THE GODS DEPART

yards the corridor ran, and at either end it was flanked
with massive towers. Sixteen of them protected the
fortress walls of the huge quadrangle within which the
palace was constructed. In the centre of the colonnade
stood a spacious entrance-gate, with steps leading
down to the water, which lapped gently against them.
For the bay was never rough, the storms of the
Adriatic being warded off by low outlying islands.

Beside the entrance-gate a heavy barge lay at
anchor. It had come at great speed from the Riviera,
bringing the messenger of Maximian, ex-Emperor like
Diocletian himself. Tied to their pivots, the banks of
oars still rested on the surface ; the crews who had
worked the ship were busy with breakfast, or lay
sleeping in the newly risen sun.

" So the old man wants to return to power, and asks
me to join with him/' said Diocletian again ; and he
stopped in his walk to look meditatively over the sea
between the columns, " For twenty-one years I ruled
the world—I, Diocletian, the slave boy from those
Dalmatian hills down yonder. I saved the world—
saved it from savages—Goths, Germans, Persians,
Parthians, and the rest. Continually, like clouds in
storm, they kept pressing down over the sunlit prospect
of the Empire, and I drove them back to the dismal
regions which they inhabit. All that is worth pre-
serving in mankind I preserved. The mists and
obscurities which threatened to envelop the clearest
reason of the world I also swept away, as with a health-
giving breeze. And now the old man wants me to
return and begin all over again ! You must rest here,
Julianus, for a few days, and I will give Maximian an

answer/5

" All your commands I obey," answered the officer ;•
to me you are always Emperor,"

89