"Sound cloak, this--soft and warm! Better than the purple, which is a chilly affair! Why, they've lined this tunic with double wool!" And pushing his investigations further, Scuda slid a hand under the paludamentum, then under the tunic, and suddenly, with a laugh, drew forth the blade of a poniard, which Gallus had succeeded in concealing. "Now that's a mistake!" said Scuda. "Why, you might through carelessness stab yourself! What a boy you are!" And he threw the dagger out on the road. An infinite weariness seized Gallus. He closed his eyes and felt the endearing grip of Scuda inside his arm. Was it all a nightmare? They halted at the fortress of Pola in Istria, on the shores of the Adriatic. Some years formerly this town had been the scene of the murder of Priscus, the heroic young son of Constantine the Great. The gloomy town was thronged with soldiers. Interminable barracks in the style of Diocletian had replaced the houses of civilians. Snow lay thickly on the roofs, the wind was moaning in deserted streets, and the sea lay rumbling below. Gallus was led into one of these barracks and given a seat fronting the window, so that the full daylight fell upon his face. One of the Emperor's most skilful police officers--Eustaphius,--a little wrinkled and amiable old man with the wheedling and penetrating voice of a confessor, rubbed his blue and chilly hands and began the cross-examination. Gallus, who was mortally fatigued, said everything that Eustaphius suggested he should say, but at the words "treason to the empire," paled, and started to his feet. "It was no doing of mine--nothing to do with me!" he stammered in dismay. "Constantia planned it all! It was she who exacted the death of Theophilus, of Clement, Domitian, and the rest! Before God, it was not I. She said nothing to me about it. I was utterly ignorant!" Eustaphius looked at him smilingly. "Very well," he said, "I will duly inform the Emperor that his own sister Constantia, spouse of the late Cæsar of the East, alone is culpable." And turning towards the legionaries he ordered-- "The interrogatory is finished. Take him away." Shortly afterwards arrived the sentence of death decreed by the Emperor Constantius, who had looked on the accusation brought against his lamented sister in the light of a personal insult. On hearing the sentence read out, Gallus lost consciousness and fell into the arms of the soldiers. Up to the last moment the poor fellow had hoped against hope. And, even now, he expected that they would at least grant him the reprieve of a few days, or hours, in which to prepare for death. But a rumour had gone round that the soldiers of the "Steadfast Sixteenth Flavian" legion were insubordinate, and planning to free Gallus; so he was dragged off incontinently to execution.