Between the blows, which fell slowly and together at
regular intervals, the infuriated wretches, whose last exertions of
strength were strained to the utmost to deal them, could be heard
shouting breathlessly to each other: 'Strike harder, strike harder! the
back gates are guarded against us by our comrades admitted to the
pillage of the palace instead of us. You who would share the booty,
strike firm! the stones are at your feet, the gates of entrance yield
before you.'
Meanwhile a confused sound of trampling footsteps and contending voices
became audible from the lower apartments of the palace. Doors were
violently shut and opened--shouts and execrations echoed and re-echoed
along the lofty stone passages leading from the slaves' waiting-rooms to
the grand staircase; treachery betrayed itself as openly within the
building as violence still proclaimed itself in the assault on the gates
outside. The chief slaves had not been suspected by their fellows
without a cause; the bands of pillage and murder had been organised in
the house of debauchery and death; the chosen adherents from the street
had been secretly admitted through the garden gates, and had barred and
guarded them against further intrusion--another doom than the doom they
had impiously prepared for themselves was approaching the devoted
senators, at the hands of the slaves whom they had oppressed, and the
plebeians whom they had despised.
Pages:
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652