Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/23

Rh Agrippina upon her guard, and she went by land; but the honour he paid her, and the affection he showed during her visit, so lulled every suspicion, that she was persuaded, as it was a fine night, to return in the vessel prepared.

Sleeping in a bed upon the poop, at a given signal, Agrippina, and a lady with her, began to sink gently into the waves, for the parts had not been adjusted nicely enough to perform their office properly; and many of the crew, not knowing the intentions of the emperor, attempted to save them. Agrippina, whose presence of mind never deserted her, though dismayed, kept a profound silence; but the lady, from her crying out, was mistaken for the empress, and killed by a blow from one of the creatures of Anicetus, the commander of the galley. In the mean time her mistress, receiving no other hurt than a slight wound upon the shoulder, was taken up by a bark.

In the midst of these suspicions and dangers, Agrippina forgot not her interest:—she dispatched a messenger to inform the emperor of her safety, though she was at no loss to divine whence her peril had proceeded, and took measures to secure the fortune of the lady who had perished to herself.

Nero, alarmed at the failure of his project, saw no safety for him, but in her immediate death, and dispatched Anicetus, with a written order for that purpose. His mother, uneasy at the non-appearance of her messenger, who was imprisoned by Nero, was in bed when her house was surrounded by the creatures of Anicetus, who proceeded, with three men, to her chamber, from whence her women fled, and she began to feel that her last hour was come. Yet still she thought it her interest to dissemble. "If you come," said she, "to learn the state of my health, you may tell my son that I am well