easily defeated in conflicts against overpowering beauty. Dainties are
sweet, not only for children. Long ago Mars was drawn to Venus; and if
I--"

He had spoken these words in Latin, which Melissa did not understand;
but the color left the emperor's face, and, pale with excitement, he
stammered out laboriously:

"You have--you have dared--"

"For this rose," began the youth again, "I begged a hasty kiss from
the beauty, which certainly blooms for all, and she--" He raised his
hands and eyes imploringly to the despot; but Caracalla had already
snatched Macrinus's sword from its sheath, and before Aurelius could
defend himself he was struck first on the head with the flat of the
blade, and then received a series of sharp cuts on his brow and face.

Streaming with blood from the gaping wounds which the victim, trembling
with fear and rage, covered with his hands, he surrendered himself to the
care of his startled brother, while Caesar overwhelmed them both with a
flood of furious reproaches.

When Nemesianus began to bind up his wounded brother's head with a
handkerchief handed to him by Melissa, and Caracalla saw the gaping
wounds he had inflicted, he became quieter, and said:

"I think those lips will not try to steal kisses again for some time from
honorable maidens. You and Nemesianus have forfeited your lives; how
ever, the beseeching look of those all-powerful eves has saved you--you
are spared. Take your brother away, Nemesianus. You are not to leave