CHAPTER XX

THE TRIDENT AND THE NET

But a shout was ringing through the amphitheatre that roused the Jewish

maiden effectually to the business of the day. It had begun in some far‐

off corner, with a mere whispered muttering, and had been taken up by

spectator after spectator, till it swelled into a wild and deafening roar.

“A Patrician! a Patrician!” vociferated the crowd, thirsting fiercely for

fresh excitement, and palled with the vulgar carnage, yearning to see the

red blood flow from some scion of an illustrious house. The tumult soon

reached such a height as to compel the attention of Vitellius, who

summoned Hippias to his chair, and whispered a few sentences in his ear.

This somewhat calmed the excitement; and while the fencing‐master’s

exertions cleared the arena of the dead and wounded, with whom it was

encumbered, a general stir might have been observed throughout the

assemblage, while each individual changed his position, and disposed

himself more comfortably for sight‐seeing, as is the custom of a crowd

when anything of especial interest is about to take place. Ere long

Damasippus and Oarses were observed to applaud loudly; and their example

being followed by thousands of imitators, the clapping of hands, the

stamping of feet, the cheers, and other vociferations rose with redoubled

vigour, while Julius Placidus stepped gracefully into the centre of the

arena, and made his obeisance to the crowd with his usual easy and

somewhat insolent bearing.

The tribune’s appearance was well calculated to excite the admiration of

the spectators, no mean judges of the human form, accustomed as they were

to scan and criticise it in its highest state of perfection. His graceful

figure was naked and unarmed, save for a white linen tunic reaching to the

knee, and although he wore rings of gold round his ankles, his feet were

bare to ensure the necessary speed and activity demanded by his mode of

attack. His long dark locks, carefully curled and perfumed for the

occasion, and bound by a single golden fillet, floated carelessly over his

neck, while his left shoulder was tastefully draped, as it were, by the

folds of the dangling net, sprinkled and weighted with small leaden beads,

and so disposed as to be whirled away at once without entanglement or

delay upon its deadly errand. His right hand grasped the trident, a three‐

pronged lance, some seven feet in length, capable of inflicting a fatal

wound; and the flourish with which he made it quiver round his head

displayed a practised arm and a perfect knowledge of the offensive weapon.

To the shouts which greeted him—“Placidus! Placidus!” “Hail to the

tribune!” “Well done the patrician order!” and other such demonstrations

of welcome—he replied by bowing repeatedly, especially directing his

courtesies to that portion of the amphitheatre in which Valeria was

placed. With all his acuteness, little did the tribune guess how hateful

he was at this moment to the very woman on whose behalf he was pledged to

engage in mortal strife—little did he dream how earnest were her vows for

his speedy humiliation and defeat. Valeria, sitting there with the red

spots burning a deeper crimson in her cheeks, and her noble features set

in a mask of stone, would have asked nothing better than to have leapt

down from her seat, snatched up sword and buckler, of which she well knew

the use, and done battle with him, then and there to the death.

The tribune now walked proudly round the arena, nodding familiarly to his

friends, a proceeding which called forth raptures of applause from

Damasippus, Oarses, and other of his clients and freedmen. He halted under

the chair of Cæsar, and saluted the Emperor with marked deference; then,

taking up a conspicuous position in the centre, and leaning on his

trident, seemed to await the arrival of his antagonist. He was not kept

long in suspense. With his eyes riveted on Valeria, he observed the fixed

colour of her cheeks gradually suffusing face, neck, and bosom, to leave

her as pale as marble when it faded, and turning round he beheld his

enemy, marshalled into the lists by Hippias and Hirpinus—the latter, who

had slain his man, thus finding himself at liberty to afford counsel and

countenance to his young friend. The shouts which greeted the new‐comer

were neither so long nor so lasting as those that did honour to the

tribune; nevertheless, if the interest excited by each were to be

calculated by intensity rather than amount, the slave’s suffrages would

have far exceeded those of his adversary.

Mariamne’s whole heart was in her eyes as she welcomed the glance of

recognition he directed exclusively to her; and Valeria, turning from one

to the other, felt a bitter pang shoot to her very marrow, as she

instinctively acknowledged the existence of a rival. Even at that moment

of hideous suspense, a host of maddening feelings rushed through the Roman

lady’s brain. Many a sunburnt peasant woman, jostled and bewildered in the

crowd, envied that sumptuous dame with her place apart, her stately

beauty, her rich apparel, and her blazing jewels; but the peasant woman

would have rued the exchange had she been forced to take, with these

advantages, the passions that were laying waste Valeria’s heart. Wounded

pride, slighted love, doubt, fear, vacillation, and remorse, are none the

more endurable for being clothed in costly raiment, and trapped out with

gems and gold. While Mariamne, in her singleness of heart, had but one

great and deadly fear—that he should fail—Valeria found room for a

thousand anxieties and misgivings, of conflicting tendencies, and chafed

under a distressing consciousness that she could not satisfy herself what

it was she most dreaded or desired.

Unprejudiced and uninterested spectators, however, had but one opinion as

to the chances of the Briton’s success. If anything could have added to

the enthusiasm called forth by the appearance of Placidus, it was the

patrician’s selection of so formidable an antagonist. Esca, making his

obeisance to Cæsar, in the pride of his powerful form, and the bloom of

his youth and beauty, armed, moreover, with helmet, shield, and sword,

which he carried with the ease of one habituated to their use, appeared as

invincible a champion as could have been chosen from the whole Roman

Empire. Even Hirpinus, albeit a man experienced in the uncertainties of

such contests, and cautious, if not in giving, at least in backing his

opinion, whispered to Hippias that the patrician looked like a mere child

by the side of their pupil, and offered to wager a flagon of the best

Falernian “that he was carried out of the arena feet foremost within five

minutes after the first attack, if he missed his throw!” To which the

fencing‐master, true to his habits of reticence and assumed superiority,

vouchsafed no reply save a contemptuous smile.

The adversaries took up their ground with exceeding caution. No advantage

of sun or wind was allowed to either, and having been placed by Hippias at

a distance of ten yards apart in the middle of the arena, neither moved a

limb for several seconds, as they stood intently watching each other,

themselves the centre on which all eyes were fixed. It was remarked that

while Esca’s open brow bore only a look of calm resolute attention, there

was an evil smile of malice stamped, as it were, upon the tribune’s

face—the one seemed an apt representation of Courage and Strength—the

other of Hatred and Skill.

“He carries the front of a conqueror,” whispered Licinius to his

kinswoman, regarding his slave with looks of anxious approval. “Trust me,

Valeria, we shall win the day. Esca will gain his freedom; the gilded

chariot and the white horses shall bring him and me to your door to‐morrow

morning, and that gaudy tribune will have had a lesson, that I for one

shall not be sorry to have been the means of bestowing on him.”

A bright smile lighted up Valeria’s face, but she looked from the speaker

to a dark‐haired girl in the crowd below, and the expression of her

countenance changed till it grew as forbidding as the tribune’s, while she

replied with a careless laugh——

“I care not who wins now, Licinius, since they are both in the lists. To

tell the truth, I did but fear the courage of this Titan of yours might

fail him at the last moment, and the match would not be fought out after

all. Hippias tells me the tribune is the best netsman he ever trained.”

He looked at her with a vague surprise; but following the direction of his

kinswoman’s eyes, he could not but remark the obvious distress and

agitation of the cloaked figure on which they were bent. Mariamne, when

she saw the Briton fairly placed, front to front with his adversary, had

neither strength nor courage for more. Leaning against Calchas, the poor

girl hid her face in her hands and wept as if her heart would break.

Myrrhina, who no more than her mistress could have borne to be absent from

such a spectacle, had forced her way into the crowd, accompanied by a few

of Valeria’s favourite slaves. Standing within three paces of the Jewess,

that voluble damsel expatiated loudly on the appearance of the combatants,

and her careless jests and sarcasms cut Mariamne to the quick. It was

painful to hear her lover’s personal qualities canvassed as though he were

some handsome beast of prey, and his chance of life and death balanced

with heartless nicety by the flippant tongue of a waiting‐maid; but there

was yet a deeper sting in store for her even than this. Myrrhina, having

got an audience, was nothing loth to profit by their attention.

“I’m sure,” said she, “whichever way the match goes I don’t know what my

mistress will do. As for the tribune, he would get out of his chariot any

day on the bare stones to kiss the very ground she walks on; and yet, if

he dare so much as to leave a scratch upon that handsome youth’s skin, he

need never come to our doors again. Why, time after time have I hunted

that boy all over the city to bring him home with me. And it’s no light

matter for a slave and a barbarian to have won the favour of the proudest

lady in Rome. See how he looks up at her now, before they begin!”

The light words wounded very sore; and Mariamne raised her head for one

glance at the Briton, half in fond appeal, half to protest, as it were,

against the slander she had heard. What she saw, however, left no room in

her loving heart for any feeling save intense horror and suspense.

With his eye fixed on his adversary, Esca was advancing, inch by inch,

like a tiger about to spring. Covering the lower part of his face and most

of his body with his buckler, and holding his short two‐edged sword with

bended arm and threatening point, he crouched to at least a foot lower

than his natural stature, and seemed to have every muscle and sinew

braced, to dash in like lightning when the opportunity offered. A false

movement, he well knew, would be fatal, and the difficulty was to come to

close quarters, as, directly he was within a certain distance, the deadly

cast was sure to be made. Placidus, on the other hand, stood perfectly

motionless. His eye was unusually accurate, and he could trust his

practised arm to whirl the net abroad at the exact moment when its sweep

would be irresistible. So he remained in the same collected attitude, his

trident shifted into the left hand, his right foot advanced, his right arm

wrapped in the gathered folds of the net which hung across his body, and

covered the whole of his left side and shoulder. Once he tried a scornful

gibe and smile to draw his enemy from his guard, but in vain; and though

Esca, in return, made a feint with the same object, the former’s attitude

remained immovable, and the latter’s snake‐like advance continued with

increasing caution and vigilance.

An inch beyond the fatal distance, Esca halted once more. For several

seconds the combatants thus stood at bay, and the hundred thousand

spectators crowded into that spacious amphitheatre held their breath, and

watched them like one man.

At length the Briton made a false attack, prepared to spring back

immediately and foil the netsman’s throw, but the wily tribune was not to

be deceived, and the only result was that, without appearing to shift his

ground, he moved an arm’s length nearer his adversary. Then the Briton

dashed in, and this time in fierce earnest. Foot, hand, and eye, all

together, and so rapidly, that the tribune’s throw flew harmless over his

assailant’s head, Placidus only avoiding his deadly thrust by the cat‐like

activity with which he leaped aside; then, turning round, he scoured

across the arena for life, gathering his net for a fresh cast as he flew.

“Coward!” hissed Valeria, between her set teeth; while Mariamne breathed

once more—nay, her bosom panted, and her eye sparkled with something like

triumph at the approaching climax.

She was premature, however, in her satisfaction, and Valeria’s disdain was

also undeserved. Though apparently flying for his life, Placidus was as

cool and brave at that moment as when he entered the arena. Ear and eye

were alike on the watch for the slightest false movement on the part of

his pursuer; and ere he had half crossed the lists, his net was gathered

up, and folded with deadly precision once more.

The tribune especially prided himself on his speed of foot. It was on this

quality that he chiefly depended for safety in a contest which at first

sight appeared so unequal. He argued from the great strength of his

adversary, that the latter would not be so pre‐eminent in activity as

himself; but he omitted to calculate the effects of a youth spent in the

daily labours of the chase amongst the woods and mountains of Britain.

Those following feet had many a time run down the wild goat over its

native rocks. Faster and faster fly the combatants, to the intense delight

of the crowd, who specially affect this kind of combat for the pastime it

thus affords. Speedy as is the tribune, his foe draws nearer and nearer,

and now, close to where Mariamne stands with Calchas, he is within a

stride of his antagonist. His arm is up to strike! when a woman’s shriek

rings through the amphitheatre, startling Vitellius on his throne, and the

sword flies aimlessly from the Briton’s grasp as he falls forward on his

face, and the impetus rolls him over and over in the sand.

There is no chance for him now. He is scarcely down ere the net whirls

round him, and he is fatally and helplessly entangled in its folds.

Mariamne gazes stupefied on the prostrate form, with stony face and a

fixed unmeaning stare. Valeria springs to her feet in a sudden impulse,

forgetting for the moment where she is.

Placidus, striding over his fallen enemy with his trident raised, and the

old sneering smile deepening and hardening on his face, observed the cause

of his downfall, and inwardly congratulated himself on the lucky chance

which had alone prevented their positions being reversed. The blood was

streaming from a wound in Esca’s foot. It will be remembered that where

Manlius fell, his sword was buried under him in the sand. On removing his

dead body the weapon escaped observation, and the Briton, treading in hot

haste on the very spot where it lay concealed, had not only been severely

lacerated, but tripped up and brought to the ground by the snare.

All this flashed through the conqueror’s mind, as he stood erect, prepared

to deal a blow that should close all accounts, and looked up to Valeria

for the fatal sign.

Maddened with rage and jealousy; sick, bewildered, and scarcely conscious

of her actions, the Roman lady was about to give it, when Licinius seized

her arms and held them down by force. Then, with a numerous party of

friends and clients, he made a strong demonstration in favour of mercy.

The speed of foot, too, displayed by the vanquished, and the obvious cause

of his discomfiture, acted favourably on the majority of spectators. Such

an array of hands turned outwards and pointing to the earth met the

tribune’s eye, that he could not but forbear his cruel purpose, so he gave

his weapon to one of the attendants who had now entered the arena, took

his cloak from the hands of another, and, with a graceful bow to the

spectators, turned scornfully away from his fallen foe.

Esca, expecting nothing less than immediate death, had his eyes fixed on

the drooping figure of Mariamne; but the poor girl had seen nothing since

his fall. Her last moment of consciousness showed her a cloud of dust, a

confused mass of twine, and an ominous figure with arm raised in act to

strike; then barriers and arena, and eager faces and white garments, and

the whole amphitheatre, pillars, sand, and sky, reeled ere they faded into

darkness; sense and sight failed her at the same moment, and she fainted

helplessly in her kinsman’s arms.

*ANTEROS*

CHAPTER I

THE LISTENING SLAVE

[Initial W]

Wounded, vanquished, transferred from his kind master, and farther from

liberty than ever, Esca’s was now indeed a pitiable lot. The tribune,

entitled by the very terms of his wager to the life and person of his

antagonist, was not the man to forego this advantage by any act of

uncalled‐for generosity. In the Briton he believed he now possessed a tool

to use with effect, in furtherance of a work which the seductive image of

Valeria rendered every day more engrossing; an auxiliary by whose aid he

might eventually stand first in the good graces of the only woman who had

ever obtained a mastery over his unyielding disposition and selfish heart.

None the more on this account did he cherish the captive, nor alleviate

his condition as a slave. From the effects of his injury, Esca could not

be put to any harder kinds of labour, but in all menial offices, however

degrading, he was compelled to take his share. Different, indeed, was his

condition here from what it had been in the service of the high‐minded

Licinius, and bitterly did he feel the exchange.

Submitting to sarcasm, insult, continued ill‐treatment, and annoyance, the

noble barbarian would have failed under the trial, had it not been for a

few well‐remembered words, on the truth of which Calchas had so often

insisted, and in which (for when were human thoughts without an earthly

leavening?) Mariamne seemed to cherish an implicit belief. Those words

breathed hope and consolation under the very worst misfortunes that life

could offer; and Esca suffered on, very silent, and tolerably patient,

although, perhaps, there was a fiercer fire smouldering in his breast than

would have been approved by his venerable monitor—a fire that only waited

occasion to blaze out all the more dangerously for being thus forcibly

suppressed.

With a malicious pleasure, natural to his disposition, Placidus compelled

the Briton to perform several domestic offices which brought him about his

person. It flattered the tribune’s vanity to have continually before his

eyes the athletic frame he was so proud to have overcome; and it pleased

him that his friends, guests, and clients should be thus led to converse

upon his late encounter, which had created no small gossip in the

fashionable world of Rome. It happened, then, that Esca, while preparing

his master’s bath, was startled to hear the name that was never long out

of his own thoughts spoken in accents of caution and secrecy by the

tribune himself, who was in the adjoining apartment, holding close

consultation with Hippias the fencing‐master and the two freedmen,

Damasippus and Oarses. All were obviously interested in the subject under

discussion, and, believing themselves safe from eaves‐droppers, spoke

energetically, though in tones somewhat lower than their wont.

He started, and the blood ebbed painfully from his heart. “Mariamne!” yes,

the word was again repeated, and while Oarses said something in a whisper,

he could clearly distinguish the tribune’s low mocking laugh. It was plain

they were unaware of his presence; and, indeed, it was at an earlier hour

than usual that he had made ready the unguents, perfumes, strigil, and

other appliances indispensable to the luxurious ablutions of a Roman

patrician. The bathroom was inside the favourite apartment of Placidus,

where he was now holding counsel, and could only be entered through the

latter, from which it was separated by a heavy velvet curtain. Esca,

surrounded by the materials of the toilet, had been sitting for a longer

time than he knew, lost in thought, until aroused by the mention of

Mariamne’s name. Thus it was that the four others believed the bathroom

empty, and their conversation unheard.

Anxious and excited, the Briton scarcely dared to draw his breath, but

crept cautiously behind the folds of the heavy curtain, and listened

attentively. The tribune was walking to and fro with the restless motions

and stealthy gait of a tiger in its cage. Hippias, seated at his ease upon

a couch, was examining the device of a breastplate, with his usual air of

good‐humoured superiority; and Damasippus, appealing with admiring looks

to Oarses, who responded in kind, seemed to endorse, as it were, with a

dependant’s mute approval, the opinions and observations of his patron.

“Two‐thirds of the legions have already come over,” said Placidus, rapidly

enumerating the forces on which Vespasian’s party could count. “In Spain,

in Gaul, in Britain, the soldiers have declared openly against Vitellius.

The surrender of Cremona can no longer be concealed from the meanest

populace. Alexandria, the granary of the empire, has fallen into the hands

of Vespasian. Those dusky knaves, thy countrymen, Oarses, will see us

starve, ere they send us supplies under the present dynasty; and think ye

our greasy plebeians here will endure the girdle of famine, thus drawn

tighter, day by day, round their luxurious paunches? The fleet at Misenum

was secured long ago, but the news that Cæsar could not count upon a

single galley in blue water only reached the capital to‐day. Then the old

Prætorians are ripe for mischief; you may trust them never to forget nor

to forgive the disgrace of last year, when the chosen band was broke,

dismissed, and, worst of all, deprived of rations and pay; I tell thee,

Hippias, those angry veterans are ready to take the town without

assistance, and put old and young to the sword. Fail! it is impossible we

can fail; the new party outnumbers the old by ten to one!”

“You have told off a formidable list,” replied Hippias quietly; “I cannot

see that you are in need of any further help from me or mine.”

Placidus shot a sharp questioning glance at the fencing‐master, and

resumed—

“Half the numbers that have given in their adhesion to Vespasian would

serve to put my chariot‐boy on the throne; Automedon’s long curls might be

bound by a diadem to‐morrow, were he the favourite of the hour, so far as

Rome is concerned. You know what the masses are, my Hippias, for it is

your trade to pander to their tastes, and rouse their enthusiasm. It is

true that the great general is, at this moment, virtually ruler of the

empire, but a pebble might turn the tide in the capital. I would not trust

Vespasian’s own son, young and dissipated as he is, could he but make a

snatch at the reins with any hope of holding them firmly when once within

his grasp. Titus Flavius Domitian might be emperor to‐morrow, if he would

be satisfied to wear the purple but for a week, and then make room for

someone else. Nay, the people are fickle enough to be capable of turning

round at any moment, and retaining our present admirable ruler on the

throne. Rome must be coerced, my Hippias; the barbers, and cobblers, and

water‐carriers must be kept down and intimidated; if need be, we must cut

a few garlic‐breathing throats. It may be necessary to remove Cæsar

himself, lest the reactionary feeling should burst out again, and we

should find ourselves left with nothing for our pains, but the choice of a

cup of poison, a gasp in a halter, or three inches of steel. We _must_

succeed this time, for not a man need hope for pardon if Cæsar is

thoroughly frightened. Hippias, there must be no half‐measures now!”

“Well said!” exclaimed the freedmen in a breath, with very pale faces,

nevertheless, and an enthusiasm obviously somewhat against the grain.

Hippias looked quietly up from the breastplate resting on his lap.

“There will be shows,” said he, “and blood flowing like water in the

circus, whoever wears the purple. While Rome stands, the gladiator need

never want for bread.”

“Now you speak like a man of sense,” replied the tribune, in the same

tone; “for after all, the whole matter resolves itself into a mere

question of money. The shows are tolerably lucrative, at least to their

contriver, but it takes many a festival ere the sesterces count by tens of

thousands; and Hippias loves luxury and wine, and women too—nay, deny it

not, my comely hero; and if the Family and their trainer could be hired at

a fair price, for an hour’s work or so, why they need never enter the

arena again, save as spectators; nay, poorer men than their chief might be

have sat in the equestrian rows, ere now.”

“You want to hire my chickens and myself for a forlorn hope,” retorted

Hippias impatiently. “Better say so at once, and be plain with me.”

“It is even so,” resumed Placidus, with an assumption of extreme candour.

“For real work I have few I can depend upon but the old Prætorians; and

though they stick at nothing, there are hardly enough of them for my

purpose. With a chosen two hundred of thine, my dealer in heroes, I could

command Rome for twenty‐four hours; and when Placidus soars into the sky,

he carries Hippias on his wings. Speak out; thy terms are high, but such a

game as ours is not played for a handful of pebbles or a few brass

farthings. What is the price, man by man?”

“You would require two hundred of them,” observed the other reflectively.

“Five thousand sesterces(11) a man, and his freedom, which would come to

nearly as much more.”

“The killed not to count, of course,” bargained the tribune.

“Of course not,” repeated Hippias. “Listen, most illustrious; I will take

all chances, and supply the best men I have, for eight thousand a‐head.

Two hundred swordsmen who would take Pluto by the beard without a scruple,

if I only lifted my hand. Lads who can hold their own against thrice their

number of any legion that was ever drilled. They are ready at two hours’

notice.”

He was speaking truth, for Hippias was honest enough in his own particular

line. Amongst the thousands who owed their professional standing, and the

very bread they ate, to the celebrated fencing‐master, it was no hard task

to select a company of dare‐devils, such as he described, who would desire

no better sport than to see their native city in flames, with the streets

knee‐deep in blood and wine, while they put men, women, and children

indiscriminately to the sword. The tribune’s eye brightened, as he thought

of the fierce work he could accomplish with such tools as these ready to

his hand.

“Keep them for me, from to‐day,” he answered, looking round the apartment,

as though to assure himself that he was only heard by those in his

confidence. “My plan cannot but succeed if we only observe common secrecy

and caution. Ten picked men, and thyself, my Hippias, I bid to sup with me

here, the rest of the band shall be distributed by twenties amongst the

different streets opening on the palace, preserving their communication

thus: one man at a time must continually pass from each post to the next,

until every twenty has been changed. This secures us from treachery, and

will keep our cut‐throats on the alert. At a given signal, all are to

converge on the middle garden‐gate, which will be found open. Then they

may lead the old Prætorians to the attack, and take the palace itself by

assault, in defiance of any resistance, however desperate, that can be

made. The German guard are stubborn dogs, and must be put to the sword

directly the outer hall is gained. I would not have them burn down the

palace if they can help it; but when they have done _my_ work, they are

welcome to all they can carry out of it on their backs, and you may tell

them so.”

Hippias noted in his own mind this additional incentive with considerable

satisfaction. After a moment’s pause, he looked fixedly in the tribune’s

face, and inquired—

“How would you wish your guests armed for the supper‐party? Shall we bring

our knives with us, kind host?”

Placidus flushed a dark red, and then grew pale. He averted his eyes from

Hippias, while he answered—

“There are few weapons so true as the short two‐edged sword. There will be

work for our brave little party inside the palace, of which we must make

no bungling. Is it such a grave matter, my Hippias, to slay a fat old

man?” he added inquiringly.

The other’s face assumed an expression of intense disgust.

“Nay,” said he, “I will have no murder done in cold blood. As much

fighting as you please, in the way of business, but we are no hired

assassins, my men and I. To put one Cæsar off the throne, and another on,

is a pretty night’s amusement enough, and I have no objection to it; but

to take an old man out of his bed, even though he be an emperor, and slay

him as you slay a fat sheep, I’ll none of it. Send for a butcher, tribune;

this is no trade of ours!”

Placidus bit his lip, and seemed to think profoundly for a moment, then

his brow cleared, and he resumed with a light laugh.

“Far be it from me to offend a gladiator’s scruples. I know the morals of

the Family, and respect their prejudices. Half the money shall be in your

hands within an hour; the rest shall be paid when the job is done. I think

we understand each other well enough. Is it a bargain, Hippias? Can I

depend upon you?”

The fencing‐master was not yet satisfied.

“About the guests,” he asked sternly; “how are we to pay for our supper?”

Placidus clapped him on the shoulder, with a jovial laugh.

“I will be frank with thee,” said he, “old comrade. Why should there be

secrets between thee and me? We go from my supper‐table to the palace. We

enter with the storming‐party. I know the private apartments of the

Emperor. I can lead our little band direct to the royal presence. Here we

will rally round Vitellius, and take his sacred person into our charge.

Hippias, I will make it ten thousand sesterces a man, for each of the ten,

and thou shalt name thine own price for thine own services. But the

Emperor must not escape. Dost thou understand me now?”

“I like it not,” replied the other; “but the price is fair enough, and my

men must live. I would it could be so arranged that some resistance might

be made in the palace; you slay a man so much easier with his helmet on

and his sword in his hand!”

“Pooh! prejudice!” laughed the tribune. “Professional fancies that spring

from thy coarse material trade. Blood leaves no more stain than wine. You

and I have spilt enough of both in our time. What matter, a throat cut or

a cracked flagon of Falernian? Dash a pitcher of water over a marble floor

like this, and you wash away the signs of both at once. Said I not well,

Damasippus? Why, what ails thee, man? Thy face has turned as white as thy

gown!”

Damasippus, indeed, whose eyes were fixed upon the floor to which his

patron had just alluded, presented, at this juncture, an appearance of

intense terror and amazement. The freedman’s mouth was open, his cheeks

were deadly pale, and his very hair seemed to bristle with dismay.

Pointing a shaking finger to the slabs of marble at his feet, he could

only stammer out in broken accents: “May the gods avert the omen!” over

and over again.

The others, following the direction of his gaze, were no less astonished

to see a narrow stream of crimson winding over the smooth white floor, as

though the very stones protested against the tribune’s reckless and

inhuman sentiments. For an instant all stood motionless, then Placidus,

leaping at the velvet curtain, tore it fiercely open, and discovered the

cause of the phenomenon.

Listening attentively for some further mention of the name that had roused

his whole being, not a syllable of the foregoing conversation had been

lost upon Esca, who, kneeling on one knee, with his wounded foot bent

under him, and his ear applied close to the heavy folds of the curtain,

had never moved a hair’s‐breadth from his attitude of fixed and absorbing

attention. In this constrained position, the wound in his foot, which was

not yet healed over, had opened afresh, and though he was himself

unconscious of all but the cruel and treacherous scheme he overheard, it

bled so freely that a dark stream stole gradually beneath the curtains,

and crept gently along the marble to the very feet of the horror‐stricken

Damasippus.

Esca sprang to his full height; in that moment his blood curdled, as it

had done when he was down upon the sand, with his enemy’s eye glaring on

him through the cruel net. He knew the tribune, and he felt there was no

hope. The latter laughed loud and long. It was his way of covering all

disagreeable emotions, but it boded no good to the object of his mirth.

When Esca heard that laugh he looked anxiously about him as though to seek

a weapon. What was the use? He stood wounded and defenceless in the power

of four reckless men, of whom two were armed.

“Hold him!” exclaimed Placidus to his freedmen, drawing at the same time a

short two‐edged sword from its sheath. “It is unfortunate for the

barbarian that he has learned our language. The necessity is disagreeable,

but there is only one way of ensuring silence. My bath, too, is prepared,

so I can spare him for to‐day, and my freedmen will see that his place is

supplied by to‐morrow. Hold him, cowards! I say; do you fear that he will

bite you?”

Neither Damasippus nor Oarses, however, seemed much inclined to grapple

with the stalwart Briton. Wounded and outnumbered as he was, without a

chance of rescue or escape, there was yet a defiant carriage of the head,

a fierce glare in the eye, that warned the freedmen to keep hands off him

as long as they could. They looked at each other irresolutely, and shrank

from the patron’s glance. That moment’s hesitation saved him. Hippias, who

regarded every six feet of manhood with a brave heart inside it as his own

peculiar property, had besides a kindly feeling for his old pupil. He put

his muscular frame between the master and the slave.

“Give him a day or two, tribune,” said he carelessly. “I can find a better

use for him than to cut his throat here on this clean white floor, and an

equally safe one in the end, you may be sure.”

“Impossible, fool!” answered Placidus angrily. “He has heard enough to

destroy every hair on the head of each of us. He must never leave this

room alive!”

“Only twenty‐four hours,” pleaded the fencing‐master, who well knew how

much at that time in Rome a day might bring forth. “Put him in ward as

close as you will, but let him live till to‐morrow. Hippias asks it as a

favour to himself, and you may not like to be refused by him, when it is

_your_ turn. What if I should say ‘No’ in the private apartments of the

palace? Come, let us make a compromise.”

The tribune reflected for a moment. Then striking his right hand into that

of Hippias—

“Agreed,” said he. “Twenty‐four hours’ grace on one side, and the sharpest

blade in Rome at my disposal on the other. Ho! Damasippus, call some of my

people in. Bid them put the new collar on the slave, and chain him to the

middle pillar in the inner court.”

The order was punctually obeyed, and Esca found himself a helpless

prisoner, burdened with a secret that might save the empire, and with

maddening apprehensions on behalf of Mariamne tearing at his heart.

CHAPTER II

ATTACK AND DEFENCE

Such beauty as the Jewess’s, although she seldom went abroad, and led as

sequestered a life as was compatible with the domestic duties she had to

perform, could not pass unnoticed in a place like Rome. Notwithstanding

the utter contempt in which her nation was held by its proud conquerors,

she had been observed going to market in the morning for the few

necessaries of her household, or filling her pitcher from the Tiber at

sunset; and amongst other evil eyes that had rested on her fair young face

were those of Damasippus, freedman to Julius Placidus the tribune. He had

lost no time in reporting to his patron the jewel he had discovered, so to

speak, in its humble setting; for, like the jackal, Damasippus never dared

to hunt for himself, and followed after evil, not for its own sake, but

for the lust of gold.

His patron, too, though he had only seen the girl once, and then closely

veiled, was so inflamed by the description of her charms, on which the

client dwelt at great length, that he resolved to possess himself of her,

in the sheer insolence of a great man’s whim, promising the freedman that

after the lion was served he should have the jackal’s reward. It was in

consequence of this agreement that a plot was laid of which Esca overheard

but half a dozen syllables, and yet enough to render him very uneasy when

he reflected on the recklessness and cruelty of him with whom it

originated, and the slavish obedience with which it was sure to be carried

out. It would have broken the spirit of a brave man to be chained to a

pillar, fasting and wounded, with only twenty‐four hours to live; and a

keen suspicion that the woman he loved was even then all unconsciously

walking into the toils, added a pang to bodily suffering which might have

turned the stoutest heart to water, but Esca never lost hope altogether.

Something he could not analyse seemed to give him comfort and support, nor

was he aware that the blind vague trust he was beginning to entertain in

some power above and beyond himself, yet on which he felt he could

implicitly rely, was the first glimmer of the true faith dawning on his

soul.

Perhaps the slave in his chain, under sentence of death, bore a lighter

heart than his luxurious master, washed, perfumed, and tricked out in all

the glitter of dress and ornament, rolling in his gilded chariot to do

homage to the woman who had really mastered his selfish heart. Automedon,

whose eyes were of the sharpest, remarked that his lord was nervous and

restless, that his cheek paled, and his lip shook more and more as they

proceeded on their well‐known way, and that when they neared the portals

of Valeria’s house the tribune’s hand trembled so that he could scarcely

fasten the brooch upon his shoulder. How white against the crimson mantle,

dyed twice and thrice till it had deepened almost into purple, looked

those uncertain fingers, quivering about the clasp of gold!

However reckless, unprincipled, and cunning a man may be, he is inevitably

disarmed by the woman he really loves. This is even the case when his

affection is returned; but when he has fallen into the hands of one who,

disliking him personally, has resolved to make him her tool, his situation

is pitiable indeed. These hopeless passions, too, have in all ages been of

the fiercest and the most enduring. Ill‐usage on the one side or the other

has not produced the effect that might be expected, and the figurative

shirt of Nessus, instead of being torn off in shreds and cast away, has

been far oftener hugged closer and closer to the skin, burning and

blistering into the very marrow. It generally happens, too, that the

suitor, whose whole existence seems to hang upon his success, blunders

into the course that leads him in a direction exactly contrary to his

goal. He is pretty sure to say and do the wrong thing at the wrong time.

He offers his attentions with a pertinacity that wearies and offends, or

withdraws them with a precipitation so transparent as to compel remark.

When he should be firm, he is plaintive; when he is expected to be

cheerful, he turns sulky. To enhance his own value he becomes boastful to

the extreme verge, and sometimes beyond it, of the truth; or in order to

prove his devotion, he makes himself ridiculous, and thereby deals the

final and suicidal blow, if such indeed be necessary, that is to shatter

like glass the fabric of his hopes.

The tribune knew women thoroughly. He could plead no lack of experience,

for ignorance of that intricate and puzzling labyrinth, a woman’s heart.

He had, indeed, broken more than one in the process of examination, and

yet the boy Automedon, sitting by his side in the chariot, with the wind

lifting his golden curls, would hardly have been guilty of so many false

movements, such mistakes both of tactics and strategy, as disgraced his

lord’s conduct of the unequal warfare he waged with Valeria. Yet this

engrossing affection, stained and selfish as it was, constituted perhaps

the one redeeming quality of the tribune’s character; afforded the only

incentive by which his better and manlier feelings could be aroused.

Possibly Valeria expected him. Women have strange instincts on such

matters, which seldom deceive. She was dressed with the utmost

magnificence, as though conscious that simplicity could have no charms for

Placidus, and sat in a splendour nearly regal, keeping Myrrhina and the

rest of her maidens within call. Lovers are acute observers; as he walked

up the cool spacious court to greet her, he saw that she was gentler, and

more languid than her wont; she looked wearied and unhappy, as though she,

too, acknowledged the sorrows and the weaknesses of her sex. Lover‐like,

he thought this unusual shade of softness became her well.

For days she had been fighting with her own heart, and she had suffered as

such undisciplined natures must. The strife had left its traces on her

pale proud face, and she felt a vague unacknowledged yearning for repose.

The wild‐bird had beat her wings and ruffled her plumage till she was

tired, and a skilful fowler would have taken advantage of the reaction to

lure her into his net. Perhaps she had been thinking what happiness it

must be to have one in the world in whom she could confide, on whom she

could rely; one loyal manly nature on which to rest her woman’s heart,

with all its caprices, and weaknesses, and capacity for love; perhaps she

may have been even touched by the tribune’s unshaken devotion to herself,

by the constancy which could withstand the allurements of vice, and even

the distractions of political intrigue; perhaps to‐day she disliked him

less than on any former occasion, though it could hardly have been for

_his_ sake that her eye was heavy, and her bosom heaved. If so, whatever

favour he had unconsciously gained, was as unconsciously destroyed by his

own hand. He approached her with an air of assumed confidence, that masked

only too well the agitation of his real feelings.

“Fair Valeria,” said he, “I have obeyed your commands, and I come like a

faithful servant to claim my reward.”

Now a woman’s commands are not always intended to be literally obeyed.

Under any circumstances she seldom likes to be reminded of them; and as

for _claiming_ anything from Valeria, why the very word roused all the

rebellion that was dormant in her nature. At that instant rose on her

mind’s eye the scene in the amphitheatre, the level sand, the tossing sea

of faces, the hoarse roar of the crowd, the strong white limbs and the

yellow locks lying helpless beneath a dark vindictive face, and a glitter

of uplifted steel. How she hated the conqueror then! How she hated him

now! She was clasping a bracelet carelessly on her arm, the fair round arm

he admired so much, and that never looked so fair and round as in this

gesture. It was part of his torture to make herself as attractive as she

could. Her cold eyes chilled him at once.

“I had forgotten all about it,” said she. “I am obliged to you for

reminding me that I am in your debt.”

Though somewhat hurt, he answered courteously, “There can be no debt from

a mistress to her slave. You know, Valeria, that all of mine, even to my

life, is at your disposal.”

“Well?” she asked, with a provoking persistency of misapprehension.

He began to lose his head; he, ordinarily so calm, and cunning, and self‐

reliant.

“You bade me enter on a difficult and dangerous undertaking. It was

perhaps a lady’s caprice, the merest possible whim. But you expressed a

wish, and I never rested till I had accomplished it.”

“You mean about that wretched slave?” said she, and the colour rose

faintly to her cheek. “But you never killed him after all.”

How little he knew her! This, then, he thought, was the cause of her

coldness, of her displeasure. Esca had in some way incurred her ill‐will,

and she was angry with the conqueror who had spared him so foolishly when

in his power. What a heart must this be of hers that could only quench its

resentment in blood! Yet he loved her none the less. How the fair round

arm, and the stately head, and the turn of the white shoulder maddened him

with a longing that was almost akin to rage. He caught her hand, and

pressed it fervently to his lips.

“How can I please you?” he exclaimed, and his voice trembled with the only

_real_ emotion he perhaps had ever felt. “Oh! Valeria, you know that I

love the very ground you tread on.”

She bade Myrrhina bring her some embroidery on which the girl was busied,

and thus effectually checked any further outpouring of sentiments which

are not conveniently expressed within earshot of a third person. The

waiting‐maid took her seat at her mistress’s elbow, her black eyes dancing

in malicious mirth.

“Is that all you have to tell me?” resumed Valeria, with a smile in which

coquetry, indifference, and conscious power were admirably blended. “Words

are but empty air. My favour is reserved for those who win it by deeds.”

“He shall die! I pledge you my word he shall die!” exclaimed the tribune,

still misunderstanding the beautiful enigma on which he had set his heart.

“I have but spared him till I should know your pleasure, and now his fate

is sealed. Ere this time to‐morrow he will have crossed the Styx, and

Valeria will repay me with one of her brightest smiles.”

A shudder she could not suppress swept over the smooth white skin, but she

suffered no trace of emotion to appear upon her countenance. She had a

game to play now, and it must be played steadily and craftily to ensure

success. She bade Myrrhina fetch wine and fruit to place before her guest,

and while the waiting‐maid crossed the hall on her errand, she suffered

the tribune to take her hand once more—nay, even returned its caressing

clasp, with an almost imperceptible pressure. He was intoxicated with his

success, he felt he was winning at last; and the jewelled cup that

Myrrhina brought him, as he thought all too soon, remained for a while

suspended in his hand, while he uttered fervent protestations of love,

which were received with an equanimity that ought to have convinced him

they were hopelessly wasted on his idol.

“You profess much,” said she, “but it costs men little to promise. We have

but one faithful lover in the empire, and he is enslaved by a barbarian

princess and another man’s wife. Would _you_ have turned back from all the

pleasures of Rome, to fight one more campaign against those dreadful Jews,

for the sake of Berenice’s sunburnt face?”

“Titus had consulted the oracle of Venus,” replied the tribune, with a

meaning smile; “and doubtless the goddess had promised him a double

victory. Valeria, you know there is nothing a man will not dare to win the

woman he loves.”

“Could you be as true?” she asked, throwing all the sweetness of her

mellow voice, all the power of her winning eyes, into the question.

“Try me,” answered he, and for one moment the man’s nature was changed,

and he felt capable of devotion, self‐sacrifice, fidelity, all that

constitutes the heroism of love. The next, nature reasserted her sway, and

he was counting the cost.

“I have a fancy for your barbarian,” said Valeria carelessly, after a

pause. “Myrrhina loves him, and—and if you will give him to me I will take

him into my household.”

Placidus shot a piercing glance at the waiting‐maid, and that well‐tutored

damsel cast down her eyes and tried to blush. There was something, too, in

Valeria’s manner that did not satisfy him, and yet he was willing to

believe more than he hoped, and nearly all he wished.

“I seldom _ask_ for anything,” resumed Valeria, raising her head with a

proud petulant gesture of which she knew the full effect. “It is far

easier for me to grant a favour than to implore one. And yet, I know not

why, but I do not feel it painful to beg anything to‐day from you!”

A soft smile broke over the haughty face while she spoke, and she raised

her eyes and looked full into his for an instant, ere she lowered them to

toy with the bracelet once more. It was the deadliest thrust she had in

all her cunning of fence, the antagonist could seldom parry or withstand

it; would it foil him in their present encounter? He loved her as much as

such a nature can love, but the question was one of life and death, and it

was no time for child’s play now, as Esca was in possession of a secret

that might annihilate his lord in an hour. The tribune was not a man to

sacrifice his very existence for a woman, even though that woman was

Valeria. He hesitated, and she, marking his hesitation, turned pale, and

shook with rage.

“You refuse me!” said she, in accents that trembled either with suppressed

fury or lacerated feelings. “You refuse me. _You_, the only man living for

whom I would have so lowered myself. The only man I ever stooped to

entreat. Oh! it is too much, too much.”

She bowed her head in her hands, and as the wealth of brown hair showered

over her white shoulders, they heaved as if she wept. Myrrhina looked

reproachfully at the tribune, and muttered, “Oh! if he knew, if he only

_knew_!”

In his dealings with the other sex Placidus had always been of opinion

that it is better to untie a knot than to cut it.

“Fair Valeria,” said he, “ask me anything but this. I am pledged to slay

this man within twenty‐four hours; will not that content you?”

The exigency of the situation, the danger of him for whom she had

conceived so wild and foolish a passion, sharpened her powers of

deception, and made her reckless of her own feelings, her own degradation.

Shaking the hair back from her temples, beautiful in her disorder and her

tears, she looked with wet eyes in the tribune’s face, while she replied—

“Do you think I care for the barbarian? What difference can it make to

Valeria if such as this Briton were slain by hecatombs? It is for

Myrrhina’s sake I grieve; and more, far more than this, to think that you

can refuse me anything in the whole world!”

Duplicity was no new effort for the tribune. He had often, ere now,

betaken himself to this mode of defence when driven to his last ward. He

raised her hands respectfully to his lips.

“Be it as you will,” said he; “I make him over to you to do with him what

you please. Esca is your property, beautiful Valeria, from this hour.”

A dark thought had flitted through his brain, that it would be no such

difficult matter to destroy an inconvenient witness, and retain the favour

of an exacting mistress at the same time. It was but a grain or two of

poison in the slave’s last meal, and he might depart in peace, a doomed

man, to Valeria’s mansion. He would take the chance of his silence for the

few hours that intervened, and after all, the ravings of one whose brow

was already stamped with death would arouse little suspicion. Afterwards

it would be easy to pacify Valeria, and shift the blame on some over‐

zealous freedman, or officious client. He did not calculate on the haste

with which women jump to conclusions. Valeria clapped her hands with

unusual glee. “Quick! Myrrhina,” said she, “my tablets to the tribune. He

shall write the order here, and my people can go for the slave and bring

him back, before Placidus departs.”

“Nay,” interposed the latter in some confusion, “it is indispensable that

I go home at once. I have already lingered here too long. Farewell,

Valeria. Ere the sun goes down you shall see that Placidus is proud and

happy to obey your lightest whim.”

With these words, he made a low obeisance, and, ere his hostess could stop

him, had traversed the outer hall, and mounted in his chariot. Valeria

seemed half stupefied by this sudden departure, but ere the rolls of his

wheels had died away, a light gleamed in her eyes, and summoning the

little negro, who had lain unnoticed and coiled up within call during the

interview, she bade him run out and see which direction the chariot took,

then she stared wildly in Myrrhina’s face, and burst into a strange, half‐

choking laugh.

CHAPTER III

“FURENS QUID FŒMINA”

“The chariot has turned into the Flaminian Way,” said the urchin, running

breathlessly back to his mistress. “Oh! so fast! so fast!” and he clapped

his little black hands with the indescribable delight all children take in

rapidity of movement.

“The Flaminian Way!” repeated Valeria. “He must go round by the Great Gate

and the Triumphal Arches to get home. Myrrhina, if we make haste, we shall

yet be in time.”

In less than ten minutes the two women had crossed the wide pleasure‐

grounds which skirted Valeria’s mansion, and had let themselves out by a

pass‐key into the street. So complete, however, was their transformation

that the most intimate friend would have failed to recognise in these

shrouded, hurrying figures, the fashionable Roman lady and her attendant.

A wig of curling yellow hair covered Valeria’s nut‐brown tresses, and the

lower part of her face was concealed by a mask, whilst Myrrhina, closely‐

veiled and wrapped in a dark‐coloured mantle, stained and threadbare with

many a winter’s storm, looked like some honest child of poverty, bound on

one of the humble errands of daily plebeian life. As they tripped rapidly

along a narrow and little frequented street,—one of the many inconvenient

thoroughfares which Nero’s great fire had spared, and which still

intersected the magnificence of the Imperial City,—they had to pass a

miserable‐looking house, with a low shabby doorway, which was yet secured

by strong fastenings of bolts and bars, as though its tenant had

sufficient motives for affecting privacy and retirement. The women looked

meaningly at each other while they approached it, for the dwelling of

Petosiris the Egyptian was too well known to all who led a life of

pleasure or intrigue in Rome. He it was who provided potions, love

philtres, charms of every description, and whom the superstitious of all

classes, no trifling majority, young and old, rich and poor, male and

female, consulted in matters of interest and affection; the supplanting of

a rival, the acquisition of a heart, and the removal of those who stood in

the way either of a fortune or a conquest. It is needless to observe that

the Egyptian’s wealth increased rapidly; and that humbler visitors had to

turn from his door disappointed, day after day, waiting the leisure of the

celebrated magician.

But if Valeria hurried breathlessly through the dirty and ill‐conditioned

street, she stopped transfixed when she reached its farthest extremity,

and beheld the tribune’s chariot, standing empty in the shade, as though

waiting for its master. The white horses beguiled their period of inaction

in the heat, by stamping, snorting, and tossing their heads, while

Automedon, now nodding drowsily, now staring vacantly about him, scarcely

noticed the figures of the two women, so well were they disguised.

“What can he be doing there?” whispered Valeria anxiously; and Myrrhina

replied in the same cautious tones, “If Placidus be trafficking for

philtres with the Egyptian, take my word for it, madam, there will be less

of love than murder in the draught!”

Then they hurried on faster than before, as if life and death hung upon

the rapidity of their footsteps.

Far back, up a narrow staircase, in a dark and secluded chamber, sat

Petosiris, surrounded by the implements of his art. Enormous as his wealth

was supposed to be, he suffered no symptoms of it to appear, either in his

dwelling or his apparel. The walls of his chamber were bare and weather‐

stained, totally devoid of ornament, save for a mystic figure traced here

and there on their surface, while the floor was scorched, and the ceiling

blackened, with the burning liquids that had fallen on the one, and the

heavy aromatic vapours that clung about the other. The magician’s own

robe, though once of costly materials, and surrounded with a broad border,

on which cabalistic signs and numerals were worked in golden thread, now

sadly frayed, was worn to the last degree of tenuity, and his linen head‐

dress, wound in a multiplicity of folds, till it rose into a peak some two

feet high, was yellow with dirt and neglect. Under this grotesque covering

peered forth a pair of shrewd black eyes, set in a grave emaciated face.

They denoted cunning, audacity, and that restless vigilance which argued

some deficiency or warping of the brain, a tendency, however remote, to

insanity, from which, with all their mental powers, these impostors are

seldom free. There was nothing else remarkable about the man. He had the

deep yellow tint with the supple figure and peculiar nostril of the

Egyptian, and when he rose in compliment to his visitor, his low stature

afforded a quaint contrast to his trailing robes and real dignity of

bearing.

The tribune—for he it was whose entrance disturbed the calculations on

which the magician was engaged—accosted the latter with an air of abrupt

and almost contemptuous familiarity. It was evident that Placidus was a

good customer, one who bought largely while he paid freely; and Petosiris,

throwing aside all assumption of mystery or preoccupation, laughed

pleasantly as he returned the greeting. Yet was there something jarring in

his laugh, something startling in his abrupt transition to the profoundest

gravity; and though his small glittering eyes betrayed a schoolboy’s love

of mischief, gleams shot from them at intervals which expressed a

diabolical malice, and love of evil for evil’s sake.

“Despatch, my man of science!” said the tribune, scarcely noticing the

obeisance and expressions of regard lavished on him by his host. “As usual

I have little time to spare, and less inclination to enter into

particulars. Give me what I want—you have it here in abundance—and let me

begone out of this atmosphere, which is enough to stifle the lungs of an

honest man!”

“My lord! my illustrious patron! my worthiest friend!” replied the other,

with evident enjoyment of his customer’s impatience, “you have but to

command, you know it well, and I obey. Have I not served you faithfully in

all my dealings? Was not the horoscope right to a minute? Did not the

charm protect from evil? and the love philtre ensure success? Have I ever

failed, my noble employer? Speak, mighty tribune; thy slave listens to

obey.”

“Words! words!” replied the other impatiently. “You know what I require.

Produce it, there is the price!”

At the same time he threw a bag of gold on the floor, the weight of which

inferred that secrecy must constitute no small portion of the bargain it

was to purchase. Though he affected utter unconsciousness, the Egyptian’s

eyes flashed at the welcome chink of the metal against the boards; none

the more, however, would he abstain from tantalising the donor by assuming

a misapprehension of his meaning.

“The hour,” said he, “is not propitious for casting a horoscope. Evil

planets are in the ascendant, and the influence of the good genius is

counteracted by antagonistic spells. Thus much I can tell you, noble

tribune, they are of barbarian origin. Come again an hour later to‐morrow,

and I will do your bidding.”

“Fool!” exclaimed Placidus impatiently, at the same time raising his foot

as though to spurn the magician like a dog. “Does a man give half a

helmetful of gold for a few syllables of jargon scrawled on a bit of

scorched parchment? You keep but one sort of wares that fetch a price like

this. Let me have the strongest of them.”

Neither the gesture, nor the insult it implied, was lost on the Egyptian.

Yet he preserved a calm and imperturbable demeanour, while he continued

his irritating inquiries.

“A philtre, noble patron? A love philtre? They are indeed worth any amount

of gold. Maid or matron, vestal virgin or Athenian courtesan, three drops

of that clear tasteless fluid, and she is your own!”

The tribune’s evil smile was deepening round his mouth—it was not safe to

jest with him any further; he stooped over the magician and whispered two

words in his ear; the latter looked up with an expression in which

curiosity, horror, and a perverted kind of admiration, were strangely

blended. Then his eyes twinkled once more with the schoolboy’s mirth and

malice, while he ransacked a massive ebony cabinet, and drew forth a tiny

phial from its secret drawer. Wrapping this in a thin scroll, on which was

written the word _Cave_ (beware!) to denote the fatal nature of its

contents, he hurried it into the tribune’s hands, hid away the bag of

gold, and in a voice trembling with emotion, bade his visitor begone, an

injunction which Placidus obeyed with his usual easy carelessness of

demeanour, stepping daintily into his chariot, as though his errand had

been of the most benevolent and harmless kind.

In the meantime, Valeria, accompanied by her attendant, had reached the

tribune’s house, which she entered with a bold front indeed, but with

shaking limbs. Despite her undaunted nature, all the fears and weaknesses

of her sex were aroused by the task she had set herself to fulfil, and her

woman’s instinct told her that, whatever might be her motives, the

crossing of this notorious threshold was an act she would bitterly repent

at some future time. Myrrhina entertained no such misgivings; she looked

on the whole proceeding as an opportunity to display her own talents for

intrigue, and make herself, if possible, more necessary than ever to the

mistress with whose secrets she was so dangerously familiar.

In the outer hall were lounging a few slaves and freedmen, who welcomed

the entrance of the two women with considerably less respect than one of

them at least was accustomed to consider her due. Damasippus, indeed, with

a coarse jest, strove to snatch away the mask that concealed the lower

part of Valeria’s face, but she released herself from his hold so

energetically as to send him reeling back half a dozen paces, not a little

discomfited by the unexpected strength of that shapely white arm. Then

drawing herself to her full height, and throwing her disguise upon the

floor, she confronted the astonished freedman in her own person, and bade

him stand out of her way.

“I am Valeria!” said she, “and here by your master’s invitation, slave!

for what are you better than a mere slave after all? If I were to hint at

your insolence, he would have you tied to that doorpost, in despite of

your citizenship, and scourged to death, like a disobedient hound. Pick up

those things,” she added loftily, “and show me, some of you, to the

private apartment of your lord. Myrrhina, you may remain outside, but

within call.”

Completely cowed by her demeanour, and no whit relishing the tone in which

she threatened him, Damasippus did as he was commanded; while a couple of

slaves, who had remained till now in the background, ushered the visitor

into another apartment, where they left her with many obsequious

assurances that their lord was expected home every moment.

Every moment! Then there was no time to lose. How her heart beat, and what

a strange instinct it was that made her feel she was in the vicinity of

the man she loved! As yet she had formed no plan, she had made no

determination, she only knew he was in danger, he was to die, and come

what might, at any risk, at any sacrifice, her place was by his side.

Imminent as was the peril, critical as was the moment, through all the

tumult of her feelings, she was conscious of a vague wild happiness to be

near him; and as she walked up and down the polished floor, counting its

tesselated squares mechanically, in her strong mental excitement, she

pressed both hands hard against her bosom, as though to keep the heart

within from beating so fiercely, and to collect all its energies by sheer

strength and force of will.

Thus pacing to and fro, running over in her mind every possible and

impossible scheme for the discovery and release of the slave, whose very

prison she had yet to search out, her quick ear caught the dull and

distant clank of a chain. The sound reached her from an opposite direction

to that of the principal entrance; and as all Roman houses were

constructed on nearly the same plan, Valeria had no fear of losing her way

among the roomy halls and long corridors of her admirer’s mansion. She

held her breath as she hurried on, fortunately without meeting a human

being, for the household slaves of both sexes had disposed themselves in

shady nooks and corners to sleep away the sultriest hours of the day; nor

did she stop till she reached a heavy crimson curtain, screening an inner

court, paved and walled by slabs of white stone that refracted the sun’s

rays with painful intensity. Here she stood still and listened, while her

very lips grew white with emotion, then she drew the curtain, and looked

into the court.

He had dragged himself as far as his chain would permit, to get the

benefit of some two feet of shade close under the stifling wall. A water‐

jar, long since emptied, stood on the floor beside him, accompanied by a

crust of black mouldy bread. A heavy iron collar, which defied alike

strength and ingenuity, was round his throat, while the massive links that

connected it with an iron staple let into the pavement would have held an

elephant. It was obvious the prisoner could neither stand nor even sit

upright without constraint; and the white skin of his neck and shoulders

was already galled and blistered in his efforts to obtain relief by

occasional change of posture. Without the key of the heavy padlock that

fastened chain and collar, Vulcan himself could scarcely have released the

Briton; and Valeria’s heart sank within her as she gazed helplessly round,

and thought of what little avail were her own delicate fingers for such a

task. There seemed no nearer prospect of help even now that she had

reached him; and she clenched her hand with anger while she reflected how

he must have suffered from heat, and thirst, and physical pain, besides

the sense of his degradation and the certainty of his doom.

Nevertheless, extended there upon the hard glowing stones, Esca was

sleeping as sound and peacefully as an infant. His head was pillowed on

one massive arm, half hidden in the clustering yellow locks that showered

across it, and his large shoulders rose and fell regularly with the

measured breathing of a deep and dreamless slumber. She stole nearer

softly, as afraid to wake him, and for a moment came upon Valeria’s face

something of the deep and holy tenderness with which a mother looks upon a

child. Yet light as was that dainty footstep it disturbed, without

actually rousing, the watchful instincts of the sleeper. He stirred and

turned his face upwards with a movement of impatience, while she, hanging

over him and drinking in the beauty that had made such wild work with her

tranquillity, as if her life had neither hope nor fear beyond the ecstasy

of the moment, gazed on his fair features and his closed eyes, till she

forgot time and place and hazard, the emergency of the occasion, and the

errand on which she had herself come. Deeper and deeper sank into her

being the dangerous influence of the hour and the situation. The summer

sky above, the hot dreamy solitude around, and there, down at her

feet—nay, so near, that, while she bent over him, his warm breath stirred

the very hair upon her brow—the only face of man that had ever thrilled

her heart, sleeping so calmly close to her own, and now made doubly dear

by all it had suffered, all it was fated to undergo. Lower and lower,

nearer and nearer, bent her dainty head to meet the slave’s; and as he

stirred once more in his sleep, and a quiet smile stole over his

unconscious countenance, her lips clung to his in one long, loving, and

impassioned kiss.

CHAPTER IV

THE LOVING CUP

As he opened his dreamy eyes she started to her feet, for voices now broke

in on the silence that had hitherto reigned throughout the household, and

the tread of slaves bustling to and fro announced the return of their

lord, a master who brooked no neglect, as well they knew, from those who

were in his service. She had scarcely risen from her posture of soothing

and devoted affection; scarcely had time to shake the long hair off her

face, when Julius Placidus entered the court and stood before her with

that inscrutable expression of countenance which most she hated, and which

left her in complete ignorance as to whether or not he had been in time to

witness the caresses she had lavished on the captive. And now Valeria

vindicated the woman’s nature of which, with all her faults, she partook

so largely. At this critical moment her courage and presence of mind rose

with the occasion; and though, womanlike, she had recourse to

dissimulation, that refuge of the weak, there was something on her brow

that argued, if need were, she would not shrink from the last desperate

resources of the strong. Turning to the tribune with the quiet dignity and

the playful smile that she knew became her so well, she pointed to the

recumbent figure of the Briton, and said gently—

“You gave him to me, and I am here to fetch him. Why is it that of late I

value your lightest gift so much? Placidus, what must you think of me, to

have come unbidden to your house?”

Then she cast down her eyes and drooped her stately head, as though ready

to sink in an agony of love and shame. Deceiver, intriguer, as he had been

ever since the down was on his chin, he was no match for her. He shot,

indeed, one sharp inquisitive glance at Esca, but the slave’s bewildered

gaze reassured him. The latter, worn out with trouble and privation, was

only half awake, and almost imagined himself in a dream. Then the

tribune’s looks softened as they rested on his mistress; and, although

there was a gleam of malicious triumph on his brow, the hard unmeaning

expression left his face, which brightened with more of kindness and

cordiality than was its wont.

“It is no longer house of mine,” said he, “but of yours, beautiful

Valeria! Here you are ever welcome, and here you will remain, will you

not, with him who loves you better than all the world besides?”

Even while he spoke she had run over in her mind the exigencies and

difficulties of her position. In that instant of time she could think of

Esca’s danger—of the necessity that she should herself be present to save

him from the fate with which, for some special reason that she was also

determined to find out, he was obviously threatened—of the tribune’s

infamous character, and her own fair fame; for Cornelia might not have

left such a house as that with her reputation unscathed, and Valeria could

far less afford to tamper with so fragile and shadowy a possession than

the severe mother of the Gracchi. Yet her brow was unclouded, and there

was nothing but frank good‐humour in her tone while she replied—

“Nay, Placidus. You know that even we of the patrician order cannot do

always as we would. Surely I have risked enough already; because—because I

fancied you left me in anger, and I could not bear the thought even for an

hour. I will but ask you for a cup of wine and begone. Myrrhina

accompanied me here, and we can return, unknown and unsuspected, as we

came.”

He wished nothing better. A cup of wine, a sumptuous feast spread on the

moment, garlands of flowers, heavy perfumes loading the sultry air; soft

music stealing on the senses gently as the faint breeze that whispered

through the drowsy shade. All the voluptuous accessories so adapted to a

pleading tongue and so dangerous to a willing ear. He had never known them

fail; it should not be the fault of master or household if they proved

useless now.

He took Valeria respectfully by the hand, and led her to the large

banqueting‐hall with as much deference as though she had been Cæsar’s

wife. None knew better than the tribune how scrupulously all the honours

of war must be paid to a fortress about to capitulate. As he bent before

her, the phial he had purchased from Petosiris peeped forth in the bosom

of his tunic, and her quick eye did not fail to detect it. In an instant

she turned back as though stumbling on the skirt of her robe, and in the

action made a rapid sign to Esca by raising her hand to her mouth,

accompanied by a warning shake of the head and a glance from her eloquent

eyes, that she trusted he would understand as forbidding him to taste

either food or drink till her return. Once more, whilst she made this

covert signal, the set and passionless look came over the tribune’s face.

Cunning, cautious as she might think herself, his snake‐like eye had seen

enough. At that moment Placidus had resolved Esca should die within the

hour. Then those two walked gracefully into the adjoining hall, and seated

themselves at the banquet with a scrupulous courtesy and strict observance

of the outward forms of good breeding; while the slaves who waited

believed that the whole proceeding was but one of their lord’s usual

affairs of gallantry, and that the noble pair before them loved each other

well.

The tribune, like the rest of his sex, was no large eater when making

love; and an appetite that could accompany Vitellius through the most

elaborate banquets of the gluttonous Cæsar was satisfied with a handful of

dates and a bunch or two of grapes in the presence of Valeria. She, too,

in her anxiety and agitation, felt as if every morsel would choke her; but

she pledged her host willingly in a goblet of red Falernian, with a vague

idea that every moment she could keep his attention employed was of

priceless value, clingingly almost hopelessly to the chance of obtaining

by some means the possession of the fatal phial before it was too late.

He was in high spirits,—voluble, witty, eloquent, sarcastic, but devoted

to her. In the moment, as he hoped, of his triumph he could afford to

show, or rather to affect, more of delicacy and generosity than she had

believed him to possess, and she loathed and hated him all the more. Once,

when, after enunciating a sentiment of the warmest regard and attachment,

she caught the expression of his eyes as they looked into her own, she

glanced wildly round the room, and clenched her hand with rage to observe

that the walls were bare of weapons. He was no stately, high‐spirited

Agamemnon, this supple intriguer, yet had there been sword, axe, or dagger

within reach of that white arm, she would have asked nothing better than

to enact the part of Clytemnestra. How she wished to be a man for the

moment—ay, and a strong one! She felt she could have strangled him there,

hateful and smiling on the couch! Oh! for Esca’s thews and sinews! Esca—so

fair, and brave, and honest! Her brain swam when she thought of him

chained, like a beast, within ten paces of her. An effort must be made to

save him at any risk and at any sacrifice.

Placidus talked gaily on, broaching in turn those topics of luxury,

dissipation, and even vice, which constituted the everyday life of the

patrician order at Rome, and she forced herself to reply with an affected

levity and indifference that nearly drove her mad. Cæsar’s banquets;

Galeria’s yellow head‐gear, and the bad taste in which her jewels were

set, so inexcusable in an emperor’s wife; the war in Judæa; the last

chariot race; and the rival merits of the Red and Green factions, were

canvassed and dismissed with a light word and a happy jest. Such subjects

inevitably led to a discussion on the arena and its combatants, the

magnificence of the late exhibition, and the tribune’s own prowess in the

deadly game. Placidus turned suddenly, as if recollecting himself, called

for a slave, whispered an order in his ear, and bade him begone. The man

hastened from the room, leaving lover and mistress once more alone.

The presence of mind and self‐command on which she prided herself now

completely deserted Valeria. In an agony of alarm for Esca, she jumped at

once to the conclusion that his doom was gone forth. The tribune, turning

to her with some choice phrase, half‐jest, half‐compliment, was startled

to observe her face colourless to the very lips, while her large eyes

shone with a fierce, unnatural light. Uttering a low stifled cry, like

that of some wild animal in its death‐pang, she fell at his feet, clasping

him round the knees, and gasped out—

“Spare him! spare him! Placidus—beloved Placidus! spare him—for _my_

sake!”

Her host, whose whole mind at that moment was occupied with thoughts very

foreign to bloodshed, and whose whispered mandate had reference to nothing

more deadly than orders for a strain of unexpected music, gazed in

astonishment at the proud woman thus humbled before him to the dust. He

had, indeed, intended to despatch Esca quietly by poison before nightfall,

and so get rid at once of an inconvenient witness and a possible rival;

but for the present he had dismissed the slave completely from his mind.

If, an hour ago, he had allowed himself to harbour such a wild fancy, as

that a mere barbarian should have captivated the woman on whom he had set

his affections, her voluntary acceptance of his hospitality and her

cordial demeanour since, had dispelled so foolish and unjust a suspicion,

which he wondered he could have entertained even for a moment. Now,

however, a chill seemed to curdle the blood about his heart. Very quietly

he raised her from the floor; but, though he was not conscious of it, his

grasp left a mark upon her wrist. Very distinct and steady were the tones

in which he soothed her, asking courteously—

“Whom do you wish me to spare? What is it, Valeria? Surely you are not

still dwelling on that barbarian slave? What is he, to come between you

and me? It is too late—too late!”

“Never! never!” she gasped out, seizing his hand in both her own, and

folding it to her breast. “It is no time now for concealment; no time for

choice phrases, and mock reserve, and false shame! I love him, Placidus! I

love him!—do you hear? Grant me but his life, and ask me for everything I

have in return!”

She looked beautiful as she knelt before him once more, so dishevelled and

disordered, with upturned face and streaming hair. It seemed to the

tribune as though a knife had been driven home to his heart; but he

collected all his energies for a revenge commensurate to the hurt, as he

threw himself indolently on the couch, a worse man by a whole age of

malice than he had risen from it a few seconds before.

“Why did you not tell me sooner?” said he, in accents of the calmest

courtesy and self‐command. “Fair Valeria! not more bargains are driven

every day in the Forum than in the courts of Love! You offer liberal

terms. It seems to me we have nothing left to do but to settle the

remainder of the agreement.”

What a price was she paying for her interference! Not a woman in Rome

could have felt more deeply the degradation she was accepting, the insult

to which she was submitting; and through it all she was miserably

conscious of a false move in the game she had the temerity to play against

this formidable adversary. Still she had resolved that she would shrink

from no humiliation to save Esca, and she blushed blood‐red with anger and

shame as she rose from her knees, hid her face in her hands, while she

summoned her woman’s wit and her woman’s powers of endurance to help her

in the emergency.

He, too, had bethought him of an appropriate revenge. The tribune never

forgave; for such an offence as the present it was his nature to seek

reprisals, exceeding, in their subtle cruelty, the injury they were to

atone. There is no venom so deadly as a bad man’s love turned to gall. It

would be fine sport, thought Placidus, to make her slay this yellow‐haired

darling of hers with her own hand. The triumph would be complete, when he

had outwitted her at every point, and could sneer politely over the dead

body of the man, and the passionate reproaches of the woman. The first

step to so tempting a consummation was, of course, to put her off her

guard, and for this it would be necessary to assume some natural

displeasure and pique; too open a brow would surely arouse suspicions, so

he spoke angrily, in the harsh excited tones of a generous man who has

been wronged.

“I have been deceived,” said he, striking his hand against the board;

“deceived, duped, scorned, and by you, Valeria, from whom I did not

deserve it. Shame on the woman who could thus wring an honest heart for

the mere triumph of her vanity! And yet,” he added, with an admirable

appearance of wounded feeling in his lowered voice and relenting accents,

“I can forgive, because I would not others should suffer as I do now. Yes,

Valeria’s wishes are still laws to me; I _will_ spare him for your sake,

and you shall bear the news to him yourself. But he must be half dead ere

this, of thirst and exhaustion; take him a cup of wine with your own fair

hands, and tell him he will be a free man before sunset!”

While he spoke, he turned from her to a sideboard, on which stood a tall

jar of Falernian, flanked by a pair of silver goblets. She had sunk from

the couch beside him, and was resting her head upon the table; but she

looked up quickly for a moment, and saw his back reflected in the

burnished surface of a gold vase that stood before her. By the motion of

his shoulders she was aware that he had taken something from his bosom

while he filled the wine. The whole danger of the situation flashed upon

her at once; she felt intuitively that one of the cups was poisoned; she

could risk her life to find out which. Her tears were dried, her nerves

were strung, as if by magic; like a different being she rose to her feet

now, pale and beautiful, but perfectly calm and composed.

“You do love me, Placidus,” said she, raising one of the goblets from the

salver on which they stood. “Such truth as yours might win any woman. I

pledge you, to show that we are friends again at least, if nothing more!”

She was in the act of putting it to her lips, when he interposed, somewhat

hurriedly, and with a voice not so steady as usual—

“One moment!” he exclaimed, taking it from her hand, and setting it down

again in its place, “we have not made our terms yet; the treaty must be

signed and sealed; a libation must be poured to the gods. It is a strong

rough wine, that Falernian: I have some Coan here you would like better.

You see I have not forgotten your tastes.”

He laughed nervously, and his lip twitched; she knew now that it was the

right‐hand goblet which held the poison. Both were equally full, and they

stood close together on the salver.

“And this man could not slay me after all,” was the thought that for a

moment softened her heart, and bade her acknowledge some shadow of

compunction for her admirer. Bad as he was, she could not help reflecting

that to her influence he owed the only real feeling his life had ever

known, and it made her waver, but not for long. Soon the image of Esca,

chained and prostrate, passed before her, and the remembrance of her

odious bargain goaded her into the bitterest hatred once more.

She placed her hand in the tribune’s with the abandonment of a woman who

really loves, she turned her eyes on his with the swimming glance of which

she had not miscalculated the power.

“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I have never valued you, never known you till

now. I was heartless, unfeeling, mad; but I have learned a lesson to‐day

that neither of us will ever forget. No, we will never quarrel again!”

He clasped her in his arms, he took her to his heart, his brain reeled,

his senses failed him, that bewitching beauty seemed to pervade his being,

to surround him with its fragrance like some intoxicating vapour; and

whilst his frame thrilled, and his lips murmured out broken words of

fondness, the white hand thrown so confidingly across his shoulder had

shifted the position of the goblets, and the heart that beat so wildly

against his own had doomed him remorselessly to die.

She extricated herself from his embrace, she put her hair back from her

brow; love is blind, indeed, or it must have struck him that instead of

blushing with conscious fondness, her cheek was as white and cold as

marble, though she kept her eyes cast down as if they dared not meet his

own.

“Pledge me,” said she, in a tone of the utmost softness, and forcing a

playful smile that remained, carved as it were, in fixed lines round her

mouth; “drink to me in token of forgiveness; it will be the sweetest

draught I have ever tasted when your lips have kissed the cup.”

He reached his hand out gaily to the salver. Her heart stood still in the

agony of her suspense, lest he should mark the change she had made so

warily; but the goblets were exactly alike, and he seized the nearest

without hesitation, and half‐emptied it ere he set it down. Laughing, he

was in the act of handing to her what remained, when his eye grew dull,

his jaw dropped, and, stammering some broken syllables, he sank back

senseless upon the couch.

She would have almost given Esca’s life now to undo the deed. But it was

no time for repentance or indecision; keeping her eyes off the white

vacant face, which yet seemed ever before her, she felt resolutely in the

bosom of the tribune’s tunic for the precious key, and having found it,

walked steadily to the door and listened. It was well she did so, for a

slave’s step was heard rapidly approaching, and she had but time to

return, on tiptoe, and take her place upon the couch ere the domestic

entered; disposing of the tribune’s powerless head upon her lap as though

he had sunk to sleep in her embrace. The slave discreetly retired, but

short as was its duration, the torture of those few seconds was hardly

inadequate to the guilt that had preceded them. Then she hurried through

the well‐known passages, and reached the court in which Esca was confined.

Not a word of explanation, not a syllable of fondness escaped her lips as

she calmly liberated the man for whom she had risked so much.

Mechanically, and like a sleep‐walker, she unlocked the collar round his

neck, signing to him at the same time, for she seemed incapable of speech,

to rise and follow her. He obeyed, scarce knowing what he did, astonished

at the apparition of his deliverer, and almost scared by her ghastly looks

and strange imperious gestures. Thus they threaded, without interruption,

the passages of the house, and emerged from the private entrance into the

now silent and deserted street. Then came the reaction; Valeria could bear

up no longer, and trembling all over while she clung to Esca, but for

whose arm she must have fallen, she burst into a passion of sobs upon his

breast.

CHAPTER V

SURGIT AMARI

[Initial S]

She had known but few moments of happiness, that proud unbending woman, in

the course of her artificial life. Now, though remorse was gnawing at her

heart, there was such a wild delight in the Briton’s presence, such

ecstasy in the consciousness of having saved him, though at the price of a

hateful crime, that the pleasure kept down and stifled the pain. It was a

new sensation to cling to that stalwart form and acknowledge him for her

lord whom others deemed a mere barbarian and a slave. It was intense joy

to think that she had penetrated his noble character; that she had given

him her love unasked, when such a gift could alone have saved him from

destruction; and that she had grudged no price at which to ransom him for

herself. It was the first time in Valeria’s whole existence that she had

vindicated her woman’s birthright of merging her own existence in

another’s, and for the moment this engrossing consciousness completely

altered the whole character and training of the patrician lady. Myrrhina,

walking discreetly some ten paces behind, could hardly believe in the

identity of that drooping form, faltering in step, and timid in gesture,

with her imperious and wilful mistress. This vigilant damsel, who was

never flurried nor surprised, had effected her escape from the domestics

of the tribune’s household, at the moment her practised ear caught the

light footstep of Valeria making its way to the door; and although she

scarcely expected to see the latter pacing home with the captive at her

side, as oblivious of her waiting‐maid’s existence, as of everything else

in the world, she was quite satisfied to observe that this preoccupation

was the result of interest in her companion. So long as an intrigue was on

foot, it mattered little to Myrrhina who might be its originators or its

victims.

They had not proceeded far before Esca stopped, waking up like a man from

a dream.

“I owe you my life,” he said, in his calm voice and foreign accent, that

made such music to her ear. “How shall I ever repay you, noble lady? I

have nothing to give but the strength of my right arm, and of what service

can such as I be to such as you?”

She blushed deeply, and cast down her eyes.

“We are not safe yet,” she answered. “We will talk of this when we get

home.”

He looked before him down the stately street, with its majestic porticoes,

its towering palaces, and its rows of lofty pillars, stretching on in

grand perspective till they met the dusky crimson of the evening sky; and

perhaps he was thinking of a free upland, and blue hills, and laughing

sunshine glittering on the mere and trembling in the green wood far away

at home, for he only answered by repeating her last word with a sigh, and

adding: “There is none for me; a wanderer, an outcast, and a degraded

man.”

She seemed to check the outburst that was rising to her lips, and she kept

her eyes off his face, while she whispered—

“I have determined to save you. Do you not know that there is nothing you

can ask me which I will not grant?”

He raised her hand to his lips, but the gesture partook more of the

dependant’s homage than the lover’s rapture. She felt instinctively that

it was a tribute of gratitude and loyalty, not an impassioned caress. For

the second time, something seemed to warn her she had better have left

that day’s work undone. Then she began to talk rapidly of the dangers they

might undergo from pursuit, of the necessity for immediate flight to her

house, and close concealment when there; wandering wildly on from one

subject to another, and apparently but half‐conscious of anything she

said. At last he asked her eagerly, even sternly—

“And the tribune? What of him? How could you release me from his power? I

tell you, I had the life of Placidus in my hand, as completely as if I had

been standing over him in the amphitheatre with my foot on his neck. Would

any price have purchased me from him, with all I knew?”

The crimson rose to her brow as she answered hurriedly, “No price! Believe

me, no price that man could offer, or woman either! Esca, do not think

worse of me than I deserve!”

“Then why am I here?” he continued, with a softened look; “I would like

well to discover the secret by which Valeria can charm such a man as

Placidus to her will.”

She was very pale now.

“The tribune will claim you no more,” said she; “I have settled that

account for ever.”

He did not understand her, yet he dropped the hand he held and walked on a

little farther from her side. She felt her punishment had already

commenced, and when she spoke again it was in hard cold accents quite

unlike her own.

“He crossed my path, Esca, and he met the fate of all who are rash enough

to oppose Valeria. What motives of pity, or love, or honour, would avail

with Placidus? When did he ever swerve a hair’s‐breadth from his goal for

any consideration but self? I knew him, ah! too well. There was but one

invincible argument for the tribune, and I used it. I slew him—slew him

there, upon his couch; but it was to save you!”

Perhaps he felt he was ungrateful. Perhaps he tried to think that he, at

least, had no right to judge her harshly; that such devotion for his sake

should have made him look with indulgent eye, even on so foul a crime as

murder; but he could not control the repugnance and horror that now rose

in him for this beautiful, reckless, and unscrupulous woman: but while he

strove to conceal his feelings, and to mask them with an air of deference

and gratitude, she knew by the instinct of love all that was passing in

his breast, and suffered, as those only can suffer, who have thrown

honour, virtue, conscience, everything to the winds, to purchase but the

conviction that their shameful sacrifice has been in vain. She determined

to put a period to the tortures she was enduring. Ere this, they had

reached the street, from which opened the private entrance into her own

grounds. Myrrhina, though within sight, still kept discreetly in the rear.

This was the situation, this was the moment that Valeria had pictured to

herself in many a rapturous day‐dream, that seemed too impossibly happy

ever to come to pass. To have ransomed him from some great danger at some

equivalent price; to have led him off with her in triumph; those two

pacing by themselves through the deserted streets at the witching sunset

hour; to have brought him home her own, her very own, to this identical

gate exactly in this manner; to have none between them, none to watch

them, except faithful Myrrhina, and to see before her a long future of

uninterrupted sunshine, this it had been ecstasy to dream of—and now it

had come, and brought with it a dull sickening sensation that was worse

than pain. She had a brave rebellious nature, in keeping with the haughty

head and stately form hereditary in her line. No scion of that noble old

house would shrink or quiver under mental, any more than under bodily,

torture. Among the ancestral busts that graced her cornices, was that of

one who endured with a calm set face to watch his own hand shrivelled up

and crackling in the glowing coals. His descendants, male and female,

partook of that unflinching character; and not Mutius Scævola himself,

erect and stern before the Tuscan king, had more of the desperate tenacity

which sets fate itself at defiance, than lurked under the soft white skin,

and the ready smile, and the voluptuous beauty of proud Valeria.

She looked prouder and fairer than ever now, as she stopped at her own

gate and confronted the Briton.

[Illustration: ‘You are safe she said’]

“You are safe,” she said, and what it cost her to say it none knew but

herself. “You are free besides, and at liberty to go where you will.”

The rapture with which he kissed her hand while she spoke, the gleam of

delight that lit up his whole face, the intense gratitude with which he

bowed himself to the ground before her, smote like repeated strokes of a

dagger to her heart. She continued in accents of well‐acted indifference,

though a less preoccupied observer might have marked the quivering eyelid

and dilated nostril—

“You may have friends whom you long to see—friends who have been anxious

about your safety. Though it seems,” she added, ironically, “they have

taken but little pains to set you out of danger.”

Esca was always frank and honest; this was, perhaps, the charm that,

combined with his yellow locks and broad shoulders, so endeared him to the

Roman lady. She was unaccustomed to these qualities in the men she usually

met.

“I have no friends,” he answered, rather sadly; “none in the whole of this

great city, except perhaps yourself, noble lady, who care whether I am

alive or dead. Yet I have one mission, for the power of performing which

this very night I thank you far more than for saving my life. To‐morrow,

it would be too late.”

The tone was less that of a question than an assertion, in which she

forced out the words—

“It concerns that dark‐eyed girl! Esca, do not fear to tell me the truth.”

A faint red stole over the young man’s brow. They were standing together

within the garden‐wall on the smooth lawn that sloped towards the house.

The black cedars cut clear and distinct against the pure serene opal of

the fading sky. A star or two were dimly visible, and not a breath stirred

the silent foliage of the holm‐oaks, folded as it were in sleep, or the

drooping flowers, drowsy with the very weight of fragrance they exhaled.

It was the time and place for a confession of love. What a mockery it

seemed to Valeria to stand there and watch his rising colour, and listen

to the faltering voice in which he betrayed his secret!

“I must save her, noble lady,” said he; “I must save her this very night,

whatever else be left undone. Be he dead or alive, she shall not enter the

tribune’s house, whilst I can strike a blow or grasp an enemy by the

throat. Lady, you have earned my eternal gratitude, my eternal service;

give me but this one night, and I return to‐morrow to be the humblest and

most willing of your slaves for ever after.”

“And see her no more?” asked Valeria, with a choking throat and a strong

tendency to burst into tears.

“And see her no more,” repeated Esca, sadly and resignedly.

There was no mistaking the tone of manly, unselfish, and utterly hopeless

love. Valeria passed her hand across her face, and tried more than once to

speak. At last she muttered in a hoarse hard voice—

“You love her then very dearly?”

He raised his head proudly, and a smile came on his lips, a light into his

blue eyes. She remembered how he had looked so in the arena, when he gave

his salute before the imperial chair. She remembered, too, a pair of dark

eyes and a pale face that followed his every movement.

“So dearly,” was his answer, “that can I but rescue her I will gladly

bargain to give her up and never even look on her again. How can I think

of myself when the question is of her happiness and her safety?”

Valeria with all her faults was a woman. She had indeed dreamed of an

affection such as this, an affection purified from the dross and alloy

that combine to form so much of what men call love. She might not be

capable of feeling it, but, womanlike, she could admire and appreciate the

nobility of its aspirations, and the ideal standard to which it stretched.

Womanlike, too, she was not to be outdone in generosity, and Esca’s

proposal of returning to her household, and submitting to her will

directly he had accomplished his errand, disarmed her completely. She was

not accustomed to analyse her feelings, or to check the reckless impulse

which always bade her act on the spur of the moment. She did not stop to

consider to‐morrow’s repentance, nor the grudging regrets which would goad

her when the excitement of her self‐denial had died out, and the blank

that had hitherto rendered existence so dreary would be even less

tolerable than before. If a shadowy misgiving that she would repent her

concession hereafter passed for a moment across her mind, she hastened to

repress it, ere it should warp her better intentions; and she could urge

him to leave her now, with all the more importunity, that she dared not

trust her heart to waver for an instant in the sacrifice.

“You are alone,” said she, calming herself with a great effort, and

speaking very quick. “Alone in this great city, but you are loyal and

brave. Such men are rare here and are worth a legion. Still, you must have

gold in your bosom and steel at your belt, if you would succeed. You shall

take both from me, and you will tell the dark‐eyed girl that it was

Valeria who saved her and you.”

His blue eyes turned upon her with looks of the deepest, the most fervent

gratitude, and again the wild love surged up in her heart, and threatened

to swamp every consideration but its own irresistible longing. His answer,

however, sent it ebbing coldly back again.

“We shall be ever grateful; oh! that either of us could prove it! We shall

not forget Valeria.”

Myrrhina thought her mistress had never looked so queenly, as when she

called her up at this juncture, and bade her fetch a purse of gold from

her own cabinet, and one of the swords that hung in the vestibule, and

deliver them to Esca. Then, very erect and pale, Valeria walked towards

the house, apparently insensible to his thanks and protestations, but

turned round ere she had reached the threshold, and gave him her hand to

kiss. Myrrhina returning from her errand, saw the face that was bent over

him as he stooped in act of homage, and even that hollow‐hearted girl was

touched by its wild, tender, and mournful expression, but ere he could

look up, it was cold and passionless as marble once more. Then she

disappeared slowly through the porch, and Myrrhina with all her daring had

not the courage to follow her into the privacy of her own chamber.

CHAPTER VI

DEAD LEAVES

The stars shone brilliantly down on the roofs of the great city—roofs that

covered in how various a multitude of hopes, fears, wishes, crimes, joys,

study, debaucheries, toil, and repose. What enormities were veiled by a

tile some half an inch thick! What contrasts separated by a partition of a

deal plank, and a crevice stopped with mortar! Here, a poor worn son of

toil, working with bleared eyes and hollow cheeks to complete the pittance

that a whole day’s labour was insufficient to attain; there, a sleek

pampered slave, snoring greasily on his pallet, drenched with pilfered

wine, and gorged with the fat leavings of his master’s meal. On this side

the street, a whole family penned helplessly together in a stifling

garret; on that, a spacious palace, with marble floors, and airy halls,

and lofty corridors, devoted to the occasional convenience and the

shameful pleasures of one man—a patrician in rank, a senator in office;

yet, notwithstanding, a profligate, a coward, a traitor, and a debauchee.

Could those roofs have been taken off; could those chambers have been

bared to the million eyes of night that seemed to be watching her so

intently, what a mass of corruption would Imperial Rome have laid bare!

There were plague‐spots under her purple, festering and spreading and

eating into the very marrow of the mistress of the world. Up six storeys,

under the slanting roof, in a miserable garret, a scene was being enacted,

bad as it was, far below the nightly average of vice and treachery in

Rome.

Dismissed from their patron’s house when he had no further need of their

attendance, and, so to speak, off duty for the day, Damasippus and Oarses

had betaken themselves to their home in order to prepare for the exploits

of the night. That home was of the cheapest and most wretched among the

many cheap and wretched lodgings to be found in the overgrown yet crowded

city. Four bare walls bulging and blistered with the heat, supported the

naked rafters on which rested the tiles, yet glowing from an afternoon

sun. A wooden bedstead, rickety and creaking, with a coarse pallet,

through the rents of which the straw peeped and rustled, occupied one

corner, and a broken jar of common earthenware, but of a sightly design

copied from the Greek, half‐full of tepid water, stood in another. These

constituted the only furniture of the apartment, except a few irregular

shelves filled with unguents, cosmetics, and the inevitable pumice‐stone,

by which the fashionable Roman studied to eradicate every superfluous hair

from his unmanly cheek and limbs. A broken Chiron, in common plaster, yet

showing marks of undoubted genius where the shoulders and hoofs of the

Centaur had escaped mutilation, kept guard over these treasures, and

filled a place that in the pious days of the old Republic, however humble

the dwelling, would have been occupied by the Lares and Penates of the

hearth. A mouldy crust of bread, slipped from the lid of an open trunk

full of clothing, lay on the floor, and a wine‐jar emptied to the dregs

stood by its side. The two inhabitants, however, of this squalid apartment

betrayed in their persons none of the misery in keeping with their

dwelling‐place. They were tolerably well fed, because their meals were

usually furnished at their patron’s expense; they contrived to be well

dressed, because a decent and even wealthy appearance was creditable to

their patron’s generosity, and indispensable to many of the duties he

called upon them to perform—dirty work indeed, but only to be done,

nevertheless, with clean clothes and an assured countenance; so that the

exterior both of Damasippus and Oarses would have offered no discredit to

the ante‐room of Cæsar himself. But they were men of pleasure as the word

is understood in great cities—men who lived solely for the sensual

indulgences of the body; and it was their nature to spend their gains,

chiefly ill‐gotten, in those debasing luxuries which an insatiable demand

enabled Rome to supply to her public at the lowest possible cost, to sun

themselves, as it were, in the glare of that gaudy vice which walks abroad

in the streets, and then creep back into their loathsome hole, like

reptiles as they were.

Damasippus, whose plump well‐rounded form and clear colour afforded a

remarkable contrast to the lithe shape and sallow tint of Oarses, was the

first to speak. He had been watching the Egyptian intently, while the

latter went through the painful and elaborate ceremonies of a protracted

toilet, rasping his chin with pumice‐stone, smoothing and greasing his

dark locks with a preparation of lard and perfumed oil, and finally

drawing a needle charged with lampblack carefully and painfully through

his closed eyelids, in order to lengthen the line of the eye, and give it

that soft languishing expression so prized by Orientals of either sex.

Damasippus, waxing impatient, then, at the evident satisfaction with which

his friend pursued the task of adornment, broke out irritably—

“And of course it is to be the old story again! As usual, mine the

trouble, and, by Hercules! no small share of the danger, now that the town

is swarming with soldiers, all discontented and ill‐paid. While yours, the

credit, and very likely the reward, and nothing to do but to whine out a

few coaxing syllables, and make yourself as like an old woman as you can.

No difficult task either,” he added, with a half‐sarcastic, half‐good‐

humoured laugh.

The other lingered before a few inches of cracked mirror, which seemed to

rivet his attention, and put the finishing touches to either eyelid with

infinite care, ere he replied—

“Every tool to its own work; and every man to his special trade. The

wooden‐headed mallet to drive home the sharp wedge. The brute force of

Damasippus to support the fine skill of Oarses.”

“And the sword of a Roman,” retorted the other, who, like many untried

men, was somewhat boastful of his mettle, “to hew a path for the

needlework of an Egyptian. Well, at least the needle is in appropriate

hands. By all the fountains of Caria thou hast the true feminine leer in

thine eye, the very swing of thy draperies seems to say, ‘Follow me, but

not too near.’ The clasp of Salmacis herself could not have effected a

more perfect transformation. Oarses, thou lookest an ugly old woman to the

life!”

In truth the Egyptian’s disguise was now nearly complete. The dark locks,

smoothed and flattened, were laid in modest bands about his head; the

matronly stole, or gown, gathered at the breast by a broad girdle, and

fastened with a handsome clasp high on the shoulder, descended in long

sweeping lines to his feet, where it was ornamented by a broad and

elaborate flounce of embroidery. Over the whole was disposed in graceful

folds a large square shawl of the finest texture, dark‐coloured but woven

through with glistening golden threads, and further set off by a wide

golden fringe. It formed a veil and cloak in one, and might easily be

arranged to conceal the figure as well as the face of the wearer. Oarses

was not a little proud of the dainty feminine grace with which he wore the

head‐gear, and as he tripped to and fro across the narrow floor of his

garret, it would have taken a sharper eye than that of keen Damasippus

himself to detect the disguise of his wily confederate.

“A woman, my friend,” he replied, somewhat testily, “but not such an ugly

one, after all; as thou wilt find to thy cost when we betake ourselves to

the streets. I look to thee, my Damasippus,” he added maliciously, “to

protect thy fair companion from annoyance and insult.”

Damasippus was a coward, and he knew it, so he answered stoutly—

“Let them come, let them come! a dozen at a time if they will. What! a

good blade and a light helmet is enough for me, though you put me at half‐

sword with a whole maniple of gladiators! The patron knows what manhood

is, none better. Why should he have selected Damasippus for this

enterprise, but that he judges my arm is iron, and my heart is oak?”

“And thy forehead brass,” added the Egyptian, scarcely concealing a

contemptuous smile.

“And my forehead brass,” repeated the other, obviously gratified by the

compliment. “Nay, friend, the shrinking heart, and the failing arm, and

the womanly bearing, are no disgrace, perhaps, to a man born by the tepid

Nile; but we who drink from the Tiber here (and very foul it is)—we of the

blood of Romulus, the she‐wolf’s litter, and the war‐god’s line—are never

so happy as when our feet are reeling in the press of battle, our hearts

leaping to the clash of shields, and our ears deafened by the shout of

victory. Hark! what is that?”

The boaster’s face turned very pale, and he hastily unbuckled the sword he

had been girding on while he spoke; for a wild, ominous cry came sweeping

over the roofs of the adjoining houses, rising and falling, as it seemed,

with the sway of deadly strife, and boding, in its fierce fluctuations, to

some a cruel triumph, to others a merciless defeat.

Oarses heard it too. His dark face scarce looked like a woman’s now, with

its gleam of malicious glee and exulting cunning.

“The old Prætorians are up,” said he quietly. “I have been expecting this

for a week. Brave soldier, there will be a fill of fighting for thee this

night in the streets; and goodly spoils, too, for the ready hand, and love

and wine, and all the rest of it, without the outlay of a farthing.”

“But it will not be safe to be seen in arms now,” gasped Damasippus,

sitting down on the tester‐bed, with a white flabby face, and a general

appearance of being totally unstrung. “Besides,” he added, with a

ludicrous attempt at reasserting his dignity, “a brave Roman should not

engage in civil war.”

Oarses reflected for a moment, undisturbed by a second shout, that made

his frightened companion tremble in every limb; then he smoothed his

brows, and spoke in soothing and persuasive tones.