She was, however, disappointed in the effect that was produced. Whether the mixture that Locusta had prepared was not sufficiently powerful, or whether Halotus in his extreme anxiety not to get any of the poisonous ingredients himself failed to administer them effectually to his intended victim, the emperor seemed to continue afterward much as he had been before,--still sick, but without any new or more dangerous symptoms. Of course, Agrippina was in a state of great solicitude and apprehension. Having incurred the terrible guilt and danger necessarily involved in an attempt to poison her husband, she could not draw back. The work that was begun must be carried through now, she thought, at all hazards, to its termination; and she immediately set herself at work to devise some means of reaching her victim with poison, which would avoid the taster altogether, and thus not be liable to any interference on his part, dictated either by his fidelity to his master or his fears for himself. She went, accordingly, to the emperor's physician and found means to enlist him in her cause; and a plan was formed between them which proved effectual in accomplishing her designs. The manner in which they contrived it was this. The physician, at a time when the emperor was lying sick and in distress upon his couch, came to him and proposed that he should open his mouth and allow the physician to touch his throat with the tip of a feather, to promote vomiting, which he said he thought would relieve him. The emperor yielded to this treatment, and the feather was applied. It had previously been dipped in a very virulent and fatal poison. The poison thus administered took effect, and Claudius, after passing the night in agony, died early in the morning. [Illustration: THE POISONING OF CLAUDIUS.]