He held no
communication, save by signs, with the friends about him; he seemed
neither to hope, to doubt, nor to despair with them; all his faculties
were strung up to vibrate at one point only, and were dull and
unimpressible in every other direction.
But twice had he been heard to speak more than the fewest, simplest
words. The first time, when Antonina uttered the name of Goisvintha, on
the recovery of her senses after her wound, he answered eagerly by
reiterated declarations that there was nothing henceforth to fear; for
he had seen the assassin dead under the Pagan's foot on leaving the
temple. The second time, when mention was incautiously made before him
of rumours circulated through Rome of the burning of an unknown Pagan
priest, hidden in the temple of Serapis, with vast treasures around him,
the old man was seen to start and shudder, and heard to pray for the
soul that was now waiting before the dread judgment-seat; to murmur
about a vain restoration and a discovery made too late; to mourn over
horror that thickened round him, over hope fruitlessly awakened, and
bereavement more terrible than mortal had ever suffered before; to
entreat that the child, the last left of all, might be spared--with many
words more, which ran on themes like these, and which were counted by
all who listened to them but as the wanderings of a mind whose higher
powers were fatally prostrated by feebleness and grief.
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