visions the
flames were so rapidly devouring, and all hot as I was from my supper, I
flung myself in among the men who were extinguishing the fire. My first
reward was a bath of cold, icy-cold sea-water, which was poured over my
head out of a full skin. All doctrines of ethics are in disgrace with
me, and I have long considered all the dramatic poets, in whose pieces
virtue is rewarded and crime punished, as a pack of fools; for my
pleasantest hours are all due to my worst deeds; and sheer annoyance and
misery, to my best. No hyena can laugh more hoarsely that I now speak;
some portion of me inside here, seems to have been turned into a
hedgehog whose spines prick and hurt me, and all this because I allowed
myself to be led away into doing things which the moralists laud as
virtuous."

"You cough, and you do not look well. He down awhile."

"On my birthday? No, my young friend. And now let me just ask you before
I go: Can you tell me what Hadrian read in the stars?"

"No."

"Not even if I put my Perseus at your orders for every thing you may
require of him? The man knows Alexandria and is as dumb as a fish."

"Not even then, for what I do not know I cannot tell. We are both of
us ill, and I tell you once more you will be wise to take care of
yourself." Verus left the room, and Antinous watched him go with much
relief.

The praetor's visit had filled him with disquietude, and had added to
the dislike he felt for him. He knew that he had been used to base ends
by Verus, for Hadrian had told him so much as that he had gone up to
the observatory not to question the stars for himself but to cast the
praetor's horoscope, and that he had informed Verus of his intention.

There was no excuse, no forgiveness possible for the deed he had done;
to please that dissolute coxcomb, that mocking hypocrite, he had
become a traitor to his master and an incendiary, and must endure to
be overwhelmed with praises and thanks by the greatest and most
keen-sighted of men. He hated, he abhorred himself, and asked himself
why the fire which had blazed around him had been satisfied only to
inflict slight injuries on his hands and hair. When Hadrian returned to
him he asked his permission to go to bed. The Emperor gladly granted
it, ordered Mastor to watch by his side, and then agreed to his wife's
request that he would visit her.

Sabina had not been to the scene of the fire, but she had sent a
messenger every hour to inquire as to the