norix have with him?" shouted the pirate over
his shoulder.

"Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty!" gasped Agias.

"A very pretty number! Some little credit to throttle them," was his
answer; and Demetrius plunged on.

The night was cloudy, there was no moonlight. The cold, chill wind
swept down the Tiber valley, and howled mournfully among the tall,
silent basilicas and temples of the Forum. The feet of the two Greeks
echoed and reëchoed as they crossed the pavement of the enclosure.
None addressed them, none met them. It was as if they walked in a city
of the dead. In the darkness, like weird phantoms, rose the tall
columns and pediments of the deserted buildings. From nowhere twinkled
the ray of lamp. Dim against the sky-line the outlines of the
Capitoline and its shrines were now and then visible, when the night
seemed for an instant to grow less dark.

They were close to the Atrium Vestae. All was quiet. No light within,
no sound but that of the wind and their own breathing without.

"We are not too late," whispered Agias.

The two groped their way in among the pillars of the portico of the
_Regia,_[161] and crouched down under cover of the masonry, half
sheltered from the chilly blasts. They could from their post command a
tolerably good view of one side of the Atrium Vestae. Still the
darkness was very great, and they dared not divide their force by one
of them standing watch on the other side. The moments passed. It was
extremely cold. Agias shivered and wound himself in his mantle. The
wine was making him drowsy, and he felt himself sinking into
semiconsciousness, when a touch on his arm aroused him.

[161] The official residence of the Pontifex Maximus.

"_St!"_ whispered Demetrius. "I saw a light moving."

Agias stared into the darkness.

"There," continued the pirate, "see, it is a lantern carefully
covered! Only a little glint on the ground now and then. Some one is
creeping along the wall to enter the house of the Vestals!"

"I see nothing," confessed Agias, rubbing his eyes.

"You are no sailor; look harder. I can count four men in the gloom.
They are stealing up to the gate of the building. Is your sword ready?
Now--"

But at this instant Demetrius was cut short by a scream--scream of
mortal terror--from within the Atrium Vestae. There were shouts, howls,
commands, moans, entreaties, shrieks. Light after light blazed up in
the building; women rushed panic-struck to the doorway to burst forth
i