dead, like a flock of
sheep before a single dog! Say, O Marcus! did I not well to set the
corpse at the foot of our banqueting-table? What marvels has it not
effected, borne before us by the frantic Reburrus, as a banner of the
hosts of death, against the cowardly slaves whose fit inheritance is
oppression, and whose sole sensation is fear! See, we are free to
continue and conclude the banquet as we had designed! The gods
themselves have interfered to raise us in security above our
fellow-mortals, whom we despise! Another health, in gratitude to our
departed guest, the instrument of our deliverance, under the auspices
of omnipotent Jove!'

As Vetranio spoke, Marcus alone, out of all the revellers, answered his
challenge. These two--the last-remaining combatants of the
strife--having drained their cups to the health proposed, passed slowly
down each side of the room, looking contemptuously on their prostrate
companions, and extinguishing every lamp but the two which burnt over
their own couches. Then returning to the upper end of the tables, they
resumed their places, not to leave them again until the fatal rivalry
was finally decided, and the moment of firing the pile had actually
arrived.

The torch lay between them; the last vases of wine stood at their
sides. Not a word escaped the lips of either, to break the deep
stillness prevailing over the palace. Each fixed his eyes on the
other, in stern and searching scrutiny, and cup for cup, drank in slow
and regular alternation. The debauch, which had hitherto presented a
spectacle of brutal degradation and violence, now that it was
restricted to two men only--each equally unimpressed by the scenes of
horror he had beheld, each vying with the other for the attainment of
the supreme of depravity--assumed an appearance of hardly human
iniquity; it became a contest for a satanic superiority of sin.

For some time little alteration appeared in the countenances of either
of the suicide-rivals; but they had now drunk to that final point of
excess at which wine either acts as its own antidote, or overwhelms in
fatal suffocation the pulses of life. The crisis in the strife was
approaching for both, and the first to experience it was Marcus.
Vetranio, as he watched him, observed a dark purple flush overspreading
his face, hitherto pale, almost colourless. His eyes suddenly dilated;
he panted for breath. The vase of wine, when he strove with a last
effort to fill his