ady know who it is; it is Photius, the freedman of Belisarius."

"No, Justinian; it is he whom you would again send to Italy if I did
not warn you: Belisarius himself!"

The Emperor grew pale, and grasped the arm of his chair. "Will you now
believe in that wonderful Roman's devotion, and send him to Italy with
your army, instead of Belisarius?"

"Everything, everything!" said Justinian. "Belisarius, then, is really
a traitor! Then we must make haste! Let us act at once."

"I have already acted, Justinian. My net is cast, and no one can
escape. Give me full power to draw it close."

The Emperor nodded acquiescence.

And passing through the curtains, Theodora said to the door-keeper:

"Fetch Cethegus, the Prefect of Rome, from his house, and take him to
my room."

CHAPTER VIII.

Shortly after, Cethegus once more stood before the still seductive
woman, whom he had known in youth. She was lying stretched upon her
couch in the room in which we have before seen her.

Galatea frequently handed to her a small onyx-cup, filled with the
drops prescribed by her Persian physician. Grecian doctors no longer
sufficed.

"I thank you, Theodora," said Cethegus, after a friendly greeting, "and
if I must thank any other than myself--and a woman!--I would rather owe
something to my early friend than to another."

"Listen, Prefect," said Theodora, looking gravely at him. "You would be
just the man--shall I say the barbarian or the Roman?--to first kiss a
Cleopatra whom a Caesar and an Antony had adored, and then take her in
triumph to the Capitol in order to strangle her, as, perhaps,
Octavianus once intended, if that sly Queen had not been beforehand
with him. Cleopatra has always been my model. 'Tis true, I have never
found a Caesar. But the asp, perhaps, will not be wanting. But you need
not thank me. I have spoken and acted out of conviction. The insolence
which we have suffered from these Goths must be smothered in blood.
Perhaps I have not always been such a faithful wife as Justinian
believed; but I was always his best and truest adviser. Belisarius and
Narses cannot be sent together, and still less singly, to Italy. You
shall go. You are a hero, a general, and a statesman, and yet you are
too weak to harm Justinian."

"Thanks for your good opinion," said Cethegus.

"Friend, you are a general without an army, an Emperor without an
empire, a pilot without a ship. But enough of thi