But Rignomer had flushed crimson with rage and shame. Shaking his clenched fist at Herculanus, he said, laughing grimly: "Just wait--you fellow with your patched mantle. The child came down from the tree before my eyes. I was standing, hidden by the tent, six paces opposite to it. Two men came from the right and left, glided under the pine, whispered together, and then separated." Davus grew even paler than before; he tottered and would have fallen but for the hands which grasped him. But Herculanus asked defiantly: "Did you recognize the two men in the dark? Or, at six paces distance, understand their whispers?" "Neither. But the child slid down the tree directly after in the most frantic terror, called 'Murder! They will poison Ausonius!' and ran with me here. The last part of the way I carried her." "So the two Barbarians conspired against me!" cried Herculanus. Saturninus went up to the slave, who hung with shaking knees between the two Thracians. "You know what terrible tortures threaten the slave who tries to murder his own master?" Davus sank to the ground; the two men could scarcely drag him up again. "Well then! What matters your miserable body! I will secure your safety of life and limb--in the Emperor's name--you shall merely go to the lead mines, if you confess at once." "Thank you, my lord, a thousand thanks," groaned the slave. "Yes, yes. It is all as they say. For a year he has been tempting and urging! The demon of gold blinded me. It is all true!" "Ha," shouted Herculanus, struggling against his guards, "so the slave, too, is in the conspiracy against me?" "Give the wine in the Emperor's goblet to a dog, and see how long it will live," said Davus. "It is hemlock! In my tunic--feel there--I have a small vial which contains the rest." "I don't doubt it: poison in the goblet--the same poison in the vial. Of course," cried Herculanus with an angry laugh, "the slave put it into both. But Ausonius will not die until he has altered his will and disinherited his nephew; for the Barbarian girl appeared just at the right moment as a deliverer." Meanwhile the Tribune had taken from the slave's breast a little amber vial and placed it on the table beside the goblet. Ausonius glanced at it mournfully; he seemed to recognize it. "And what he put in there," Herculanus went on, "is to convict me?" "No," cried Davus, now angered, "you shall convict yourself. Tribune, feel in his tunic too; he has the same poison, in a similar vial, hidden there. Could I force him to do it? Or could I conjure it there by magic?" Herculanus turned pale. Defiance, the hope of life, deserted him and, gnashing his teeth, he struggled fiercely in the Illyrians' grasp. But the latter held him firmly while their countryman, Saturninus, took from his tunic a similar amber vial and placed it beside the first one. "Then go to Orcus together! I wish you all had poison in you!" shrieked Herculanus.