deed!" murmured Caesar, with a pale face, and then he went on in
a low, sullen tone: "Always the same story--my brother, and my small
stature. In this town they follow the example of the barbarians, it
would seem, who choose the tallest and broadest of their race to be
king. If the third epigram has nothing else in it, the shallow wit
of your fellow-citizens is simply tedious.--Now, what have we next?
Trochaics! Hardly anything new, I fear!--There is the water-jar. I will
drink; fill the cup." But Alexander did not immediately obey the command
so hastily given; assuring Caesar that he could not possibly read the
writing, he was about to take up the tablets. But Caesar laid his hand
on them, and said, imperiously: "Drink! Give me the cup."

He fixed his eyes on the wax, and with difficulty deciphered the clumsy
scrawl in which Alexander had noted down the following lines, which he
had heard at the "Elephant":

"Since on earth our days are numbered,
Ask me not what deeds of horror
Stain the hands of fell Tarautas.
Ask me of his noble actions,
And with one short word I answer,
'None!'-replying to your question
With no waste of precious hours."

Alexander meanwhile had done Caracalla's bidding, and when he had
replaced the jar on its stand and returned to Caesar, he was horrified;
for the emperor's head and arms were shaking and struggling to and fro,
and at his feet lay the two halves of the wax tablets which he had torn
apart when the convulsion came on. He foamed at the mouth, with low
moans, and, before Alexander could prevent him, racked with pain and
seeking for some support, he had set his teeth in the arm of the seat
off which he was slipping. Greatly shocked, and full of sincere pity,
Alexander tried to raise him; but the lion, who perhaps suspected the
artist of having been the cause of this sudden attack, rose on his feet
with a roar, and the young man would have had no chance of his life if
the beast had not happily been chained down after his meal. With much
presence of mind, Alexander sprang behind the chair and dragged it,
with the unconscious man who served him as a shield, away from the angry
brute.

Galen had urged Caesar to avoid excess in wine and violent emotions, and
the wisdom of the warning was sufficiently proved by the attack which
had seized him with such fearful violence, just when Caracalla had
neglected it in both particulars. Alexand