The knife was under her hand; the streets stretched before her; the living beings who thronged them were Romans; the hours of the day were already on the wane; the approach of her vengeance was as sure as the approach of darkness that was to let it loose.

A wild exultation quickened in her the pulses of life, while she thought on the dread projects of secret assassination and revenge which now opposed her, a solitary woman, in deadly enmity against the defenceless population of a whole city.
As her eyes travelled slowly from side to side over the moving throng; as she thought on the time that might still elapse ere the discovery and death--the martyrdom in the cause of blood--which she expected and defied, would overtake her, her hands trembled beneath her robe, and she reiterated in whispers to herself: 'Husband, children, brother--there are five deaths to avenge! Remember Aquileia! Remember Aquileia!' Suddenly, as she looked from group to group among the departing people, her eyes became arrested by one object; she instantly stepped forwards, then abruptly restrained herself and moved back where the crowd was still thick, gazing fixedly ever in the same direction.

She saw the victim twice snatched from her hands--at the camp and in the farm-house--a third time offered to her grasp in the streets of Rome.
The chance of vengeance last expected was the chance that had first arrived.

A vague, oppressing sensation of awe mingled with the triumph at her heart--a supernatural guidance seemed to be directing her with fell rapidity, through every mortal obstacle, to the climax of her revenge! She screened herself behind the people; she watched the girl from the most distant point; but concealment was now vain--their eyes had met.
The robe had slipped aside when she suddenly stepped forward, and in that moment Antonina had seen her.
Numerian, moving slowly with his daughter through the crowd, felt her hand tighten round his, and saw her features stiffen into sudden rigidity; but the change was only for an instant.

Ere he could speak, she caught him by the arm, and drew him forward with convulsive energy.
Then, in accents hardly articulate, low, breathless, unlike her wonted voice, he heard her exclaim, as she struggled on with him, 'She is there--there behind us! to kill me, as she killed him! Home! home!' Exhausted already, through long weakness and natural infirmity, by the rough contact of the crowd, bewildered by Antonina's looks and actions, and by the startling intimation of unknown peril, conveyed to him in her broken exclamations of affright, Numerian's first impulse, as he hurried onward by her side, led him to entreat protection and help from the surrounding populace.