"And your husband?" interposed Nemesianus.

She answered with a bitter smile: "He? He has the gift of being easily
consoled.--But what was that?"

Loud voices were audible outside the sick-room. Nemesianus stationed
himself in front of the lady, sword in hand. This protection, however,
proved unnecessary, for, instead of the praetorians, Johanna entered the
room, supporting on her arm the half-sinking form of a young man in whom
no one would have recognized the once beautifully curled and carefully
dressed Alexander. A long caracalla covered his tall form; Dido the
slave had cut off his hair, and he himself had disguised his features
with streaks of paint. A large, broad-brimmed hat had slipped to the
back of his head like a drunken man's, and covered a wound from which the
red blood flowed down upon his neck. His whole aspect breathed pain and
horror, and Berenike, who took him for a hired cut-throat sent by
Caracalla, retreated hastily from him till Johanna revealed his name.

He nodded his head in confirmation, and then sank exhausted on his knees
beside Apollinaris's couch and managed with great difficulty to stammer
out: "I am searching for Philip. He went into the town-ill-out of his
senses. Did he not come to you?"

"No," answered Berenike. "But what is this fresh blood? Has the
slaughter begun?"

The wounded man nodded. Then he continued, with a groan: "In front of
the house of your neighbor Milon--the back of my head--I fled--a lance--"