that new favourite, Callirhoë,—how I hate her!—keeps watch over her mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert over its mate. It will take much gold to pay for the risk."
"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content, if thou do but rid me of that cockatrice, who has usurped my place in my son's affections," hissed the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like love for the soldier-son whom she had trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba retired, to await further orders.
"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a malignant gleam in his eyes, "she dies alone. What we want is to have her drag others down with her—her mother, Prisca; that haughty Adauctus, who holds himself so high, and the rest of the accursed Christian brood."
"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done," said Fausta; "but I fear it is impossible. You do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his own way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer he is."
"Here comes Naso," said the arch priest. "He hates the Christians, if he does not love the gods. We will hear his counsel."
"Welcome, good Naso," exclaimed Fausta, as the Prefect of the city was ushered into the room. "We need your advice in the matter of this edict against the Christians: how we may use it as a net to snare the higher game of the palace and the Imperial household."
"We must be wary as the weasel, sleepless as the basilisk, deadly as the aspic," said Naso, sententiously.
"Just what I have been saying," remarked Furca.
"Methinks we must employ the aspic's secret sting, rather than the public edict."