"You wished to speak with me?" said the Emperor. "Yes, and this day-- so full of remarkable events as it has been--has also a remarkable close since I have not wished in vain." "You so rarely give me the opportunity of gratifying a wish." "And do you complain of that?" "I might--for instead of wishing you are wont to demand." "Let us cease this strife of idle words." "Willingly. With what object did you send for me?" "Verus is to-day keeping his birthday." "And you would like to know what the stars promise him?" "Rather how the signs in the heavens have disposed you towards him." "I had but little time to consider what I saw. But at any rate the stars promise him a brilliant future." A gleam of joy shone in Sabina's eyes, but she forced herself to keep calm and asked, indifferently: "You admit that, and yet you can come to no decision?" "Then you want to hear the decisive word spoken at once, to-day?" "You know that without my answering you." "Well, then, his star outshines mine and compels me to be on my guard against him." "How mean! You are afraid of the praetor?" "No, but of his fortune which is bound up with you?" "When he is our son his greatness will be ours." "By no means, since if I make him what you wish him to be, he will certainly try to make our greatness his. Destiny--" "You said it favored him; but unfortunately I must dispute the statement." "You? Do you try too, to read the stars?" "No, I leave that to men. Have you heard of Ammonius, the astrologer?" "Yes. A very learned man who observes from the tower of the Serapeum, and who, like many of his fellows in this city has made use of his art to accumulate a large fortune." "No less a man than the astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus referred me to him." "The best of recommendation." "Well, then, I commissioned Ammonius to cast the horoscope for Verus during the past night and he brought it to me with an explanatory key. Here it is." The Emperor hastily seized the tablet which Sabina held out to him, and as he attentively examined the forecasts, arranged in order according to the hours, he said: "Quite right. That of course did not escape me! Well done, exactly the same as my own observations--but here--stay--here comes the third hour, at the beginning of which I was interrupted. Eternal gods! what have we here?" The Emperor held the wax tablet prepared by Aminonius at arm's length from his eyes and never parted his lips again till he had come to the end of the last hour of the night. Then he dropped the hand that held the horoscope, saying with a shudder: "A hideous destiny. Horace was right in saying the highest towers fall with the greatest crash." "The tower of which you speak," said Sabina, "is that darling of fortune of whom you are afraid. Vouchsafe then to Verus a brief space of happiness before the horrible end you foresee for him."