“The sooner this business be done, the better,” said he. “There I agree with you. What more appropriate time than to-morrow night when Berenice gives a grand banquet in the Prætorium, that edifice being graciously lent for the occasion by the new procurator, Antonius Julianus, who, by the way, talks of writing a history[39] of the war, thereby entering into rivalry with Josephus. You and I are invited to this entertainment; in truth, if you are absent, Berenice will suffer sore disappointment, seeing that she hath prepared a little mortification for you. She hath decreed that her slave Vashti shall wait as cup-bearer upon the chief guests.” “May the intended humiliation fall upon Berenice’s own head!” “So say I. What hath our pretty Vashti done that she should be thus shamed? I confess I am beginning to dislike the princess, whom I once so much admired. You must certainly put your plan into operation to-morrow night. In the face of all the company claim Berenice as your wife, and assert your authority over her, to the confusion of Titus. She is desirous, so ’tis said, of providing her guests with a rare entertainment; it’s very likely she’ll succeed.” Crispus, determined to adopt this scheme--he blinked its difficulties--impatiently awaited the moment for putting it into execution. When the time fixed for the banquet drew near, Crispus, assuming his whitest and handsomest toga, with its broad purple border, went, accompanied by Rufus, to that palace, still called, though its founder had been seventy years dead, Herod’s Prætorium. Upon entering he found that the scene of the feast was the same as that in which Florus had held _his_ banquet. It was malice that made Berenice choose this hall; the very place that had seen Vashti hailed as the queen of beauty was now to see her degraded to the condition of a slave, compelled to wait upon the princess whose charms had been slighted by Crispus, while Crispus himself was invited to look on and behold her humiliation. He smiled within himself. The sequel would show whose was to be the humiliation. The banquet-hall presented a brilliant scene, thronged as it was with all the brave captains who had taken part in the war, and with fair ladies whose richly dyed robes afforded a perpetual feast of color. Crispus and his companion arrived just as the guests were preparing to take their places at the various triclinia. Berenice was there, moving with a proud and stately step, and, as though she were already an empress, wearing an Eastern diadem upon her dark hair. By her side walked the laureled Titus, clad in imperial purple, and seemingly in excellent spirits, though he suddenly started as he caught sight of Crispus, and over his face came a guilty look which Rufus interpreted in his own way. “Ashamed of himself at stealing his friend’s wife. Though he be Cæsar, and my commander, I shall rejoice if he meet by and by with deserved discomfiture.”