eathe a sound
Or make a sign to them, thou diest to-night
With torture.

_Ire._ Spare him! Do not this thing, Gycia!

[_Exit_ GYCIA.

O God, she is gone! he is lost! and I undone!

[_Swoons._

SCENE II.--_Room in_ LAMACHUS'S _palace._

LYSIMACHUS, MEGACLES, Courtiers; _afterwards_ ASANDER.

_Lys._ Well, good Megacles, I hope you are prepared to carry out your
function. It will be a busy and anxious day to-morrow, no doubt, and
most of us will be glad when midnight strikes.

_Meg._ My Lord Lysimachus, I hope so. I have not closed an eye for
the last two nights. As to the Procession, I flatter myself that no
better-arranged pomp has ever defiled before Caesar's Palace. It will
be long, it will be splendid, it will be properly marshalled. There
is no other man in the Empire who knows the distinctions of rank or
the mysteries of marshalling better than I do. Look at the books I
have studied. There is the treatise of the Learned and Respectable
Symmachus on Processions. That is one. There is the late divine
Emperor Theodosius on Dignities and Titles of Honour. That is two.
There is our learned and illustrious Chamberlain Procopius's treatise
on the office and duties of a Count of the Palace. That, as no doubt
you know, is in six large volumes. That is three, or, nay, eight
volumes. Oh, my poor head! And I have said nothing of the authorities
on Costume--a library, I assure you, in themselves. Yes, it has been
an anxious time, but a very happy one. I wish our young friends here
would devote a little more time to such serious topics, and less to
such frivolities as fighting and making love. The latter is a fine
art, no doubt, and, when done according to rule, is well enough; but
as for fighting, getting oneself grimed with dust and sweat, and very
likely some vulgar churl's common blood to boot--pah! it is
intolerable to think of it.

_1st Court._ Well, good Megacles, I am afraid that the world cannot
spare its soldiers yet for many years to come. So long as there is
evil in the world, and lust of power and savagery and barbarism, so
long, depend upon it, there is room and need for the soldier.

_Meg._ Certainly, my lord, certainly; and besides, they are very
highly decorative too. Nothing looks better to my mind at a banquet
than bright gay faces and lithe young figures set in a shining
framework of mail. By the way, my Lord Lysimachus, it was kind of you
to provide our procession with