from which the unfortunate boy drank there
could not be discovered the least trace of suspicious contents. So it
is generally believed that excitement had again brought on his former
malady, and that this was the cause of his death. But still it is well
that, since the moment of your leaving the assembly, _you_ were always
in the presence of witnesses; grief breeds suspicion."

"How is it with Camilla?" the Prefect inquired further.

"She has never yet awakened from her stupor; the physicians fear the
worst. But I came to ask you what shall now be done? The Queen speaks
of suppressing the examination concerning you."

"That must not be," cried Cethegus. "I demand an investigation. We will
go to her immediately."

"Will you intrude upon her at the coffin of her son?"

"Yes, I will. Do you shrink from it in your tender consideration? Well
then, come afterwards, when I have broken the ice."

He dismissed his visitor and called his slaves to dress him. Shortly
afterwards, enveloped in a dark mourning garment, he descended to the
vault where the corpse lay exposed. With an imperious gesture he
motioned aside the guard and the women of Amalaswintha, who kept watch
at the door, and entered noiselessly.

It was the low vaulted hall, where, in former times, the corpses of the
emperors had been prepared with salves and combustibles for the funeral
pyre.

This quiet hall, flagged with dark-green serpentine, the roof of which
was supported by short Doric columns of black marble, was never
illumined by a ray of sunshine, and at the present moment no other
light fell upon the gloomy Byzantine mosaics on the gold ground of the
walls than that from four torches, which flickered with an uncertain
light near the stone sarcophagus of the young King.

There he lay upon a dark purple mantle; helm, sword, and shield at his
head.

Old Hildebrand had wound a wreath of oak-leaves amidst the dark locks.
The noble features reposed in pallid and earnest beauty.

At his feet, clad in a long mourning veil, sat the tall form of the
Queen, supporting her head upon her left arm, which was laid upon the
sarcophagus. Her right hand hung languidly down. She could weep no
more.

The crackling of the burning torches was the only sound in this
stillness of the grave.

Cethegus entered noiselessly, not unmoved by the poetry of the scene.

But, contracting his brows, he smothered the passing feeling of
compassion. He knew that it was necessa