nce, but held
her hands forcibly, and, though he could not succeed in kissing her for
her struggling, he pressed his lips to her cheek, while she endeavored to
free herself and pushed him off, breathless with real indignation.

'Till now, the brothers had taken the matter as a joke; but when
Apollonaris seized the girl again, and she, beside herself with fear,
cried for help, he at once set her free.

It was too late; for the curtains of the audience-room were already
withdrawn, and Caracalla approached. His countenance was red and
distorted; he trembled with rage, and his angry glance fell like a flash
of lightning on the luckless brothers. Close by his side was the prefect
Macrinus, who feared lest he should be attacked by a fresh fit; and
Melissa shared his fears, as Caracalla cried to Apollonaris in an angry
voice, "Scoundrel that you are, you shall repent of this!"

Still, Aurelius had, by various wanton jokes, incurred the emperor's
wrath before now, and he was accustomed to disarm it by some insinuating
confession, so he answered him with a roguish smile, while raising his
eyes to him humbly:

"Forgive me, great Caesar! Our poor strength, as you well know, is easily
defeated in conflicts against overpowering beauty. Dainties are sweet,
not only for children. Long ago Mars was drawn to Venus; and if I--"

He had spoken these words in Latin, which Melissa did not understand; but
the color left the emperor's face, and, pale with excitement, he
stammered out laboriously:

"You have--you have dared--"

"For this rose," began the youth again, "I begged a hasty kiss from the
beauty, which certainly blooms for all, and she--" He raised his hands
and eyes imploringly to the despot; but Caracalla had already snatched
Macrinus's sword from its sheath, and before Aurelius could defend
himself he was struck first on the head with the flat of the blade, and
then received a series of sharp cuts on his brow and face.

Streaming with blood from the gaping wounds which the victim, trembling
with fear and rage, covered with his hands, he surrendered himself to the
care of his startled brother, while Caesar overwhelmed them both with a
flood of furious reproaches.

When Nemesianus began to bind up his wounded brother's head with a
handkerchief handed to him by Melissa, and Caracalla saw the gaping
wounds he had inflicted, he became quieter, and said:

"I think those lips will not try to steal kisses again for some time fr