When he was sent for at last, and accompanied in, he found Marcia, Pertinax and Galen seated unattended in the gorgeous, quiet anteroom next to the emperor’s bedchamber.  The outer storm was hardly audible through the window-shutters, but there was an atmosphere of impending climax, like the hush and rumble that precedes eruptions.

Marcia nodded and dismissed the attendant who had brought Narcissus.  There was a strained look about her eyes, a tightening at the corners of the mouth.  Her voice was almost hoarse: 

“What is it?  You bring bad news, Narcissus!  What has happened?”

“Sextus has been arrested by the main gate guard!”

Galen came out of a reverie.  Pertinax bit at his nails and looked startled; worry had made him look as old as Galen, but his shoulders were erect and he was very splendid in his jeweled full dress.  None spoke; they waited on Marcia, who turned the news over in her mind a minute.

“When?  Why?” she asked at last.

“He proposed I should smuggle him in, that he might be of service to you.  He was stormy-minded.  He said Rome may need a determined man tonight.  But the centurion of the guard recognized him—­knew he is Maternus.  He refused to summon the commander.  Sextus is locked in a cell, and there is no knowing what the guards may do to him.  They may try to make him talk.  Please write and order him released.”

“Yes, order him released,” said Pertinax.

But Marcia’s strained lips flickered with the vestige of a smile.

“A determined man!” she said, her eyes on Pertinax.  “By morning a determined man might give his own commands.  Sextus is safe where he is.  Let him stay there until you have power to release him!  Go and wait in the outer room, Narcissus!”

Narcissus had no alternative.  Though he could sense the climax with the marrow of his bones, he did not dare to disobey.  He might have rushed into the emperor’s bedroom to denounce the whole conspiracy and offer himself as bodyguard in the emergency.  That might have won Commodus’ gratitude; it might have opened up a way for liberating Sextus.  But there was irresolution in the air.  And besides, he knew that Sextus would reckon it a treason to himself to be made beholden for his life to Commodus, nor would he forgive betrayal of his friends, Pertinax, and Marcia and Galen.

So Narcissus, who cared only for Sextus, reckoning no other man on earth his friend, went and sat beyond the curtains in the smaller, outer room, straining his ears to catch the conversation and wondering what tragedy the gods might have in store.  As gladiator his philosophy was mixed of fatalism, cynical irreverence, a semi-military instinct of obedience, short-sightedness and self-will.  He reckoned Marcia no better than himself because she, too, was born in slavery—­and Pertinax not vastly better than himself because he was a charcoal-burner’s son.  But it did not enter his head just then that he might be capable of making history.