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THE DEATH OF OCTAVIA 403
story of the two disciples at Emmans, of whom it was privately
thought among the Christians that Luke himself had been
one. As Octavia listened to those inspired records, if the
dreadful act of dying had not lost its horror, yet the grave
had lost its victory, and death his sting.
Entranced by the rapture of these wondrous narratives,
they had been reading later than usual. It was the ninth of
June. The dusk of evening had fallen the ; lamps had been
had been too much absorbed to notice the Libur-
lit.
They
nian galley whose red sail on the horizon had attracted all
the inhabitants of their rocky prison to the shore. They had
not seen the Praetorians from Rome, who landed at the little
jetty.
Ah !
but they could not be deaf to the unwonted murmur
which began to swell about the villa, nor to the clank of
legionaries, nor to the gruff unfamiliar voices of command.
They knew too well the meaning of those sounds. With
faces whitened by terror they heard the summons at the gate,
and the tramp of armed '
feet, and the cry, A message from
the
'
!
Emperor Hardly knowing what they did, Onesimus
and Hermas barred the entrance to the chamber where they
were sitting, while Tryphsena and the two other maidens
grouped themselves round their mistress. There came a
thundering challenge, followed by fierce blows rained upon
the door. A moment afterwards it
gave way with a crash.
Hennas and Onesimus, as if
by an instinctive motion, thrust
themselves in the path of the advancing soldiers. A legionary
struck down Hermas with the flat of his sword Onesimus
was dashed aside by a blow of the centurion's iron glaive.
;
They tore away the slave-girls who clung to their fainting
mistress. Her they fettered, and opened her veins in many
places. But she had sunk into a swoon, and the blood would
not flow. Then they dragged her to the bath, heated it to
boiling heat, and suffocated her in the burning vapour.
Nor was this enough for Nero's vengeance. The corpse of
the daughter of Claudius, the chaste wife of the Emperor, was
not suffered to rest in peace. Poppaea would not be satisfied
with anything short of the visible proof that her rival had