"Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus Dardaniae! Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens Gloria Teucrorum! Ferus omnia Jupiter Argos Transtulit!" And then more lightly, "If you doubt me, how am I here?" he asked. And he extended his huge arms in the pride of his strength. "Exercise your warrant now--if you can, Messer Syndic. Syndic," he continued in a tone of mockery, "where is your warrant now? I have but this moment," he pointed to wet stains on his corselet, "slain one of your guards. Do justice, Syndic! I have seized one of your gates by force. Avenge it, Syndic! Syndic? ha! ha! Here is an end of Syndics." The Syndic gasped. He was a hard man, not to say an arrogant one, little used to opposition; one who, times and again, had ridden rough-shod over the views of his fellows. To be jeered at, after this fashion, to be scorned and mocked by this man who in the beginning had talked so silkily, moved so humbly, evinced so much respect, played the poor scholar so well, was a bitter pill. He asked himself if it was for this he had betrayed his city; if it was for this he had sold his friends. And then--then he remembered that it was not for this--not for this, but for life, dear life, warm life, that he had done this thing. And, swallowing the rage that was rising within him, he calmed himself. "It is better to cease to be Syndic than cease to live," he said coldly. But the other had no mind to return to their former relations. "True, O sage!" he answered contemptuously. "But why not both? Because--shall I tell you?" "I hear----" "Yes, and I hear too! The city is rising!" Basterga listened a moment. "Presently they will ring the alarm-bell, and----" "If you stay here some one may find you!" "And find me with you?" Basterga rejoined. He knew that he ought to go, for his own sake as well as the Syndic's. He knew that nothing was to be made and much might be lost by the disclosure that was on his tongue. But he was intoxicated with the success which he had gained; with the clang of arms, and the glitter of his armed presence. The true spirit of the man, as happens in intoxication of another kind, rose to the surface, cruel, waggish, insolent--of an insolence long restrained, the insolence of the scholar, who always in secret, now in the light, panted to repay the slights he had suffered, the patronage of leaders, the scoffs of power. "Ay," he continued, "they may find me with you! But if you do not mind, I need not. And I was just asking you--why not both? Life and power, my friend?" "You know," Blondel answered, breathing quickly. How he hated the man! How gladly would he have laid him dead at his feet! For if the fool stayed here prating, if he were found here by those who within a few moments would come with the alarm, he was himself a lost man. All would be known.