Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/234

198 *—When I sought you out in the camp on the Rhine,—when I recalled to you the old friendship of our Athenian days,—when I begged to share with you the dangers of war,—then, oh Caesar, I came as a secret spy, in the Emperor's pay

You!

My mind had for some time been inflamed against you. You remember that little variance in Milan—yet no little one for me, who had hoped that Caesar would help to restore my waning fortunes. Of all this they took advantage in Rome; they regarded me as the very man to spy out your doings.

And you could sell yourself so basely? To so black a treachery!

I was ruined, my lord; and I thought Caesar had forsaken me. Yes, my Caesar, I betrayed you, during the first few months; but not afterwards. Your friendliness, your magnanimity, all the favour you showed me; I became, what I had professed to be, your faithful adherent; and in my secret letters to Rome I put my employers on false scents.

Those letters were from you?—Oh, Sallust!

They contained nothing to injure you, my lord! What others may have written, I know not; I