throne and state and the compulsion of cruel fate which had ever made him shed blood—­that man was standing side by side with the vile, ruthless spy whose tall figure towered far above his master’s.  His hand lay on the villain’s arm, his eye rested on the corpse-strewn arena beneath; and now he raised his head, he turned his face, whose look of suffering had once moved her soul, toward her—­and he laughed—­she could see every feature—­laughed so loud, so heartily, so gleefully, as she had never before seen him laugh.  He laughed till his whole body and shoulders shook.  Now he took his hand from the Egyptian’s arm and pointed to the dead lying at his feet.

As she saw that laugh, of which she could not hear a sound, Melissa felt as though a hyena had yelled in her ear, and, yielding to an irresistible impulse, she looked down once more at the destruction of youthful life and happiness which had been wrought in one short hour—­at the stream of blood after which so many bitter tears must flow.  The sight indeed cut her to the heart, and yet she was thankful for it; for the first time the reckless cruelty of that laughing monster was evident in all its naked atrocity.  Horror, aversion, loathing for that man to whom everything but power, cruelty, and cunning, was as nothing, left no room for fear or pity, or even the least shade of self-reproach for having aroused in him a desire which she could not gratify.

She clenched her little fists, and, without vouchsafing another glance at the detestable butcher who had dared to cast his eyes on her, she withdrew from the window and cried out aloud, though startled at the sound of her own voice:  “The time, the time!  It is fulfilled for him this day!”

And how her eyes flashed and her bosom heaved and fell!  With what a firm step did she pace the long suite of rooms, while the conviction was borne in on her that this deed of the vile assassin in the purple must bring the day of salvation and peace nearer—­that day of which Andreas dreamed!  As in her silent walk she passed the book-rolls which the lady Euryale had so quietly laid by her bedside, she took up the glad message of Luke with enthusiastic excitement, held it on high, and shouted the angels’ greeting which had impressed itself on her memory out of the window, as though she longed that Caracalla should hear it—­“Peace on earth and good-will toward men!”

Then she resumed her walk through the rooms of the heathen mystics, repeating to herself all the comfortable words she had ever heard from Euryale and the freedman Andreas.  The image of the divine Lord, who had come to bestow love on the world, and seal his sublime doctrine by sacrificing his life, rose up before her soul, and all that the Christian Johanna had told her of him made the picture clear, till he stood plainly before her, beautiful and gentle, in a halo of love and kindness, and yet strong and noble, for the crucified One was a heroic Saviour.