her native
Nubia she had an evil reputation as a sorceress, and in Rome she still
carried on by stealth her nefarious art. It was hinted, indeed, in the
palace, that by her subtle, deadly potions she fulfilled her own
prophecies of ill against the objects of the hatred of her employers.

"'Tis certain," hissed through her teeth the spiteful old Fausta, while
murder gleamed from her sloe-black eyes, "that Galerius will not include
in the Imperial rescript that painted doll, Valeria. She exerts
unbounded fascination over him. It must be the spell of her false
religion."

"The spell of her beauty and grace, rather," answered Furca, with a
grin.

"What! Are you duped by her wiles, too?" asked Fausta, with bitterness.

"No; I hate her all the more," said the priest; "but I cannot close my
eyes to what every one sees."

"It is something that I, at least, do not see," muttered the withered
crone, whose own harsh features seemed the very incarnation of hatred
and cruelty. "If we cannot get rid of her under the decree," she went
on, "we can, at least, in a surer but more perilous way. Cunning Juba,
here, has access to her person; and by her skilled decoctions can make
her beauty waste, and her life flicker to extinction, like a lamp
unreplenished with oil."

"Yes, Juba has learned, in the old land of the Nile, some of the dark
secrets of Egypt," whispered, with bated breath, the dusky African. "But
it is very perilous to use them. The palace is full of suspicion; and
that new favourite, Callirho[e:],--how I hate her!--keeps watch over her
mistress like the wild gazelle of the desert over its mate. It will
take much gold to pay for the risk."

"Gold thou shalt have to thy heart's content, if thou do but rid me of
that cockatrice, who has usurped my place in my son's affections,"
hissed the wicked woman, who still felt a fierce, tiger-like love for
the soldier-son whom she had trained up like a tiger cub. And Juba
retired, to await further orders.

"But if she die thus," said Furca, with a malignant gleam in his eyes,
"she dies alone. What we want is to have her drag others down with
her--her mother, Prisca; that haughty Adauctus, who holds himself so
high, and the rest of the accursed Christian brood."

"Yes, that is what we want, if it can be done," said Fausta; "but I fear
it is impossible. You do not know how headstrong Galerius is in his own
way; and the more he is opposed, the fiercer he is."

"Here comes Naso,"