and fell crashing
along the marble-topped table, bringing a quantity of crystal down with
it in its fall.

A few drops of the wine from the goblet had fallen on Taurus Antinor's
tunic, and from the parched throat of young Hortensius there rose a
hoarse and immoderate laugh and a string of violent oaths. But even
before these had fully escaped his lips he saw the praefect's dark face
quite close to his own, and felt a grip as of a double vice of steel
fastening on both his shoulders.

He knew the grip and had felt it before; no claw of desert beast was
firmer or more unrelenting. Young Hortensius felt his whole body give
way, his very bones crack beneath that mighty grip. His head, overheated
with wine, fell back against the cushions of his couch, and he felt as
if the last breath in him was leaving his enfeebled body.

"Thou art a fool indeed, Hortensius," murmured a harsh voice close to
his ear; "a fool to provoke a man beyond the power of his control."

Then as at a word from the host, the other men--those who were steady on
their feet--tried to interpose, Taurus Antinor turned his face to them.

"Have no fear," he said quite calmly, "for this man. He shall come to no
harm. Twice hath he insulted me and twice have I held his life in my
hands."

Then, as Hortensius uttered an involuntary cry of rage or of pain,
Taurus Antinor spoke once more to him:

"Thy life is in my hands yet will I not kill thee, even though I could
do it with just the tightening of my fingers round thy throat. But
provoke me not a third time, O Hortensius, for I have in my possession a
heavy-thonged whip, and this would I use on thee even as I order it to
be used on the miscreant thieves that are brought to my tribunal. So
cross not my path again, dost understand? I am but a man and have not an
inexhaustible stock of patience."

Whilst he spoke he still held young Hortensius down pinioned amongst the
cushions. No one interfered, for it had dawned on every blurred mind
there that here lay a deeper cause for quarrel than mere political
conflict. Hortensius, though vanquished now, had been like a madman; his
unprovoked insults had come from a heart overburdened with jealousy and
with hate. Now when the praefect relaxed his grip upon him, he lay for
a while quite still, and anon Caius Nepos beckoned to his slaves, and
they it was who ministered to him, bathing his forehead with water and
holding lumps of ice to the palms of his hands.

Taur