some six or eight of the
superior attendants of the palace, who walked backwards and forwards at
the outer extremity of the hall occupied by their comrades, and
occasionally advancing along the straight passages before them to the
front gates of the building, appeared to be exchanging furtive signals
with some of the people in the street. Reports had been vaguely spread
of a secret conspiracy between some of the principal of the slaves and
certain chosen ruffians of the populace, to murder all the inmates of
the palace, seize on its treasures, and, opening the city gates to the
Goths, escape with their booty during the confusion of the pillage of
Rome. Nothing had as yet been positively discovered; but the few
attendants who kept ominously apart from the rest were unanimously
suspected by their fellows, who now watched them over their wine-cups
with anxious eyes. Different as was the scene among the slaves still
left in the palace from the scene among the people dispersed in the
street, the one was nevertheless in its own degree as gloomily
suggestive of some great impending calamity as the other.

The grand banqueting-hall of the palace, prepared though it now was for
festivity, wore a changed and melancholy aspect.

The massive tables still ran down the whole length of the noble room,
surrounded by luxurious couches, as in former days, but not a vestige
of food appeared upon their glittering surfaces. Rich vases, flasks,
and drinking-cups, all filled with wine, alone occupied the festal
board. Above, hanging low from the ceiling, burnt ten large lamps,
corresponding to the number of guests assembled, as the only procurable
representatives of the hundreds of revellers who had feasted at
Vetranio's expense during the brilliant nights that were now passed for
ever. At the lower end of the room, beyond the grand door of entrance,
hung a thick black curtain, apparently intended to conceal mysteriously
some object behind it. Before the curtain burnt a small lamp of yellow
glass, raised upon a high gilt pole, and around and beneath it, heaped
against the side walls, and over part of the table, lay a various and
confused mass of rich objects, all of a nature more or less
inflammable, and all besprinkled with scented oils. Hundreds of yards
of gorgeously variegated hangings, rolls upon rolls of manuscripts,
gaudy dresses of all colours, toys, utensils, innumerable articles of
furniture formed in rare and beautifully in