No sound was in the dwelling; the assassins had departed, believing that their labour of blood was ended when I fell beneath their swords; and I was able to crawl forth in security, and to look my last upon my offspring that the Romans had slain.

The child that I held to my breast still breathed.

I stanched with some fragments of my garment the wounds that he had received, and laying him gently by the stairs--in the moonlight, so that I might see him when he moved--I groped in the shadow of the wall for my first murdered and my last born; for that youngest and fairest one of my offspring whom they had slaughtered before my eyes! When I touched the corpse, it was wet with blood; I felt its face, and it was cold beneath my hands; I raised its body in my arms, and its limbs already were rigid in death! Then I thought of the eldest child, who lay dead in the chamber above.

But my strength was failing me fast.

I had an infant who might yet be preserved; and I knew that if morning dawned on me in the house, all chances of escape were lost for ever.