'My life! I ask it not of your power! The
wreck of my body is scarce strong enough to preserve it to me a single
day! I have no home, no loves, no friends, no possessions! I live in
Rome a solitary in the midst of the multitude, a pagan in a city of
apostates! What is my life to me? I cherish it but for the service of
the gods, whose instruments of vengeance against the nation that has
denied them I would make you and your hosts! If you slay me, it is a
sign to me from them that I am worthless in their cause. I shall die
content.'
He ceased. The king's manner, as he listened to him, gradually lost the
bluntness and carelessness that had hitherto characterised it, and
assumed an attention and a seriousness more in accordance with his high
station and important responsibilities. He began to regard the stranger
as no common renegade, no ordinary spy, no shallow impostor, who might
be driven from his tent with disdain; but as a man important enough to
be heard, and ambitious enough to be distrusted.
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