their
intrepid and severe looks, and animated gestures, ever and anon
betrayed some deep and resolute purpose more than usually portentous.

"An untoward event truly," said one of the speakers, Virius Lupus
himself, the emperor's private secretary. "If the old magician could
have been won, it had been well."

"He might have saved the encounter and hazard we must now undergo. But
let him hold his fealty. We have stout hearts and resolute hands enow
to bring the matter to a successful issue." Thus spoke Caracalla, the
unnatural eldest born of his father.

"And yet," replied the secretary, "he hath a ready admittance to his
person, and a great sway over thy father's councils."

"I heed him not, now that brave men work. It were time that our trusty
servant, the commander at Isurium, had sent the message, with the
token I left him on my departure. Ere this we ought to have known the
hour we may expect his troops to move on the capital. I had thought to
have made all safe--to have put it beyond the power of fate to
frustrate our purpose; but I was foiled like a beardless boy at his
weapons." He gnashed his teeth as he spoke; and this monster of
cruelty breathed a horrible threat against the life even of a parent
and a king.

"Here is the roll," said one, who from his inkhorn and reed-pen seemed
to be the scribe, and whose ambition had been lured by a promise that
he should have the office of sextumvir in the imperial city.

"Here be the names and disposition of the troops; the avenues and
gates to which they are appointed."

"We but wait a messenger from Isurium to make our plans complete,"
said Caracalla. "By the same courier I send back this cypher. Examine
it, Fabricius. The troops of Lucius Claudius are to march directly on
the Forum, and slay all who attempt resistance. Thou, Virius Lupus,
wilt guide them through the secret passage into the palace."

The secretary bowed assent.

"Though the empress knows not our high purpose, it is by her
connivance we are here, safe from the emperor's spies. Under her
mantle we are hidden. Suspicion hath crossed her that I am about to
head the troops; that my father, oppressed with age and infirmities,
will retire to Rome; and that I, Caracalla, rule in Britain."

"Then she knows not the mishap of yesternight?"

"She knows of the attempt, but not the agent. I would the messenger
were come. 'Tis an unforeseen delay. I pray the gods there be not
treachery somewhere. The off