rd, and could not be overtaken. Might it not endanger the life of
the reader by exhaling a poisonous perfume?

"Nothing is impossible here," answered the prefect. "Ours it is to watch
over the safety of our godlike master."

This letter was that which Melissa had intrusted to the slave Argutis
for Caesar, and with unwarrantable boldness the prefect and Epagathos
now opened it and ran rapidly over its contents. They then agreed to
keep this strange missive from the emperor till Macrinus should send
to ask whether the youths were assembled in their full number on the
race-course. They judged it necessary to prepare Caesar in some sort, to
prevent a fresh attack of illness.

Caracalla was standing near a pillar at the window whence he might see
without being seen. That whistle still shrilled in his ears. But another
idea occupied him so intensely that he had not yet thought of wiping out
the insult with blood.

What could be delaying Melissa and her father and brother?

The painter ought to have joined the other Macedonian youths on
the race-course, and Caracalla was engaged in looking out for him,
stretching forward every time he caught sight of some curly head that
rose above the others.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and at every fresh disappointment
his rebellious, tortured heart beat faster; and yet the idea that
Melissa might have dared to flee from him never entered his mind.

The high-priest of Serapis had informed him that his wife had seen
nothing of her as yet. Then it suddenly occurred to him that she might
have been wet through by the rain yesterday and now lay shaken by
fever, and that this must keep her father away, too; a supposition which
cheered the egoist more than it pained him, and with a sigh of relief he
turned once more to the window.

How haughtily these boys carried their heads; their fleet, elastic feet
skimmed over the ground; how daringly they showed off the strength and
dexterity that almost seemed their birthright! This reminded him that,
prematurely aged as he was by the wild excesses of his younger
years, with his ill-set broken leg and his thin locks, he must make
a lamentable contrast to these others of his own age; and he said to
himself that perhaps the whistle had come from the lips of one of the
strongest and handsomest, who had not considered him worth greeting.

And yet he was not weaker than any single individual down there; aye,
and if he chose he could crush th