Agerinus set out, little foreseeing that he too was potentially a murdered man. Agrippina--ill, disenchanted, utterly weary of the world--once more lay on her couch, with throbbing brows and lacerated soul, a prey to unspeakable anguish. A single slave-maiden was her attendant; a single golden lamp shed its dim light from its marble stand over her room. In her utmost need there was not one to whom she could speak, or in whom she could confide. Oh, how she longed for one hour of Pomponia’s company, for one whisper of the consolation which had once fallen for a moment like the dew upon her soul! But Baiæ was the last place where Pomponia would be likely to be found. The slave-girl, withdrawn into the shadow, and engaged in spinning wool, looked up furtively again and again at the face of the Empress, who was too much absorbed in her own thoughts to notice her. The girl saw passion after passion chase each other like dark clouds across Agrippina’s face. At one moment the clenched hand, the quivering nostril, the flashing glance, showed that the thought of possible vengeance was passing through her soul. Then for a moment a softer expression would smooth her features, as she dreamed of the possibility of her son’s remorse. Then terror would express itself on her features as she recognised the frightfulness of her position. Last of all, an infinite languor seemed to droop through her whole being, as she resigned herself to sullen despair. In those dark uncertain hours she realised all the error and infatuation of her life. Impunity, after so many crimes? Impunity, when the menacing spectres of perjury and adultery and murder kept starting upon her out of the darkness? Crispus Passienus poisoned; Lucius Silanus hounded to death by lying informers; his murdered brother Junius; her husband Claudius--were they all to be unavenged? Had the gods no thunderbolts? Had the guilty ever escaped them? Had Tiberius died in peace after his atrocities and crimes? Had Gaius died in peace amid the tears of his beloved? Had Messalina escaped the consequences of her debaucheries and murders? Did not the violated laws of heaven put into the hand of their transgressors their whips of flame? And as she began to realise that Retribution dogs guilt like its own inevitable shadow, the line of the old Greek poet rang ominously in her memory:-- ‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. Though in patience long He waiteth, with exactness grinds He all.’ And, all the while, the nightingales in the gardens of her villa were pealing forth their ecstasy, and the stars shone, and the soft wind breathed of perfume. CHAPTER XXXVI _SELF-AVENGED_ ‘Sua quemque fraus, suum facinus, suum scelus, sua audacia, de sanitate ac mente deturbat. Hæ sunt impiorum furiæ, hæ flammæ, hæ faces.’--CIC. _In Pisonem_, xx. 46.