Such a deafening din of laughs, oaths, and screams now ensued that nobody was audible. One shouted, "He's an assassin!" another, "A thief!" a third, "Let's burn him!"
Suddenly above the hubbub rang out the masterful voice of a tawny half-naked giant, the attendant in a public bath, an individual with a demagogue's gift for oratory:
"Citizens, listen to me, and mark what I say! I've long been watching this rascal and his companions! They are writing down our names! They are Cæsar's spies!"
Scabra, at last putting her threat into execution, seized Agamemnon's beard in one hand and his tresses in the other. He strove to repulse her, but she pulled with might and main, and to the general surprise black hair and beard both remained in the hands of the old woman, who stumbled and fell. Instead of Agamemnon, an athletic young man with fair curling hair and short beard stood before the people.
In its astonishment, the crowd was momentarily silenced; but the voice of the bath-slave was soon heard clamouring anew:
"See, citizens, they are disguised informers!"
The crowd became tumultuous. Stones were thrown; the sham beggars of Agamemnon's company encircled him with drawn swords. At the first stroke the luckless leather-dresser was killed, and fell in a pool of blood. The red-headed boy was trampled under foot, and all faces were becoming ferocious, when at this juncture ten enormous Paphlagonian slaves bearing on their shoulders a purple litter impatiently thrust their way through the crowd.
"Saved!" cried the fair-haired young man, and vaulted into the litter with one of his fellows.
The Paphlagonians hoisted the pair on their shoulders and set off at sharp run. The infuriated crowd were making as if to dash in pursuit, with intent to stone them, when somebody called out--
"Citizens, don't you see that it is Cæsar himself--Gallus Cæsar!"
The mob halted, paralysed by fear, and the purple litter, swaying on the shoulders of the slaves like a skiff in a heavy sea, vanished into the darkness up the street.
Six years had elapsed since the incarceration of Julian and of Gallus in the Cappadocian fortress of Macellum. Constantius had restored them to favour. Julian, then twenty years old, was sent to Constantinople, and given leave to travel in Asia Minor. Gallus, the Emperor had named to be his co-regent, with the title of Cæsar. Nevertheless this unlooked-for favour was no valid earnest of good-will. Constantius loved to destroy his enemies after having lulled away mistrust by a display of exuberant affection.