Drusus
whose voice rang like a trumpet out into the press swaying around?

It was very dark crouching in the body of the chariot. She could just
see the face of Fabia opposite, very white, but, she knew, very calm.
She reached out and caught the Vestal's hand, and discovered that her
own was trembling, while the other's was perfectly steady. But the
contest, the fighting all about! Now the horses were dashing forward,
making the chariot spring as though it were a thing of life; now
reined in sharply, and the heavily loaded car swayed this way and
that, almost to overturning. The uproar above her head passed the
telling by words; but there was one shout, now in Greek, now in
Egyptian, that drowned all others: "Death to the Romans! tear them in
pieces!" Missiles smote against the chariot; an arrow went cutting
into the wood, driving its keen point home, and Cornelia experienced a
thrill of pain in her shoulder. She felt for the smart, found the mere
tip of the point only had penetrated the wood; but her fingers were
wet when she took them away. Drusus was shooting; his bow-string
snapped and snapped. Once a soldier in armour sprang behind the
chariot when it came to a stop, and his javelin was poised to
discharge; but an arrow tore through his throat, and he went down to
the pavement with a crash. The car rocked more and more; once the
wheels slipped without revolving, as though sliding over some smooth
liquid--not water. Cornelia felt powers of discriminating sensation
becoming fainter and fainter; a great force seemed pressing out from
within her; the clamour and shocks were maddening. She felt driven to
raise her head, to look out into the raging chaos, though the first
glance were death. Peering back out of the body of the chariot now and
then, she saw a little. The Romans were charging this way and that,
forcing their passage down the street, barred no longer by a mere mob,
but by Achillas's infantrymen, who were hastening into action. The
chariot horses were wounded, some seriously; she was sure of that.
They could not be driven through the spearmen, and the little handful
of cavalry was trying to break through the enemy and make space for a
rush. It was thirty against thousands; yet even in the mortal peril,
which Cornelia realized now if she had never before, she had a strange
sort of pride. Her countrymen were showing these Orientals how one
Roman could slay his tens, could put in terror his hundreds. Drusus
wa