preternaturally sharpened vision, saw, far away and beyond, the last
frightful hour.

"If," thought he, "after my mad run down to the oasis, which few younger
men could have vied with, I had given the reins to my fury instead of
restraining it, the demon would not have mastered me so easily. How that
devil Miriam's eyes flashed as she told me that a man was betraying me.
She certainly must have seen the wearer of the sheepskin, but I lost
sight of her before I reached the oasis; I fancy she turned and went up
the mountain. What indeed might not Sirona have done to her? That woman
snares all hearts with her eyes as a bird-catcher snares birds with his
flute. How the fine gentlemen ran after her in Rome! Did she dishonor
me there, I wonder? She dismissed the Legate Quintillus, who was so
anxious to please me--I may thank that fool of a woman that he became my
enemy--but he was older even than I, and she likes young men best. She
is like all the rest of them, and I of all men might have known it. It
is the way of the world: to-day one gives a blow and to-morrow takes
one."

A sad smile passed over his lips, then his features settled into a stern
gravity, for various unwelcome images rose clearly before his mind, and
would not be got rid of.

His conscience stood in inverse relation to the vigor of his body. When
he was well, his too darkly stained past life troubled him little; but
when he was unmanned by weakness, he was incapable of fighting the
ghastly demon that forced upon his memory in painful vividness those very
deeds which he would most willingly have forgotten. In such hours he
must need remember his friend, his benefactor, and superior officer, the
Tribune Servianus, whose fair young wife he had tempted with a thousand