The subtle sorcerer watched with wary eye Askance, to see his mistress give at this Some sign of pleased and startled vanity: Impassible placidity he saw-- Serene, withdrawn, uninterrupted muse. A little disconcerted, he bode mute, Half glad in hope that he had not been heard. When at length she, that queenly creature, broke, Herself, with speech the growing spell of awe He felt upon him cast by her supreme Beauty suspense in its august repose, Its silence and reserve and mystery, Then Simon knew that she had been before Him with the soaring thought of Nero led-- The emperor of the world in triumph led-- A captive at Drusilla's chariot wheels! A flash of light invaded Simon's mind: 'Were there not hidden here the way long sought To free himself from the abhorréd yoke Of Felix? This bold woman would not stick At putting such an obstacle as was A husband such as he, out of her path-- This by whatever means--a path that led Steep to enthronement by the emperor's side.' Thenceforward Felix's worst foe was one Of his own household at his table fed. "The emperor is a bloody man, if true Be all, be half, that they report of him--" Drusilla thus, as in soliloquy Rather than in discourse to ear addressed, Spoke slowly--"he, the latest story goes Sped like a shudder of horror around the world, Has got his mother slain, bunglingly drowned By accident forsooth, at his command-- Accident such as asks design to chance, A vessel foundering in a placid sea, On a serene and starry summer night-- And after all not drowned, even awkwardly, But rescued to be stabbed, with mother's cry First from her lips, 'I never will believe This of my son!' but then with, 'Strike me _here_!' Confessing that she knew it was her son! And his young queen Octavia, silly sweet, And good, and pure, and fair, and amiable, And in short all a Roman emperor's spouse Should not be--she, they say, leads a slave's life, Or worse, amid her husband's palace scorned, And happy if at last only with death And not with shame he rid her from his side."