r an instant free from the horrible sense of being hated,
shunned, and persecuted by the whole world.

Sometimes he would remember that once a fair girl had prayed for him;
but when he tried to recall her features he could only see the charred
arm with the golden snake held up before him as he had pictured it that
night after the most hideous of his massacres; and every time, at the
sight of it, that word came back to him which still tortured his soul
above all else--"The deed." But his attendants, who heard him repeating
it day and night, never knew what he meant by it.

When Zminis met his end by the wild beasts in the arena, it was before
half-empty seats, though several legions had been ordered into the
amphitheatre to fill them. The larger number of the citizens were slain,
and the remainder were in mourning for relatives more or less near; and
they also kept away from the scene to avoid the hated despot.

Macrinus now governed the empire almost as a sovereign, for Caesar,
formerly a laborious and autocratic ruler, shrank from all business.
Even before they left Alexandria the plebeian prefect could see that
Serapion's prophecy was fulfilling itself. He remained in close intimacy
with the soothsayer; but only once more, and just before Caesar's
departure, could the magian be induced to raise the spirits of the dead,
for his clever accomplice, Castor, had fallen a victim in the massacre
because, prompted by the high price set on Alexander's head, and his own
fierce hatred of the young painter, he would go out to discover where he
and his sister had concealed themselves.

When at last the unhappy monarch quitted Alexandria one rainy morning,
followed by the curses of innumerable mourners--fathers, mothers,
widows, and orphans--as well as of ruined artisans and craftsmen, the
ill-used city, once so proudly gay, felt itself relieved of a crushing
nightmare. This time it was not to Caesar that the cloudy sky promised
welfare--his life was wrapped in gloom--but to the people he had so
bitterly hated. Thousands looked forward hopefully to life once more, in
spite of their mourning robes and widows' veils, and notwithstanding the
serious hindrances which the malice of their "afflicted" sovereign had
placed in the way of the resuscitation of their town, for Caracalla had
commanded that a wall should be built to divide the great merchant city
into two parts.

Nay, he had intended to strike a death-blow even at the learni