STOLEN WATERS
The broken column of one of the buildings destroyed in the great fire of
Rome, and not yet restored, was glowing crimson in the setting sun.
Beneath its base, the Tiber was gliding gently on towards the sea. There
was a subdued hum even in the streets of the Imperial City that denoted
how the burden and heat of the day were now past; and the languor of the
hour seemed to pervade even those who were compelled to toil on in the
struggle for bread, and who could only in imagination abandon themselves
to repose. On a fragment of the ruin sat Esca, gazing intently on the
water as it stole by. To all appearance his listless and dreamy mood was
unconscious of surrounding objects, yet his attitude was that of one
prepared to start into action at a moment’s notice; and though his arms
were folded and his head bent down, his ear was watching eagerly to catch
the faintest sound.
It is a patience‐wearing process, that same waiting for a woman; and under
the most favourable circumstances is productive of much irritation,
disappointment, and disgust. In the first place a man is invariably too
soon, and this knowingly and as it were with _malice prepense_. Taking
time thus by the forelock, delays his flight considerably, and indeed
reduces his pace to the slowest possible crawl; so that when the appointed
moment does arrive, it seems to the watcher that it has been past a
considerable period, and that his vigil should be already over, when in
reality it is only just begun. Then, as the minutes steal on, come the
different misgivings and suspicions which only arise on such occasions,
and which in his right senses the self‐torturer would be incapable of
harbouring. Circumstances which, when the appointment was made, seemed
expressly adapted to further his designs, now change to insurmountable
difficulties, or take their place as links in a chain of deception which
he persuades himself has been forged with unheard‐of duplicity, expressly
for his discomfiture. He thinks badly of everyone, worst of all of her,
whose unpardonable fault is that she is now some fifty seconds late. Then
comes a revulsion of feeling, and his heart leaps to his mouth, for
yonder, emerging on the long perspective, is a female figure obviously
advancing this way. The expected object is tall, slim, pliant, and walks
with the firm free step of a deer on the heather. The advancing shape is
short, fat, awkward, and waddles in its gait; nevertheless, it is not till
it has reached within arm’s length that he will allow himself to be
convinced of his disappointment. If its ears are pretty quick, the
unoffending figure may well be shocked at the deep and startling
execration which its presence calls forth. Then begins another phase of
despondency, humiliation, and bitter self‐contempt, through all which
pleasant changes of feeling the old feverish longing remains as strong as
ever. At last she comes round the corner in good earnest, with the well‐
known smile in her eyes, the well‐known greeting on her lips, and he
forgets in an instant, as if they had never been, his anxiety, his anger,
his reproaches, all but the presence that brings light to his life and
gladness to his heart once more.
Esca rose impatiently at intervals, walked a few paces to and fro, sat
down again, and threw small fragments of the ruin into the water.
Presently a figure, draped in black and closely veiled, moved down to the
river’s side near where the Briton sat, and began filling a pitcher from
the stream. It could hardly have passed the column without seeing him, yet
did it seem unconscious of his presence; and who could tell how the heart
might be beating within the bosom, or the cheek blushing behind the veil?
That veil was lifted, however, with an exclamation of surprise, when Esca
stooped over her to take the pitcher from her hand, and Mariamne’s cheek
turned paler now than it had been even on the memorable night when he
rescued her from the grasp of Spado and his fellow‐bacchanals. He, too,
murmured some vague words of astonishment at finding her here. If they
were honest, for whom could he have been waiting so impatiently? and it is
possible, besides, Mariamne might have been a little disappointed had she
been allowed to fill her pitcher from the Tiber for herself.
The Jewess had been thinking about him a good deal more than she intended,
a good deal more than she knew, for the last two days. It is strange how
very insensibly such thoughts gain growth and strength without care or
culture. There are plants we prune and water every day which never reach
more than a sickly and stunted vitality after all, and there are others
that we trample down, cut over, tear up by the very roots, which
nevertheless attain such vigour and luxuriance that our walls are covered
by their tendrils, and our dwellings pervaded by their fragrance.
Mariamne was no bigoted daughter of Judah, for whom the stranger was an
outcast because a heathen. Her constant intercourse with Calchas had
taught her nobler truths than she had derived from the traditions of her
fathers. And with all her pride of race and national predilections, she
had imbibed those principles of charity and toleration which formed the
groundwork of a new religion, destined to shed its light upon all the
nations of the earth.
It was not precisely as a brother, though, that Mariamne had yet brought
herself to regard the handsome British slave. They were soon conversing
happily together. The embarrassment of meeting had disappeared with the
first affectation of surprise. It was not long before he told her how
tired he had been of watching by the broken column at the riverside.
“How could you know I should come here?” asked the girl with a look of
infinite simplicity and candour, though she must have remembered all the
time, that she had not scrupled to hint at the daily practice in course of
conversation with Calchas, on the night when Esca brought her safely home.
“I hoped it,” he replied, with a smile. “I have been a hunter, you know,
and have learned that the shyest and wildest of animals seek the waterside
at sunset. I was here yesterday, and waited two long hours in vain.”
She glanced quickly at him, but withdrew her eyes immediately, while the
blood mounted to her pale face.
“Did you expect to see me?” she asked in a trembling voice; “and I never
left the house the whole of yesterday! Oh, how I wish I had known it!”
Then she stopped in painful embarrassment, as having said too much. He
appeared not to notice her confusion. He seemed to have some confession to
make on his own part—something he hardly dared to tell her, yet which his
honest nature could not consent should be withheld. At last he said with
an effort—
“You know what I am! My time is not my own, my very limbs belong to
another. It matters not that the master is kind, good, and considerate.
Mariamne, I am a slave!”
“I know it,” she answered, very gently, with a loving pity beaming in her
dark eyes. “My kinsman Calchas told me as much after you went away.”
He drew a long breath as if relieved.
“And yet you wished to see me again?” he asked, while a gleam of happiness
brightened his face.
“Why not?” she replied, with a kind smile. “Though that hand is a slave’s,
it struck my enemy down with the force of a hundred warriors; though that
arm is a slave’s, it bore me home with the care and tenderness of a woman.
Ah! tell me not of slavery when the limbs are strong, and the heart is
brave and pure. Though the body be chained with iron fetters, what matter
so long as the spirit is free? Esca, you do not believe I think the worse
of you because you are a heathen and a slave?”
Her voice was very soft and low while she spoke his name. No voice had
ever sounded so sweetly in his ears before. A new, strange sense of
happiness seemed to pervade his whole being, yet he had never felt his
situation so galling and unendurable as now.
“I would not have you think the worse of me,” he answered eagerly, “upon
any account. Listen, Mariamne. I was taken captive in war and brought here
with a hundred others to Rome. We were set up like cattle in the slave‐
market. Like cattle also we were purchased, one by one, by those who
esteemed themselves practised judges of such human wares. I was bought by
Caius Lucius Licinius at the price of a yoke of oxen, or a couple of
chariot‐horses. Bought and sold like a beast of the field, and driven home
to my new master!”
He spoke with a scorn all the more bitter from having been repressed so
long. Yet he kept back and smothered the indignation rising within him.
This was the first ear that had ever been open to his wrongs, and the
temptation was strong to pour them freely forth to so interested and
partial a listener. To do him justice, he refrained from the indulgence.
He had been taught from childhood that it was weak and womanish to
complain; and the man had not forgotten the lessons of the boy.
Her gentle voice again interposed in soothing and consoling accents.
“But he is kind,” she said, “kind and considerate—you told me so yourself.
I could not bear to think him otherwise. Indeed, Esca, it would make me
very unhappy to know that you”—
Here she broke off suddenly, and snatched up the pitcher he had been
filling for her with such haste as to spill half its contents over his
dress and her own.
“There is someone watching us! Farewell!” she whispered in a breathless,
frightened voice, and hurried away, turning her head once, however, to
cast a glance over her shoulder, and then hastened home faster than
before. Esca looked after her while she continued in sight, either
unconscious of their vicinity, or at all events not noticing a pair of
bold black eyes that were fixed upon him with an expression of arch and
ludicrous surprise. He turned angrily, however, upon the intruder, when
the black eyes had gazed their fill, and their owner burst out into a
loud, merry, and mocking laugh.