At this moment their conversation was rudely interrupted. CHAPTER XXVII _DEATH IN THE GOBLET_ ‘Fratrum, conjugum, parentum neces, alia solita parentibus ausi.’--TAC. _Hist._ v. 3. A cry rang through the banquet-room! It was the cry of Titus. Every guest started as if a thunderbolt had fallen. In that guilty time, when obscene wings flapped about so many gilded roofs, when the sword dangled by a hair over so many noble heads, when foes cut throats by a whisper, when any day might expose a man to denunciation for imaginary crimes by one of the slaves whom he regarded as his natural enemies, any sudden movement, any unexpected event, was enough to drive the blood from the blanching cheek. But when such a cry--so wild, so startling--rang over the tumultuous sounds of an imperial banquet, they knew not whether the very earth was not about to open beneath their feet. What had happened? Britannicus, as we have said, was in no alarm that evening. Of all times and places it seemed the least likely to attempt his poisoning. The fact that at this feast he had his appointed _prægustator_, and that two deaths would terribly reveal a crime, was, he thought, a sufficient safeguard. But these were the very reasons why Tigellinus had arranged that Nero’s desire for his brother’s murder should be carried out that night. He fancied that no one would suspect Nero of choosing a scene of such festive splendour and unusual publicity for a crime so dark. The ingenuity of wickedness easily got over the difficulty about the _prægustator_. This man was one of the smooth, civil, plausible wretches who abounded at that epoch. He was a Greek slave named Syneros, trained in the worst vices and ready to sell his soul at any time for a few sestertia. He handed to Britannicus a myrrhine goblet filled with some mulled Falernian, which he tasted first. It had been purposely made so hot that no one could drink it. The prince gave it back, and told Syneros to put some cold water to it. The slave did so, and into that cold water--which he had hidden in a vial of Alexandrian glass behind one of the coolers full of snow--had been already dropped the deadly potion which Locusta had given to Nero. Britannicus drank it unsuspectingly, and Titus had taken it up and drunk a little, when his eye caught sight of Britannicus, and with the cry which had alarmed those three hundred guests he had dropped the myrrhine vase, crashing it to shivers on the mosaic floor.