the Black Earl ask repeatedly after
you. He was seeking you everywhere upon the Capitol. He will now seek
you in your house."

"I _must_ once more go to my house!"

But he had scarcely gone a few steps, when a troop of Goths and Romans,
carrying torches and firebrands, came towards him from the city.

The foremost, who were Romans, recognised him.

"The Prefect!"

"The destroyer of Rome!"

"He has set the Capitol on fire! Down with him!"

Arrows, stones, and spears were hurled at Cethegus. One of his
Isaurians fell; the others took to their heels.

Cethegus was hit by an arrow; it penetrated slightly into his left
shoulder. He tore it out.

"A Roman arrow, with my own stamp!" he cried with a terrible laugh.

With difficulty he gained a dark side-street.

Before his House there was a crowd of soldiers, trying in vain to break
open the principal door.

Cethegus heard the uproar, and well understood the cries of rage with
which the soldiers accompanied their ineffectual exertions.

"The door is strong," he said to himself. "Before they force an
entrance, I shall be again out of the house."

He hurried to the back of the house. He pressed a secret spring which
opened the door of the court, entered, and, leaving the door open
behind him, hurried in.

Hark! a stroke--very different from all which had gone
before--thundered against the front door of the house.

"That is a battle-axe!" thought Cethegus. "That is Teja?"

He hastened to a small gap in the wall, which afforded an outlook into
the main street. It was Teja. His long black locks waved about his bare
head; in his left hand he carried a firebrand; in his right the dreaded
battle-axe. He was covered with blood.

"Cethegus!" he shouted at every stroke of his axe. "Cornelius Cethegus
Caesarius, where art thou? I sought thee in the Capitol, Prefect of
Rome! Where art thou? Must I seek thee upon thy hearth?"

Cethegus, listening, heard hasty steps behind him.

Syphax had reached the court, and had followed his master through the
open door. He now caught sight of him.

"O master, fly! I will protect thy threshold with my body."

And he hastened past Cethegus, through a suite of apartments to the
front door.

Cethegus turned to the right. He could hardly keep himself upright. He
managed to reach the "Hall of Jupiter." Here he sank to the ground. But
the next moment he again sprang to his feet, for a fearful noise was
heard from the front door.