He stepped quickly aside, hearing not the feet which followed, nor feeling him who clung to the skirt of his toga.  He stood silent, with dagger drawn.  As he felt about him, he touched a pair of great, trembling hands.  He stood motionless, expecting every breath to feel a point plunging into his flesh.  Suddenly some one blew a sharp whistle close beside him.  Then, for a little, it seemed as if the doors were being rent by thunderbolts.  Crowding forms and cries of terror filled the darkness.  The young Vergilius kept his place after the first outbreak.  Men, rushing past him, had torn the toga from his back.  The hands which had clung upon him now held his wrist with a grip immovable.  Doors fell and lights were flashing in.  He saw now, on every side, a gleam of helmet and cuirass.  Men, retreating from the lights, huddled in a dark corner.  Some began to weep and cry to God.  The scene was awful with swiftness and terror.  The crowding group moved like caving sand.  It sank suddenly, every man going to his knees.  Quick as the serpent, a line of soldiers flung itself around them.  Vergilius, with the man who clung to him, stood apart near the middle of the chamber.

Suddenly he heard an impatient, wrathful shout close beside him:  “Lights here, ye laggards!”

Vergilius jumped as if he had felt the prick of steel.  He turned, looking at the man who held his arm.  A squad with torches came swiftly, forming about them.  The powerful hands let go; a cloak and hood fell upon the floor.

“The king!” said Vergilius, bowing low.

“And you,” said Herod, breathing heavily and leaning on the shoulder of the young man, “you are the only friend of the king.  To save you from the fate of those dogs yonder, I would not let you go.”

This unloved and terrible man, still leaning upon the shoulder of Vergilius, wept feebly.  It seemed as if the infirmity of old age had fallen suddenly upon him.  He muttered, in a weak and piping tone, of his great life weariness.  Then he seemed to hear those low cries of terror from beyond the line of guards.  He lifted his head, listening.  He turned quickly, crouching low, and seemed to threaten the soldiers near him with his hand.  They stepped aside fearfully.  Then was he, indeed, the old lion of Judea, ready to spring upon his prey.

“Stand them here before me,” he growled, fiercely.

The conspirators were drawn up in line.  Torches were held before their faces.  Vergilius looked with pity at the terrified throng.  There were Lugar and two merchants he knew, and that chamberlain of Herod’s palace who had taken him before the king.  There was also a famous young Roman athlete, whom Vergilius had first seen and admired at the circus in Rome, and who had lately been a member of the castle guard.  But none wore the girdle which Vergilius had cut in twain.

The king stood before them, raging like a man possessed of demons.  Fate, which had whispered through lips of beauty in the palace at Caesarea, now thundered in the voice of power.