A loud and piercing shriek; then the silence of the grave.
"Help, help!" cried the boy, who was on guard in the cubiculum. "Help--quick!"
It was Phaeton, Caesar's favorite slave; he rushed forward to lift up the Emperor, who lay like one dead. His left arm hung helplessly over the edge of the bed; he had pushed aside his pillows, and with them, his wooden tablet which, as Phaeton pulled the cushions into place, fell with a clatter on to the floor. The lad stooped and picked it up, only just in time to save it from being trodden on by the other slaves, who came rushing in from all sides. He instinctively hid the piece of wood in his tunic. A moment later and the physician came in, who at once dismissed all unnecessary attendants, among them Phaeton, who was still trembling from the shock. Caesar, he said, must have absolute rest.
Phaeton, however, lingered; he wanted to know whether Caesar's life was in danger, and it was not till the leech had reassured him on that point, that he was persuaded to quit the room and remain in the cavaedium close at hand. There he went to the south-western entrance, where two of the praetorian guard were keeping watch in shining armor. He sat down, squatting on the mosaic pavement, near a door which commanded a view over the Aventine. For a time he stared vacantly at the tall, stiff figures with their dazzling helmets and their calm, stern, weather-beaten faces. Then, with a yawn, he idly drew forth the wooden tablet. He could not read, and his eye wandered curiously down the close rows of curling or angular letters, which to him were signs far more mystical than the old Hebrew rolls of manuscripts, which he had seen his mother read. Then he fell to balancing the little board on his fingers, trying to support it on one corner, as he had seen Masthlion, the famous juggler do, out on the Field of Mars.
At this moment the heavy tread of Clodianus was heard approaching.[38] He had been requested by the chamberlain to visit the room where Julia was lying dead. The boy, with a dim sense of wrong-doing in thus playing tricks with the property of his imperial master, hastily hid the tablet in his tunic again. But the very promptness with which he did so attracted the adjutant's attention.