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but the sister, the wife, and the mother of an Emperor. She
was already Augusta and Empress in title, and she meant
with almost unimpeded sway to rule the world. And while
she thus let loose every winged wish over the flowery fields
of hope, and suffered her fancy to embark on a sea of glory,
the thought of her husband lying murdered there in an adjoining
room did not cast the faintest shadow over her
thoughts. She was about to deify him, and to acquire a sort
of sacredness herself by becoming his priestess was not
that enough She ? sat revolving her immense plans of
domination, when Nero joined her, flushed from the banquet,
and weary with the excitement of the day. While
he was bidding her good night, and they were exchanging
eager congratulations on the magnificent success of his commencing
rule, the tribune of the Palace guard came to ask
the watchword for the night.
Without a moment's hesitation Nero gave as the watchword,
THE BEST OF MOTHERS.
But late into the darkness, in the room of death, unnoticed,
unasked for, Britannicus and Octavia mingled their sad tears
and their low whispers of anguish, beside the rapidly blackening
corpse of the father who had been the lord of the world.
Yesterday though his impudent freedmen had for years
been selling, plundering, and murdering in his name two
hundred millions of mankind had lifted up their eyes to him
as the arbiter of life and death, of happiness and misery. By
to-morrow nothing would be left but a handful of ashes in a
narrow urn. Of all who had professed to Iqve and to adore
him, not one was there to weep for him except these two for
;
their half-sister, Antonia, had been content merely to see the
corpse, and had then retired. No one witnessed their agony
of bereavement, their helplessness of sorrow, except the darkdressed
slave who tended the golden censer which filled the
death chamber with the fumes of Arabian incense. And for
them there w r as no consolation. The objects of their nominal
worship were shadowy and unreal. The of the heathen
gods
were but idols, of whom the popular legends were base and
foolish. Such gods as those had no heart to sympathise, no
invisible and tender hand to wipe away their orphan tears.