and passionately and repeatedly embraced her, then flung her from him, then caressed her again. She endured this without returning his caresses or resenting his violence. "You do not love me!" he exclaimed,—" you hate me, and yet I am risking my life to make you the greatest lady in Rome; but, mark me, Lucia Claudia, I will neither live nor die without you. The partner of my throne or of my grave, no power shall divide your fate from mine. If I fall, you shall never wed another man; for if I thought so, I would—” he laid his hand on his sword with a terrible look that gave full meaning to the unfinished sentence. Lucia's countenance expressed apprehension, she trembled, she endeavoured to speak. He drew her to him, pressed a kiss on her brow, and disappeared; she heard him speaking to his freedman, and then his footsteps echoed on the marble pavement of the court beneath. He went alone to the camp, and perished there. CHAPTER XVI. "When died she?"-BYRON. "From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome 1 beheld thee, O Zion! when rendered to Rome : BYRON THE report of Nymphidius' death reached Julius Claudius the following day. He became alarmed and apprehensive for his sister's safety, yet did not possess sufficient courage or brotherly love to go to her himself. Το avoid the danger incidental to facing a popular tumult, and to afford Lucia Claudia the succour and support she needed, he resolved to send Adonijah to Rome to bring her to his home. Accordingly the Hebrew departed in company with several slaves and gladiators belonging to the household. He found the metropolis of the world in a state of anarchy and confusion that defies description; he saw the dead body of Nymphidius dragged about the streets; it was covered with wounds, and the stern features bore the same expression of sullen pride and undaunted resolution that they had worn in life. The ferocity of the unclosed eye told that he had died sword in hand, contending with unequal numbers. "How mutable is fortune!" thought the Hebrew. "But yesterday, and this man was a consul and præfect of the Prætorian camp, and in the full lust of unbridled power was acting tragedies that made men regret the rule of Nero; now his cold remains are wantonly defaced by those very people who feared him yesterday, and paid him almost divine honours. O fickle, unbelieving crowd, when shall ye be swept away before the avenging breath of the Messiah?" The house of Nymphidius was surrounded by soldiers, who refused admittance to Adonijah; the promisc of a donative in the name of Julius Claudius, and a few coins thrown among them as an earnest, induced them to give the party admission. What a scene of desolation presented itself to his view! The valuable movables defaced and removedtorn raiment-pavements that were stained with the marks of recent debauchery and recent slaughter. In Lucia's apartment a scattered lock of sun-bright hair, and some vellum scrolls deeply stained with blood, told a tale of terrible import; a dagger still red with slaughter lay near. The victim was gone, but these evidences revealed her fate. He caught up the dagger, determined to sheathe it to the hilt in the bosom of the murderer of Lucia. Without a tear he gathered up the relic of the woman he had loved, enveloped it in the parchments, and put it in his bosom. Rushing forth he demanded in a fierce voice, "What had become of the wife of Nymphidius?" She had not been seen, she was doubtless dead; but all denied having been actors in that horrid deed. He showed the dagger, and it was recognised as having been worn by Marcus, the freedman of Nymphidius, who was dying of his wounds in an adjoining apartment. Thither Adonijah repaired to learn the fatal truth. The film of death had gathered over the eyes of the expiring man; the centurion thought he would never speak again. Regardless of the pain he was inflicting, Adonijah thundered out the name of "Lucia Claudia;" he would have demanded the particulars of her murder, but memory at this agitating instant failed him, and he relapsed into his native tongue, unable to form a sentence in the Latin language, familiar as it was now become. The centurion guessed what he would ask, and the dying man replied to his questions in the slow laboured accents of death: "When my master was quitting his house for the last time, he called me to him and said, 'Marcus, if no message comes from me in the course of an hour, slay my wife without delay.' I stared and thought he had lost his senses, but he sternly repeated his words, adding, 'If you neither hear from nor see me in that time, do as I bid you, or your life shall answer for your disobedience; remember, it is Nymphidius Sabinus who now governs Rome.' This I knew to be true; but I was sorry for the lady. I knew not his reasons then, but I know them now; he was determined that she of whom he was so infinitely fond should not survive him if he fell.” The dying man gasped as if in mortal pain. "Proceed, if you can, and briefly too," remarked the centurion. "The time elapsed, the hour was long past, |