Meanwhile she gave the strictest orders that the Palace gates should be guarded, and that none should be allowed to enter or to leave unless they could produce written permission. All this was easy for her. The Palace was full of her creatures. Britannicus and Octavia had been gradually deprived of nearly all who were known to be faithful to their interests. They were kept in profound ignorance that death had robbed them of the one natural protector, who loved them with a tenderness which had often been obscured by the bedazed character of his intellect, but which had never been for one moment quenched. All that they learnt from the spies and traitors who were placed about their persons was that the Emperor had been taken suddenly ill, but was already recovering, and was now in a peaceful slumber. Having taken all these precautions, and secured that no one except Pallas or herself should be admitted during the night into the room where Xenophon kept watch beside the corpse, Agrippina retired to her chamber. One thing alone troubled her. Before she retired she had looked for a moment on the nightly sky, and saw on the far horizon a gleam unknown to her. She called her Greek astrologer and asked him what it was. He paused, and for a moment looked alarmed. ‘It is a comet,’ he said. ‘Is that an omen of disaster?’ The learned slave was too politic to give it that interpretation. ‘It may,’ he said, ‘portend the brilliant inauguration of a new reign.’ She was reassured by the answer, and laid herself down to rest. Though greatly excited by the events of the day, and the immense cares which fell upon her, she slept as sweetly as a child. No pale faces looked in upon her slumber; no shriek rang through her dreams; no fancy troubled her of gibbering spectre or Fury from the abyss. She had given orders that she should be awakened in a few hours, and by the time that the first grey light shuddered in the east she had dressed herself in rich array, and, with a sense of positive exultation, stepped out of her room, calm and perfumed, to achieve that which had been for years the main ambition of her life. CHAPTER V _THE MOCKERY OF DEATH_ ‘Esse aliquos Manes et subterranea regna * * * * * Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum ære lavantur, Sed tu vera puta.’--JUV. _Sat._ ii. 149-153. Agrippina had long contrived to secure the absolute devotion of her slaves, clients, and freedmen. In that vast household of at least sixteen hundred persons, all courteously treated and liberally paid, there were many who were ready to go any lengths in support of their patroness. Among them was the freedman Mnester, who knew but little of her crimes, but was enthusiastic in her interests. She made constant use of him on that eventful day.