The same speedy termination to the debauch seemed to be
in reserve for the rest of their companions, with the exception of
Vetranio and the two patricians who reclined at his right hand and his
left. These three still preserved the appearance of self-possession,
but an ominous change had already overspread their countenances. The
expression of wild joviality, of fierce recklessness, had departed from
their wild features; they silently watched each other with vigilant and
suspicious eyes; each in turn, as he filled his wine-cup, significantly
handled the torch with which the last drinker was to fire the funeral
pile. As the numbers of their rivals decreased, and the flame of lamp
after lamp was extinguished, the fatal contest for a suicide supremacy
assumed a present and powerful interest, in which all other purposes and
objects were forgotten. The corpse at the foot of the banqueting-table,
and the wretch cowering in his misery at the window, were now alike
unheeded. In the bewildered and brutalised minds of the guests, one
sensation alone remained--the intensity of expectation which precedes
the result of a deadly strife.
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