Caesar----"

But even as these words escaped his lips the praefect, with a quick
peremptory gesture, placed one slim, strong hand on Hortensius' wrist.

It seemed as if in a moment--and because of those words--a strange
power had gone forth from the soul within right down to the tips of the
slender fingers that closed on those of the younger man with a grip of
steel.

He had raised himself wholly upright on the couch, his massive figure,
in the gorgeous crimson tunic, standing out clear and trenchant against
the shadowy whiteness of the marble walls behind him. His head, with the
ruddy mass of hair on which the flickering lamps threw brilliant, golden
lights, was thrown back, and the eyes, deep, intent, and glowing with
unrevealed ardour, looked straight out before him into the shadows.

"Render unto Caesar," he said slowly, "the things which are Caesar's, and
unto God the things that are God's."

His voice was low and unmodulated, as of one who repeats something that
he has heard before, whilst the eyes suddenly shone as if with a
fleeting memory of an exquisite vision.

The action, the words, were but momentary, but for that brief moment the
angry retort was checked on Hortensius' lips, even as were the sneers
and the bibulous scowls on the faces of those around. Taurus Antinor,
towering above them all, and imbued with a strange dignity, seemed to be
gazing into a space beyond the walls of the gorgeous dining-hall; into a
space hidden from their understanding but peopled with the sweet memory
of a sacred past. And even as he gazed a strange spell fell over these
voluptuaries; a spell which they were unable to withstand. Whilst it
lasted every ribald word was stilled and every drunken oath lulled to
silence. The very air seemed hushed and only from a bunch of dying roses
the withered petals were heard to fall one by one.

Then the grasp on Hortensius' wrist relaxed, the dark head was lowered,
the falling lids once more hid the mysterious radiance of the eyes. The
spell was broken as Taurus Antinor resumed quietly:

"The Caesar," he said, "hath not yet abdicated; he is still our chosen
ruler and Emperor. To speak of his successor now savours of treachery
and----"

"And what thou sayest stinks of treachery," broke in Hortensius Martius
with redoubled wrath, and shaking himself free from the brief spell of
superstitious awe which Antinor's words and Antinor's grip on his arm
had momentarily cast over him. "Hast