But the Count’s chief perplexities were within rather than without. For more than twenty years he had yielded an unquestioning obedience to the authorities at home. It is true that very little had been demanded of him. He had been given a free hand, and left to do his duty with very little interference, if with very little help. But now in the news of Stilicho’s death his loyalty had received a tremendous shock. How was he to bear himself to a ruler who was capable of committing so great a crime? True, he knew enough of the Emperor to be sure that he was only a tool in the hands of others, but this did not make the matter one whit better. Such tools are often more mischievous than men who are actively wicked. What then was he to do? Should he join the usurper Constantine, of whose astonishing success in Gaul and Spain he had heard the most glowing reports? His pride forbad it—an Ælius doing homage to a man who but twelve months before had been a private soldier! The thought was impossible. Should he retire into private life? But would not that be to shirk his duty, not to mention the fact that to retire is the one thing which in troubled times a man in a conspicuous position cannot do. One thing, indeed, was evident—that a decision would have to be made speedily. His position was rapidly becoming untenable, and he would have to make up his mind, without much delay, as to the best way of getting out of it. In the end it happened to him as it happens to so many of us, that his mind was made up for him. One day, towards the end of August, he was about to seek in a day’s sport a little relief from his many cares. It was still about four hours to noon, and he was sitting under a cherry tree (one of his own planting) in the villa garden, and sharing a slight meal of milk and wheaten cakes with his daughter and Carna, both of whom he had persuaded to accompany him. A young Briton stood by holding in a leash a couple of dogs very much like the greyhounds of our own times; another carried a bow and a quiver; a third had a game bag of leather, with a netted front, slung across his shoulders. The sailing-master of one of the galleys approached and saluted. “There is a galley,” he said, “coming up the Haven, and I thought that you should know at once, since it seems to have something of importance on board.” “What makes you think so?” said the Count. “I have been watching it for the last hour,” said the man. “At first I thought it was a little trading vessel; but I noticed that as soon as it entered the Haven it hoisted the Labarum.”(53) “The Labarum!” exclaimed the Count; “I have not seen that flying from any mast but my own for a year past. Well, that ought to mean something.”