ng from their seats.

"O gods! I shall see a burning city and finish the Troyad," said Nero,
setting aside his lute.

Then he turned to the consul,--"If I go at once, shall I see the fire?"

"Lord," answered Lecanius, as pale as a wall, "the whole city is one
sea of flame; smoke is suffocating the inhabitants, and people faint, or
cast themselves into the fire from delirium. Rome is perishing, lord."

A moment of silence followed, which was broken by the cry of Vinicius,--

"Vae misero mihi!"

And the young man, casting his toga aside, rushed forth in his tunic.
Nero raised his hands and exclaimed,--

"Woe to thee, sacred city of Priam!"

Chapter XLII

VINICIUS had barely time to command a few slaves to follow him; then,
springing on his horse, he rushed forth in the deep night along the
empty streets toward Laurentum. Through the influence of the dreadful
news he had fallen as it were into frenzy and mental distraction. At
moments he did not know clearly what was happening in his mind; he had
merely the feeling that misfortune was on the horse with him, sitting
behind his shoulders, and shouting in his ears, "Rome is burning!" that
it was lashing his horse and him, urging them toward the fire. Laying
his bare head on the beast's neck, he rushed on, in his single tunic,
alone, at random, not looking ahead, and taking no note of obstacles
against which he might perchance dash himself.

In silence and in that calm night, the rider and the horse, covered with
gleams of the moon, seemed like dream visions. The Idumean stallion,
dropping his ears and stretching his neck, shot on like an arrow past
the motionless cypresses and the white villas hidden among them. The
sound of hoofs on the stone flags roused dogs here and there; these
followed the strange vision with their barking; afterward, excited by
its suddenness, they fell to howling, and raised their jaws toward the
moon. The slaves hastening after Vinicius soon dropped behind, as their
horses were greatly inferior. When he had rushed like a storm through
sleeping Laurentum, he turned toward Ardea, in which, as in Aricia,
Bovillae, and Ustrinum, he had kept relays of horses from the day of
his coming to Antium, so as to pass in the shortest time possible the
interval between Rome and him. Remembering these relays, he forced all
the strength from his horse.

Beyond Ardea it seemed to him that the sky on the northeast was covered
with a rosy reflection