“You may confide to me what will be left of me—­unless, indeed, you mean the worms which shall eat me and so proceed from me.  It can not be good for much, at any rate, and I will tell no one.”

To this Arjuna solemnly replied:  “There is one thing which persists to all eternity and can never be lost in all the ages of the universe, and that is—­the deed.”

“I know that,” replied the old man with an indifferent shrug; but the word struck Caesar like a thunder-bolt.  He listened breathlessly to hear what more the Indian might say; but Arjuna, who regarded it as sacrilege to waste the highest lore on one unworthy of it, went on reading to himself, and Adventus stretched himself out to sleep.

All was silent in and about the sleeping-room, and the fearful words, “the deed,” still rang in the ears of the man who had just committed the most monstrous of all atrocities.  He could not get rid of the haunting words; all the ill he had done from his childhood returned to him in fancy, and seemed heaped up to form a mountain which weighed on him like an incubus.

The deed!

His, too, must live on, and with it his name, cursed and hated to the latest generations of men.  The souls of the slain would have carried the news of the deeds he had done even to Hades; and if Tarautas were to come and fetch him away, he would be met below by legions of indignant shades —­a hundred thousand!  And at their head his stern father, and the other worthy men who had ruled Rome with wisdom and honor, would shout in his face:  “A hundred thousand times a murderer! robber of the state! destroyer of the army!” and drag him before the judgment-seat; and before judgment could be pronounced the hundred thousand, led by the noblest of all his victims, the good Papinian, would rush upon him and tear him limb from limb.

Dozing as he lay, he felt cold, ghostly hands on his shoulder, on his head, wherever the cold breath of the waning night could fan him through the open window; and with a loud cry he sprang out of bed as he fancied he felt a touch of the shadowy hand of Vindex.  On hearing his voice, Adventus and the Indian hurried in, with Epagathos, who had even heard his shriek in the farther room.  They found him bathed in a sweat of horror, and struggling for breath, his eyes fixed on vacancy; and the freedman flew off to fetch the physician.  When he came Caesar angrily dismissed him, for he felt no physical disorder.  Without dressing, he went to the window.  It was about three hours before sunrise.

However, he gave orders that his bath should be prepared, and desired to be dressed; then Macrinus and others were to be sent for.  Sooner would he step into boiling water than return to that bed of terror.  Day, life, business must banish his terrors.  But then, after the evening would come another night; and if the sufferings he had just gone through should repeat themselves then, and in those to follow, he should lose his wits, and he would bless the spirit of Tarautas if it would but come to lead him away to death.