The steward, proud of Caesar’s promised visit, announced to his subordinates the honor they might expect, and he then went to the door of the small laboratory to tell the old pastophoros who was employed there, and who had done him many a good turn, that if he wished to see the emperor he had only to open the door leading to the staircase.  He was about to visit the mystic chambers with his much-talked-of lion.  No one need be afraid of the beast; it was quite tame, and Caesar loved it as a son.

At this the old drug-pounder muttered some reply, which sounded more like a curse than the expected thanks, and the steward regretted having compared the lion to a son in this man’s presence, for the pastophoros wore a mourning garment, and two promising sons had been snatched from him, slain yesterday with the other youths in the stadium.

But the cook soon forgot the old man’s ill-humor; he had to clear his subordinates out of the way as quickly as possible and prepare for his illustrious visitor.  As he bustled around, here, there, and everywhere, the pastophoros entered the kitchen and begged for a piece of mutton.  This was granted him by a hasty sign toward a freshly slaughtered sheep, and the old man busied himself for some time behind the steward’s back.  At last he had cut off what he wanted, and gazed with singular tenderness at the piece of red, veinless meat.  On returning to his laboratory, he hastily bolted himself in, and when he came out again a few minutes later his calm, wrinkled old face had a malignant and evil look.  He stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking about him cautiously; then he flew up the steps with the agility of youth, and at a turn in the stairs he stuck the piece of meat close to the foot of the balustrade.

He returned as nimbly as he had gone, cast a sorrowful glance through the open laboratory window at the arena where all that had graced his life lay dead, and passed his hand over his tearful face.  At last he returned to his task, but he was less able to do it than before.  It was with a trembling hand that he weighed out the juniper berries and cedar resin, and he listened all the time with bated breath.

Presently there was a stir on the stairs, and the kitchen slaves shouted that Caesar was coming.  So he went out of the laboratory, which was behind the stairs, to see what was going forward, and a turnspit at once made way for the old man so as not to hinder his view.

Was that little young man, mounting the steps so gayly, with the high-priest at his side and his suite at his heels, the dreadful monster who had murdered his noble sons?  He had pictured the dreadful tyrant quite differently.  Now Caesar was laughing, and the tall man next him made some light and ready reply—­the head cook said it was the Roman priest of Alexander, who was not on good terms with Timotheus.  Could they be laughing at the high-priest?  Never, in all the years he had known him, had he seen Timotheus so pale and dejected.