"Hoist him on a shield! on a shield!" shouted the soldiery.
Aragaris tendered his round buckler. Hundreds of arms heaved the Emperor. He saw a sea of helmeted heads, and heard, like the rolling of thunder, the exultant cry--
It seemed the will of destiny. One by one the torches were extinguished. The clamour died away; and the eastern sky was barred with soft white bands. The dark and dull mass of the palace-towers became clear in all its ugliness; a single lighted window was still visible. Julian guessed that this must be the light in the cell where Helena lay dying.
And when at dawn the wearied army dispersed, he went to the bedside of his wife. It was too late. The dead woman lay quietly on her virgin couch; the lips severely closed. Julian felt no remorse, but painful curiosity moved him as he gazed at the dark face of his wife, wondering--
"What was that last desire? What did she wish to say to me?"
The Emperor Constantius meantime was passing at Antioch a somewhat melancholy period. At night he had alarming visions and kept six lamps burning in his chamber till daybreak in the vain endeavour to relieve his fears of darkness. Hour after hour would he lie motionless and moody, starting at the least sound. Once he dreamed he saw his father, Constantine the Great, holding a sturdy and mischievous child in his arms. Constantius took the child and placed him on his right hand, attempting the while to hold in his left a great ball of crystal. But the child in wilfulness pushed the globe, which fell and broke; and its fragments, piercing like needles, buried themselves in the body of Constantius, darting with intolerable pain, burning, and hissing into his brain, eyes, and heart. The Emperor awoke, bathed in a cold perspiration. He consulted sorcerers, diviners, celebrated magicians. Troops were assembled at Antioch for a campaign against Julian. Sometimes after a moody fit of immobility the Emperor was seized with an impulse to action; the greater number of Court officials found this haste unreasonable, and confided to each other their fears as to the mental state of the august sovereign.
The autumn was reaching its end when he left Antioch. At noon, about three miles from the city, near the village of Hypocephalus, the Emperor saw an unknown mutilated body lying on the road. Facing the south the corpse was stretched to the right of Constantius, who was on horseback. The head was separated from the body.