Streaming with blood from the gaping wounds which the victim, trembling with fear and rage, covered with his hands, he surrendered himself to the care of his startled brother, while Caesar overwhelmed them both with a flood of furious reproaches.

When Nemesianus began to bind up his wounded brother’s head with a handkerchief handed to him by Melissa, and Caracalla saw the gaping wounds he had inflicted, he became quieter, and said: 

“I think those lips will not try to steal kisses again for some time from honorable maidens.  You and Nemesianus have forfeited your lives; how ever, the beseeching look of those all-powerful eves has saved you—­you are spared.  Take your brother away, Nemesianus.  You are not to leave your quarters until further orders.”

With this he turned his back on the twins, but on the threshold he again addressed them and said: 

“You were mistaken about this maiden.  She is not less pure and noble than your own sister.”

The merchants were dismissed from the tablinum more hastily than was due to the importance of their business, in which, until this interruption, the sovereign had shown a sympathetic interest and intelligence which surprised them; and they left Caesar’s presence disappointed, but with the promise that they should be received again in the evening.

As soon as they had retired, Caracalla threw himself again on the couch.

The bath had done him good.  Still somewhat exhausted, though his head was clear, he would not be hindered from receiving the deputation for which he had important matters to decide; but this fresh attack of rage revenged itself by a painful headache.  Pale, and with slightly quivering limbs, he dismissed the prefect and his other friends, and desired Epagathos to call Melissa.

He needed rest, and again the girl’s little hand, which had yesterday done him good, proved its healing power.  The throbbing in his head yielded to her gentle touch, and by degrees exhaustion gave way to the comfortable languor of convalesence.

To-day, as yesterday, he expressed his thanks to Melissa, but he found her changed.  She looked timidly and anxiously down into her lap excepting when she replied to a direct question; and yet he had done everything to please her.  Her relations would soon be free and in Alexandria once more, and Zminis was in prison, chained hand and foot.  This he told her; and, though she was glad, it was not enough to restore the calm cheerfulness he had loved to see in her.

He urged her, with warm insistence, to tell him what it was that weighed on her, and at last, with eyes full of tears, she forced herself to say: 

“You yourself have seen what they take me for.”

“And you have seen,” he quickly replied, “how I punish those who forget the respect they owe to you.”