the loud tones close round her; she hears only here and there the cry of
"Caesar!" "He is coming!" "Here he is!"--and the swift tramp of hoofs
and the clatter of wheels sounding like the rattle of an iron building
after a peal of thunder, above the shouts of ten thousand human beings.
Closer it comes and closer, without a pause, and followed by fresh
shouting, as a flock of daws follow an owl flying across the twilight,
swelling again to irrepressible triumph as the expected potentate rushes
past Melissa and her neighbors. They only see Caesar as a form scarcely
discerned by the eye during the space of a lightning-flash in a dark
night.

Four tawny bay horses of medium size, dappled with black, harnessed
abreast and wide apart, fly along the cleared road like hunted foxes, the
light Gallic chariot at their heels. The wheels seem scarcely to touch
the smooth flags of the Alexandrian pavement. The charioteer wears the
red-bordered toga of the highest Roman officials. He is well known by
repute, and the subject of many a sharp jest; for this is Pandion,
formerly a stableboy, and now one of "Caesar's friends," a praetor, and
one of the great men of the empire. But he knows his business; and what
does Caracalla care for tradition or descent, for the murmurs and
discontent of high or low?

Pandion holds the reins with elegant composure, and urges the horses to a
frantic pace by a mere whistle, without ever using the whip. But why is
it that he whirls the mighty monarch of half a world, before whose
bloodthirsty power every one quakes, so swiftly past these eager
spectators? Sunk in the cushions on one side, Bassianus Antoninus is
reclining rather than sitting in the four-wheeled open chariot of Gallic
make which sweeps past. He does not vouchsafe a glance at the jubilant
crowd, but gazes down at the road, his well-shaped brow so deeply