Part 17 (1/2)
”If I should do it?”
”That would be the end of you, my sextus”
”Let us say farewell, then, Galen! This right hand shall do it It will save my friends It will provide a culprit on whouilty of his predecessor's blood-”
”And you?” asked Galen
”I will take ladly die when I have ridded Ro a reply, but Galen appeared almost rudely unconcerned
”You will not say farewell?”
”It is too soon,” Galen answered, folding up his powder in a sheet of parche neatly
”Will you not wish , my sextus, that I have no powders for I have occasionally cured men I can set h I am And I can divert a man's attention sometimes, so that he lets nature heal hi you have already wished for and have alreadyof what you do now; this, in turn, of what you will do next I gave you my advice I bade you run away-in which case I would bid you farewell, but not otherwise”
”I will not run”
”I heard you”
”And you said you are sentimental, Galen!”
”I have proved it to you If I were not, I myself would run!”
Galen led the way out of the room into the hall where the mosaic floor and plastered walls presented colored te incense at the shrine of Aesculapius, the sick andpraise
”There will be no hero left in Rome when they have slain our Roman Hercules,” said Galen ”He has been a triton in a pond of ret him afterward, since heroes, and particularly mad ones, are not madly loved But ill not enjoy the rivalry of minnows”
He led sextus to the porch and stood there for ato his arm
”There will be no rivals ill dare to raise their heads,” said sextus, ”once our Pertinax has made his bid for power”
”But he will not,” Galen answered ”He will hesitate and let others do the bidding Too ht better have fetters on feet and hands! Now go But go not to the palace if you hope to see a heroism-or toht it rained The wind blew yelling squalls along the streets At intervals the din of hail on cobble-stones and roofs beca oil lanterns died out one by one and left the streets in darkness in which now and then a slave-borne litter labored like a boat caught spreading too much sail The overloaded sewers backed up andthe Tiber banks there was panic where the river-boats were plunging and breaking adrift on the rising flood and miserable, drenched slaves labored with the bales of round
But the noisiest, dismalest place was the palace, the heart of all Rome, where the rain and hail dinned down on marble There was havoc in the clu of pots blon fro of countless cataracts where overloaded gutters spilled their surplus on ht showed, saving at the guard-house by the ainst the wall-ill-te, alert However ht be, its individuals were loyal to the routine work of military duty
A decurion stepped out beneath a splashi+ng arch, the la on his wetted bronze and crinize you Who is this?” Narcissus and sextus were shrouded in loose, hooded cloaks of raool, under which they hugged a change of footgear sextus had his face well covered Narcissus pushed hiuard-room arch, out of the rain
”This is a man from Antioch, whom Caesar told me to present to him,” he said ”I know him well His names is Marius”
”I have no orders to admit a man of that naet both of us into trouble?” he asked ”You know Caesar's way He said bring hiot, I suppose, to tell his secretary to write the order for ad to him about this expert with a javelin, and if I have to tell him-”