o Caesar, but not into the Augusta. Poppaea the critic
understood at one cast of the eye that in all Rome Lygia alone could
rival and even surpass her. Thenceforth she vowed her ruin.

"Lord," said she, "avenge our child."

"Hasten!" cried Chilo, "hasten! Otherwise Vinicius will hide her. I will
point out the house to which she returned after the fire."

"I will give thee ten men, and go this moment," said Tigellinus.

"O lord! thou hast not seen Croton in the arms of Ursus; if thou wilt
give fifty men, I will only show the house from a distance. But if ye
will not imprison Vinicius, I am lost."

Tigellinus looked at Nero. "Would it not be well, O divinity, to finish
at once with the uncle and nephew?"

Nero thought a moment and answered,--

"No, not now. People would not believe us if we tried to persuade them
that Petronius, Vinicius, or Pomponia Graecina had fired Rome. Their
houses were too beautiful. Their turn will come later; to-day other
victims are needed."

"Then, O lord, give me soldiers as a guard," said Chilo.

"See to this, Tigellinus."

"Thou wilt lodge meanwhile with me," said the prefect to Chilo.

Delight beamed from the face of the Greek.

"I will give up all! only hasten!--hasten!" cried he, with a hoarse
voice.

Chapter L

ON leaving Caesar, Petronius had himself borne to his house on the
Carinae, which, being surrounded on three sides by a garden, and having
in front the small Cecilian Forum, escaped the fire luckily. For this
cause other Augustians, who had lost their houses and in them vast
wealth and many works of art, called Petronius fortunate. For years it
had been repeated that he was the first-born of Fortune, and Caesar's
growing friendship in recent times seemed to confirm the correctness of
this statement.

But that first-born of Fortune might meditate now on the fickleness of
his mother, or rather on her likeness to Chronos, who devoured his own
children.

"Were my house burnt," said he to himself, "and with it my gems,
Etruscan vases, Alexandrian glass, and Corinthian bronze, Nero might
indeed have forgotten the offence. By Pollux! And to think that it
depended on me alone to be pretorian prefect at this moment. I should
proclaim Tigellinus the incendiary, which he is really; I should array
him in the 'painful tunic,' and deliver him to the populace, protect
the Christians, rebuild Rome. Who knows even if a better epoch would not
begin thus for honest peopl