The Forum was stifling.
Caesar cowered outside the frantic circle. His forearm covered his eyes but it could not stop the seeing, notthis time.
The senators had no faces and their garments werespattered with blood. All their voices were like the criesof birds. With an inhuman frenzy they plunged their daggers into the fallen figure.
All, that is, but Render.The pool of blood in which he stood continued to widen.His arm seemed to be rising and falling with a mechanical regularity and his throat might have been shapingbird-cries, but he was simultaneously apart from and apart of the scene.
For he was Render, the Shaper.
Crouched, anguished and envious, Caesar wailed hisprotests.
"You have slain him! You have murdered MarcusAntonius—a blameless, useless fellow!"
Render turned to him and the dagger in his handwas quite enormous and quite gory.
"Aye," said he.
The blade moved from side to side. Caesar, fascinated by the sharpened steel, swayed to the same rhythm.
"Why?" he cried. "Why?"
"Because," answered Render, "he was a far noblerRoman then yourself.**
"You lie* It is not sol"
Render shrugged and returned to the stabbing.
"It is not true!" screamed Caesar. "Not truel"
Render turned to him again and waved the dagger.Puppetlike, Caesar mimicked the pendulum of the blade.
"Not true?" smiled Render. "And who are you toquestion an assassination such as this? You are no one!You detract from the dignity of this occasion! Begone!"
Jerkily, the pink-faced man rose to his feet, his hairhalf-wispy, half-wetplastered, a disarray of cotton. Heturned, moved away; and as he walked, he looked backover his shoulder.
He had moved far from the circle of assassins, but