The Emperor — Volume 10

A night and a day had slipped away since the death of the Bithynian. Ships and boats from every part of the province had collected before Besa to seek for the body of the drowned youth, the shores swarmed with men, and cressets and torches had dimmed the moonlight on river and shore all through the night; but they had not yet succeeded in finding the body of the beautiful youth. Hadrian had heard in what way Antinous had perished. He had required Mastor to repeat to him more than once the last words of his faithful companion and neither to add nor to omit a single syllable. Hadrian's accurate memory cherished them all and now he had sat till dawn and from dawn till the sun had reached the meridian, repeating them again and again to him self. He sat gloomily brooding and would neither eat nor drink. The misfortune which had threatened him had fallen--and what a grief was this! If indeed Fate would accept the anguish he now felt in the place of all other suffering it might have had in store for him he might look forward to years free from care, but he felt as though he would rather have spent the remainder of his existence in sorrow and misery with his Antinous by his side than enjoy, without him, all that men call happiness, peace and prosperity.