Then it was that Onesimus gave a short, sharp sound like the bark of a pet dog. The murderer started violently. Onesimus repeated the sound, which was immediately taken up by a dog which belonged to one of the freedwomen. Hesitating no longer, he leapt out of his shelter with the challenge, ‘Who goes there?’ and at the same moment Titus, who had slept in his clothes, unfastened the door, and sprang in front of it with a sword in his hand. Without staying an instant longer the murderer dashed down his lantern and fled, for slaves and freedmen were heard stirring on every side. Onesimus did not attempt to pursue him, but quietly slipped back to his own cell. He knew that for that night the dark plot was frustrated and Britannicus was safe. To the slaves whom the noise had disturbed Titus only said that he had been troubled by the nightmare, and bade them return to sleep. But not a few of them shrewdly suspected that they had not been told the whole truth. CHAPTER XXIV _BRITANNICUS UNDERGOES A NEW EXPERIENCE_ ‘For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear--believe the aged friend-- Is just a chance of the prize of learning love; How love might be, hath been indeed, and is; And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost Such prize, despite the envy of the world.’ BROWNING, _A Death in the Desert_. It was New Year’s Day in Rome. The day was kept as a universal holiday. Everybody aimed at cheerfulness, and abstained from any word of evil omen. Quarrels were suspended; calumny was hushed. Fires were kindled on every side, and fed with scented woods and leaves of odorous saffron. The gilded fretwork of every temple-roof glimmered with twinkling reflections of the sacred flames. All the people were clad in white, and went in procession to the Capitol. The lictors were provided with new fasces; the magistrates were clad in new purple, and assumed, for the first time, their curule chairs of ivory. The white oxen of Clitumnus were led for sacrifice to the altar of Jupiter, their necks wreathed with garlands. Friends exchanged presents, which, even when they were of trifling value, yet served to show that they had not forgotten to express their love. Among presents from Octavia, and Titus, and Pudens, and Pomponia, and other friends, Britannicus, who had now recovered, was greeted by Epictetus with the customary gift of gilded dates--called _strenæ_, whence the French _étrennes_--and a little honey in its snowy comb. These the poor lame boy had bought, with such copper coins as he had been able to save, at the little market for such trifles near the Porta Mugionis; and he had not forgotten to bring a few sprigs of vervain, good-naturedly given to him as an augury of blessing by one of the priests at the half-forgotten shrine of Vacuna, on the Sacred Way. But Britannicus had received more splendid presents than these. Agrippina had given him a double-branched silver candelabrum, up