CHAPTER XXVIII.

The amphitheatre was soon emptied, amid the flare of lightning and the crash and roll of thunder.  Caracalla, thinking only of the happy omen of Tarautas’s wonderful escape, called out to Melissa, with affectionate anxiety, to fly to shelter as quickly as possible; a chariot was in waiting to convey her to the Serapeum.  On this she humbly represented that she would rather be permitted to return under her brother’s escort to her father’s house, and Caracalla cheerfully acceded.  He had business on hand this night, which made it seem desirable to him that she should not be too near him.  He should expect her brother presently at the Serapeum.

With his own hand he wrapped her in the caracalla and hood which old Adventus was about to put on his master’s shoulders, remarking, as he did so, that he had weathered worse storms in the field.

Melissa thanked him with a blush, and, going close up to her, he whispered:  “To-morrow, if Fate grants us gracious answers to the questions I shall put to her presently after this storm—­tomorrow the horn of happiness will be filled to overflowing for you and me.  The thrifty goddess promises to be lavish to me through you.”

Slaves were standing round with lighted lanterns; for the torches in the theatre were all extinguished, and the darkened auditorium lay like an extinct crater, in which a crowd of indistinguishable figures were moving to and fro.  It reminded him of Hades and a troop of descending spirits; but he would not allow anything but what was pleasant to occupy his mind or eye.  By a sudden impulse he took a lantern from one of the attendants, held it up above Melissa’s head, and gazed long and earnestly into her brightly illuminated face.  Then he dropped his hand with a sigh and said, as though speaking in a dream:  “Yes, this is life!  Now I begin to live.”

He lifted the dripping laurel crown from his head, tossed it into the arena, and added to Melissa:  “Now, get under shelter at once, sweetheart.  I have been able to see you this whole evening, even when the lamps were out; for lightning gives light.  Thus even the storm has brought me joy.  Sleep well.  I shall expect you early, as soon as I have bathed.”

Melissa wished him sound slumbers, and he replied, lightly: 

“If only all life were a dream, and if to-morrow I might but wake up, no longer the son of Severus, but Alexander; and you, not Melissa, but Roxana, whom you so strongly resemble!  To be sure I might find myself the gladiator Tarautas.  But, then, who would you be?  And your stalwart father, who stands there defying the rain, certainly does not look like a vision, and this storm is not favorable to philosophizing.”

He kissed his hand to her, had a dry caracalla thrown over his shoulders, ordered Theocritus to take care of Tarautas and carry him a purse of gold —­which he handed to the favorite—­and then, pulling the hood over his head, led the way, followed by his impatient courtiers; but not till he had answered Heron, who had come forward to ask him what he thought of the mechanical arts of the Alexandrians, desiring him to postpone that matter till the morrow.