rheard all, and I have seen with
my own eyes the two horrible wolves who are lurking to fall upon you,
and heard with these ears their scheme for doing it. I never wrote the
note on the tile which was signed with my name; Eulaeus did it, and you
took his bait and came out into the desert by night. In a few minutes
the ruffians will have stolen up to this place to seek their victim, but
they will not find you, Publius, for I have saved you--I, Klea, whom you
first met with smiles--whose sister you have stolen away--the same Klea
that you a minute since were ready to threaten. Now, at once, I am going
into the desert, dressed like a traveller in a coat and hat, so that in
the doubtful light of the moon I may easily be taken for you--going to
give my weary heart as a prey to the assassins' knife."

"You are mad!" cried Publius, and he flung himself with his whole weight
on the door, and kicked it with all his strength. "What you purpose is
pure madness open the door, I command you! However strong the villains
may be that Euergetes has bribed, I am man enough to defend myself."

"You are unarmed, Publius, and they have cords and daggers."

"Then open the door, and stay here with me till day dawns. It is not
noble, it is wicked to cast away your life. Open the door at once, I
entreat you, I command you!"

At any other time the words would not have failed of their effect on
Klea's reasonable nature, but the fearful storm of feeling which had
broken over her during the last few hours had borne away in its whirl
all her composure and self-command. The one idea, the one resolution,
the one desire, which wholly possessed her was to close the life
that had been so full of self-sacrifice by the greatest sacrifice
of all--that of life itself, and not only in order to secure Irene's
happiness and to save the Roman, but because it pleased her--her
father's daughter--to make a noble end; because she, the maiden, would
fain show Publius what a woman might be capable of who loved him above
all others; because, at this moment, death did not seem a misfortune;
and her mind, overwrought by hours of terrific tension, could not free
itself from the fixed idea that she would and must sacrifice herself.

She no longer thought these things--she was possessed by them; they had
the mastery, and as a madman feels forced to repeat the same words again
and again to himself, so no prayer, no argument at this moment would
have prevailed to divert h