No sooner was the master’s back turned than the Greek sped into the

street, glancing eagerly down its long vista, lying white in the

moonlight, for the two dark figures he sought. Agile and noiseless as a

panther, he skulked swiftly along under the shadow of the houses, till he

reached the corner which a passenger would turn who was bound for Tiber‐

side. Here he made sure that he must sight his prey; but no, amongst the

few wayfarers who dotted this less solitary district he looked in vain for

Esca’s towering shoulders or the shrinking figure of the Jewess. In vain,

like a hound, he quested to and fro, now casting forward upon a vague

speculation, now trying back with untiring perseverance and determination.

Like a hound, too, whose game has foiled him, he was obliged to slink home

at length, ashamed and baffled, to the porch of the tribune’s house,

inventing as he went a plausible excuse to host and comrades for his tardy

appearance at the banquet. He had passed, nevertheless, within twenty

paces of those he hunted, but he knew it not.

With the first rapture of intense joy for their escape, it was in the

nature of Mariamne that her predominant feeling should be one of gratitude

to Heaven for thus preserving both herself and him whose life was dearer

to her than her own. In common with her nation, she believed in the

constant and immediate interposition of the Almighty in favour of His

servants; and the new faith, which was rapidly gaining ground in her

heart, had tempered the awe in which His worshipper regards the Deity,

with the implicit trust, and love, and confidence, entertained for its

father by a child. Such feelings can but find an outlet in thanksgiving

and prayer. Before Mariamne had gone ten paces from the tribune’s house,

she stopped short, looked up in Esca’s face, and said: “Let us kneel

together, and thank God for our deliverance.”

“Not here at least!” exclaimed the Briton, whose nerves, good as they

were, had been somewhat unstrung by the vicissitudes of the night, and the

apprehensions that had racked him for his beloved companion. “They may

return at any moment. You are not safe even now. If you are so exhausted

you cannot go on (for she was leaning heavily on his arm, and her head

drooped), I will carry you in my arms from here to your father’s house. My

love, I would carry you through the world.”

She smiled sweetly on him, though her face was very pale. “Let us turn in

at this ruined gateway,” said she; “a few moments’ rest will restore me;

and, Esca, I must give thanks to the God of Israel, who has saved both

thee and me.”

They were near a crumbling archway, with a broken iron gate that had

fallen in. It was on the opposite side of the street to the tribune’s

house; and as they passed beneath its mouldering span, they saw that it

formed an entrance into one of those wildernesses, which, after the great

fire of Nero, existed here and there, not only in the suburbs, but at the

very heart of Rome. They were, in truth, in that desolate waste which had

once been the famous Esquiline Gardens, originally a burial‐ground, and

granted by Augustus to his favourite, the illustrious Mæcenas, to plant

and decorate according to his prolific fancy and unimpeachable taste. That

learned nobleman had taken advantage of his emperor’s liberality to build

here a stately palace, which had not, however, escaped the great fire, and

to lay out extensive pleasure‐grounds, which had been devastated by the

same calamity. Little, indeed, now remained, save the trees that had

originally shadowed the Roman’s grave in the days of the old Republic. The

“unwelcome cypresses” so touchingly described in his most reflective ode,

by him whose genius Mæcenas fostered, and whose gratitude paid his

princely patron back by rendering him immortal.

Many a time had Horace lounged in these pleasant shades, musing with

quaint and varied fancies, half pathetic, half grotesque, on the business

and the pleasures, the sunshine and the shadows, the aim and the end, of

that to him inexplicable problem, a man’s short life. Here, too, perhaps,

he speculated on the mythology, to the beauty of which his poetic

imagination was so keenly alive, while his strong common sense and

somewhat material character must have been so utterly incredulous of its

truth. Nay, on this very spot did he not ridicule certain superstitions of

his countrymen, with a coarseness that is only redeemed by its wit? and

preserve, in pungent sarcasm, for coming ages, the memory of an indecent

statue on the Esquiline, as he has preserved in sweet and glowing lines

the glades of cool Præneste, or the terraced vineyards basking in the

glare and glitter of noonday on Tibur’s sunny slopes? Here, perhaps, many

a time may have been seen the stout sleek form, so round and well‐cared

for, with its clean white gown, and dainty shining head, crowned with a

garland of festive roses, and not wanting, be sure, a festive goblet in

its hand. Here may the poet have sat out many a joyous hour in the shade,

with mirth, and song, and frequent sips of old Falernian, and a vague

dreary fancy the while ever present, though unacknowledged—like a death’s‐

head at the banquet—that feast, and jest, and song could not last for

ever, but that the time must come at length, when the empty jar would not

be filled again, when the faded roses could be bound together no longer in

a chaplet for the unconscious brows, and the string of the lyre, once

snapped, must be silent henceforward for evermore. The very waterfall that

had soothed its master to his noonday slumber in the drowsy shade, was now

dried up, and in the cavity above, a heap of dusty rubbish alone remained,

where erst the cool translucent surface shone, fair and smooth as glass.

Weeds were growing rank and tall, where once the myrtle quivered and the

roses bloomed. Where Chloe gambolled and where Lydia sang, the raven

croaked and fluttered, and the night‐owl screamed. Instead of velvet turf

and trim exotic shrubs, and shapely statues framed in bowers of green, the

nettle spread its festering carpet, and the dock put out its pointed leaf;

and here and there a tombstone showed its slab of marble, smooth and grim,

like a bone that has been laid bare. All was ruin or decay—a few short

years had done the work of ages; and whether they waked or whether they

slept, poet and patron had gone hence, never to return.

[Illustration: ‘Her eyes grew dim, her senses seemed failing’]

Under the branches of a spectral holm‐oak, blackened, withered, and

destroyed by fire, Mariamne paused, and clung with both hands to her

companion’s arm. Bravely had the girl borne up for hours against terrible

mental anxiety, as well as actual bodily pain, but with relief and

comparative safety came the reaction. Her eyes grew dim, her senses seemed

failing, and her limbs trembled so that she was unable to proceed. He hung

over her in positive fear. The pale face looked so deathlike that his bold

heart quailed, as the possibility presented itself of life without her.

Propped in his strong grasp she soon recovered, and he told her as much,

in a few frank simple words.

“And yet it must come at last,” said she gently. “What is the short span

of a man’s life, Esca, for such love as ours? Even had we everything we

can wish, all the world can give, there would be a sting in each moment of

happiness at the thought that it must end so soon.”

“Happiness!” repeated Esca. “What is it? Why is there so little of it on

earth? _My_ happiness is to be with you; and see, I win it but for an hour

at a time, at a cost to yourself I cannot bear to think of.”

She looked lovingly in his face.

“Do you suppose _I_ would count the cost?” said she. “Ever since the night

you took me from those fearful revellers, and brought me so gently and so

courteously to my father’s house, I—I have never forgotten what I owe

you.”

He raised her hand to his lips, with the action of an inferior doing

homage. Alone with the woman he loved, the very depth and generosity of

his young affection made him look on her as something sacred and apart She

hesitated, for she had yet more to say, which maiden shame repressed, lest

it should disclose her feelings too openly; but she loved him well: she

could not keep silence on so vital a subject, and after a pause, she took

courage and asked—

“Esca, could you bear to think we were never to meet again?”

“I would rather die at once!” he exclaimed fervently.

She shook her head, and smiled rather sadly.

“But _after_ death,” she insisted; “after death do you believe you will

see me no more?”

He looked blank and confused. The same question had been present almost

unconsciously in his mind, but had never taken so definite a shape before.

“You would make me a coward, Mariamne,” said he; “when I think of you, I

almost fear to die.”

They were standing under the holm‐oak, where the moonlight streamed down

clear and cold through the bare branches. It shone on a slab of marble,

half defaced, half overgrown with moss. Nevertheless, on that surface was

distinctly carved the horse’s head with which the Roman loved to decorate

the stone that marked his last resting‐place.

“Do you know what that means?” said she, pointing to this quaint and yet

suggestive symbol. “Even the proud Roman feels that death and departure

are the same,—that he is going on a journey he knows not where, but one

from which he never shall return. It is a journey we must all take, none

can tell how soon; for you and me the horse may be harnessed this very

night. But I know where I am going, Esca. If you had slain me an hour ago

with your sword, I should have been there even now.”

“And I?” he exclaimed. “Should I have been with you? for I would have died

amongst the gladiators as I have seen a wolf die in my own country,

overmatched by hounds. Mariamne, you would not have left me for ever? What

would have become of me?”

Again she shook her head with the same pitiful plaintive smile.

“You do not know the way,” said she. “You have no guide to take you by the

hand; you would be lost in the darkness; and I—I should see you no more.

Oh! Esca, I can teach you, I can show it you. Let us travel it together,

and, come what may, we need never part again!”

Then the girl knelt down under that dead tree, with the moonbeams shining

on her pale face, and her lips moved in whispered thanksgiving for the

late escape, and prayer for him who now stood by her side, and who watched

her with wistful looks, as a child watches a piece of mechanism of which

he sees plainly the effect, while he strives in vain to comprehend the

cause. It seemed to Esca that the woman he loved must have found the

talisman that all his youth he had felt a vague consciousness he

wanted—something beyond manly courage, or burning patriotism, or the

dogged obstinacy that fortifies itself by defying the worst. Moreover, the

course of his past life, above all, the trials he had lately undergone,

could not but have prepared the ground for the reception of that good seed

which brings forth such good fruit,—could not but have shown him the

necessity for a strength superior to the bravest endurance of mere

humanity, for a hope that was fixed beyond the grave. A few minutes she

remained on her knees, praying fervently for herself,—for him. He felt

that it was so, and while his eyes were riveted on the dear face, so pure

and peaceful, turned upward to the sky, he knew that his own being was

elevated by her holy influence, that the earthly affection of a lover for

his mistress, was in his breast refined by the adoration of a worshipper

for a saint.

Then she rose, and taking him by the arm, walked leisurely on her way,

discoursing, as she went, on certain truths which she had learnt from

Calchas, and which she believed with the faith of those who have been

taught by one, himself an eye‐witness of the wonders he relates. There

were no dogmas in those early days of the Christian Church to distract the

minds of its votaries from the simple tenets of their creed. The grain of

mustard‐seed had not yet shot up into that goodly tree which has since

borne so many branches, and the pruning‐knife, hereafter to lop away so

many redundant heresies, was not as yet unsheathed. The Christian of the

first century held to a very simple exposition of his faith as handed down

to him from his Divine Master. Trust and love were the fundamental rules

of his order. Trust that in the extremity of mortal agony could penetrate

beyond the gates of death, and brighten the martyr’s face with a ray of

splendour “like the face of an angel.” Love that embraced all things,

downward from the Creator to the lowest of the created, that opened its

heart freely and ungrudgingly to each, the sinner, the prodigal, and the

traveller who fell among thieves. Other faiths, indeed, and other motives

have fortified men to march proudly to the stake, to bear without wincing

tortures that forced the sickening spectator to turn shuddering away. A

heathen or a Jew could front the lion’s sullen scowl, or the grin and

glare of the cruel tiger, in the amphitheatre, with the dignified

composure that brave men borrow from despair; could behold unmoved the

straight‐cut furrow in the sand that marked the arena of his sufferings,

soon to run crimson with his blood. Even athwart the dun smoke, amidst the

leaping yellow flames, pale faces have been seen to move, majestic and

serene as spectres, with no sustaining power beyond that of a lofty

courage, the offspring of education and of pride. But it was the Christian

alone who could submit to the vilest degradations and the fiercest

sufferings with a humble and even cheerful thankfulness; who could drink

from the bitter cup and accept the draught without a murmur, save of

regret for his own unworthiness; nay, who could forgive and bless the very

tyranny that extorted, the very hand that ministered to, the tortures he

endured.

In its early days, fresh from the fountain‐head, the Christian’s was,

indeed, essentially and emphatically, a religion of love. To feed the

hungry, to clothe the naked, to stretch a hand to the fallen, to think no

evil, to judge not, nor to condemn, in short, to love “the brother whom he

_had_ seen,” were the direct commands of that Great Example who had so

recently been here on earth. His first disciples strove, hard as fallible

humanity can, to imitate Him, and in so striving, failed not to attain a

certain peaceful composure and contentment of mind, that no other code of

morality, no other system of philosophy, had ever yet produced. Perhaps

this was the quality that, in his dealings with his victim, the Roman

executioner found most mysterious and inexplicable. Fortitude, resolution,

defiance, these he could understand: but the childlike simplicity that

accepted good and evil with equal confidence; that was thankful and

cheerful under both, and that entertained neither care for to‐day nor

anxiety for to‐morrow, was a moral elevation, at which, with all their

pretensions, his own countrymen had never yet been able to arrive. Neither

Stoic nor Epicurean, Sophist nor Philosopher, could look upon life, and

death also, with the calm assurance of these unlearned men, leaning on a

hand the Roman could not see, convinced of an immortality the Roman was

unable to conceive.

With this happy conviction beaming in her face, Mariamne inculcated on

Esca the tenets of her noble faith; explaining, not logically, indeed, but

with woman’s persuasive reasonings of the heart, how fair was the prospect

thus open to him, how glorious the reward, which, though mortal eye could

not behold it, mortal hand could not take away. Promises of future

happiness are none the less glowing that they fall on a man’s ear from the

lips he loves. Conviction goes the straighter to his heart when it

pervades another’s that beats in unison with his own. Under that moonlit

sky, reddened in the horizon with the glare of a distant quarter of the

city already set on fire by the insurgents; in that dreary waste of the

Esquiline, with its blasted trees, its shrieking night‐birds, and its

scattered grave‐stones, the Briton imbibed the first principles of

Christianity from the daughter of Judah, whom he loved; and the girl’s

face beamed with a holy tenderness more than mortal, while she showed the

way of everlasting happiness, and life, and light, to him whose soul was

dearer to her than her own.

And meanwhile around them on all sides, murder, rapine, and violence were

stalking abroad unchecked. Riotous parties of Vespasian’s supporters met,

here and there, detached companies of Cæsar’s broken legions; and when

such collisions took place, the combatants fought madly, as it would seem

from mere wanton love of bloodshed, to the death; whichever conquered,

neither spared the dissolute citizens, who indeed, when safe out of reach,

from roofs or windows encouraged the strife heartily with word and

gesture. Sparks fell in showers through the streets of Rome, and blood and

wine ran in streams along the pavement; nor were the deserted gardens of

the Esquiline undisturbed by the tumult and devastation that pervaded the

rest of the unhappy city.

CHAPTER XIV

THE CHURCH

When they sought to leave their place of refuge, Esca and Mariamne found

themselves hemmed in and drawn back by the continued tumult that was

raging through the surrounding quarters. On all sides were heard the

shouts of victory, the shrieks of despair, and the mad riot of drunken

mirth. Occasionally, flying parties of pursuers or pursued swept through

the very outskirts of the gardens themselves, compelling the Briton and

his charge to plunge deeper into its gloomy solitudes for concealment.

At length they reached a place of comparative safety, under a knot of dark

cypresses that had escaped the general conflagration, and here they paused

to take breath and listen, Mariamne becoming every moment more composed

and tranquil, while Esca, with a beating heart, calculated the many

chances that must still be risked ere they could reach her home beyond the

Tiber, and he could place the daughter in safety under her father’s roof

once more. It was very dark where they were, for the cypresses grew thick

and black between them and the sky. The place had probably in former times

been a favourite resort in the noonday heat. There were the remains of a

grotto or summer‐house not yet wholly destroyed, and the fragments of a

wide stone basin, from which a fountain had once shot its sparkling drops

into the summer air. Several alleys, too, cut in the young plantations,

had apparently converged at this spot; and although these were much

overgrown and neglected, one still formed, so to speak, a broad white

street of turf, hemmed in by walls of quivering foliage, dark and massive,

but sprinkled here and there with points of silver in the moonlight.

Mariamne crept closer to her companion’s side.

“I feel so safe and so happy with you,” said she caressingly. “We seem to

have changed places. You are the one who is now anxious and—no, not

frightened—but ill at ease. Esca! what is it?” she asked with a start, as,

looking fondly up in his face, she caught its expression of actual terror

and dismay.

His blue eyes were fixed like stone. With parted lips and rigid features,

his whole being seemed concentrated into the one effort of seeing, and

backed by the dark shadows of the cypress, his face, usually so frank and

fearless, was paler even than her own. Following with her eyes the

direction of his glance, she, too, was something more than startled at

what she saw. Two black figures, clad in long and trailing garments, moved

slowly into sight, and crossed the sheet of moonlight which flooded the

wide avenue, with solemn step and slow. These again were followed by two

in white, looking none the less ghostly that their outlines were so

indistinctly defined, the head and feet being alone visible, and the rest

of the figure wrapped, as it were, in mist. Then came two more in black,

and thus in alternate pairs the unearthly procession glided by; only, ere

the half of it had passed, a something, not unlike the human form, draped

in a white robe, seemed to float horizontally, at a cubit’s height, above

the line. A low and wailing chant, too, rose and fell fitfully on the

listeners’ ears. It was the “Kyrie Eleison,” the humble plaintive dirge in

which the Christian mourned, not without hope, for his dead.

Fear was no familiar sentiment in Esca’s breast. It could not remain there

long. He drew himself up, and the colour rushed back redly to his brow.

“They are spirits!” said he; “spirits of the wood, on whose domains we

have trespassed. Good or evil, we will resist them to the last. They will

sacrifice us to their vengeance if we show the least signs of fear.”

She was proud of his courage even then—the courage that could defy, though

it had not been able to shake off, the superstitions of his northern

birthplace. It was sweet, too, to think that from her lips he must learn

what was truth, both of this world and of the next.

“They are no spirits!” she answered. “They are Christians burying their

dead. Esca, we shall be safe with them, and they will show us how to leave

this place unobserved.”

“Christians?” he replied doubtfully; “and we, too, are Christians, are we

not? I would they were armed, though,” he added reflectively. “With twenty

good swordsmen, I would engage to take you unmolested from one end of Rome

to the other; but these, I fear, are only priests. Priests! and the

legions are loose even now all over the city!”

He was but a young disciple, thought his loving teacher, and many a defeat

must be experienced, many a rebuff sustained, ere dependence on his own

courage is rooted out of a brave man’s heart, to be replaced by that

nobler fortitude which relies solely on the will of Heaven. Yet a brave

man is no bad material out of which to form a good one.

They left their hiding‐place, and hastened down the alley after the

departing Christians. In a secluded place, where the remaining trees grew

thickest and most luxuriant—where the noontide ray had least power to

penetrate, the procession had halted. The grave was already being dug. As

spadeful after spadeful of loose earth fell with a dull grating sound on

the sward, or trickled back into the cavity, the dirge wailed on, now

lowered and repressed like the stifled sob of one who weeps in secret, now

rising into notes of chastened triumph, that were almost akin to joy. And

here, where Mæcenas, and his poets and his parasites, had met, with

garland and goblet, to while away the summer’s day in frivolous

disputations, arguing on the endless topics of here and hereafter, life

and death, body and soul; groping blindly and in vain throughout the

labyrinth for a clue—sneering at Pythagoras, refuting Plato, and maligning

Socrates—the body of the dead Christian was laid humbly and trustfully in

the earth, and already the departed spirit had learned the efficacy of

those truths it had imbibed through scorn and suffering in its

lifetime—truths that the heathen sages would have given goblets and

garlands, and riches and empire, and all the world besides, but to know

and believe in that supreme moment, when all around the dying fades and

fails as though it had never been, and there is but one reality from which

is no escape.

The Jewess and her champion waited a few paces off while the spade threw

its last handfuls to the surface. Then the Christians gathered solemnly

and silently round the open grave, and the corpse was lowered gently into

its resting‐place, and the faces that watched it sink, and stop, and

waver, and sink again out of sight, even like the life of the departed,

beamed with a holy triumph, for they knew that with this wayfarer, at

least, the journey was over and the home attained. Two mourners, somewhat

conspicuous from the rest, stood at either end of the grave. The one was a

woman, still in the meridian of her beauty; the other a strong warlike

man, scarcely of middle age. The woman’s face was turned to heaven, rapt,

as it seemed in an ecstasy of prayer. She was not thinking of the poor

remains, the empty shell, consigned beneath her feet to its kindred dust;

but with the eye of faith she watched the spirit in its upward flight, and

for her the heavens were opened, and her child was even now disappearing

through the golden gate. But on the man’s contracted features might be

read the pain of him who is too weak to bear, and yet too strong to weep.

His eye followed with sad wistful glances clod after clod, as they fell in

to cover up the loved and lost. When the earth was flattened down above

her head, and not till then, he seemed to look inquiringly at the vacant

space amongst the bystanders, and to know that she was gone. He clenched

his strong hands tight, and raised his eyes at last. “It is hard to bear,”

he muttered; “it is very hard to say, ‘Thy will be done.’” Then he thought

of the empty place at home, and hid his face and wept.

A young girl, on the verge of womanhood, had been called away—called

suddenly away—the pride and the flower and the darling of her father’s

house. He was a good man and a brave, and a believer, yet every time his

child’s face rose up before him, with its bright hair and its loving eyes,

something smote him, sharp and cold, like the thrust of a knife.

When the grave was finally closed, the Christians gathered round it in

prayer. Mariamne, taking Esca by the hand, came silently among them, and

joined in their devotions. It was a strange and solemn sight to the

barbarian. A circle of cloaked figures kneeling round an empty space, to

worship an unseen power. On either hand a wilderness of ruin and

devastation in the heart of a great city; above, an angry glare on the

midnight sky, and the shouts of maddened combatants rising and falling on

the breeze. By his side, the woman he loved so dearly, and whom he had

thought he should never look on again. He knelt with the others, to offer

his tribute from a grateful heart. Their prayers were short and fervent,

nor did they omit the form their Master had given them expressly for their

use. When they rose to their feet, one figure stood forth amongst the

rest, and signed for silence with uplifted hand. This man was obviously a

Roman by birth, and spoke his language with the ease, but at the same time

with the accent and phrases of the lowest plebeian class. He seemed a

handicraftsman by trade, and his palm, when he raised it impressively to

bespeak attention, was hardened and scarred with toil. Low of stature,

mean in appearance, coarsely clothed, with bare head and feet, there was

little in his exterior to command interest or respect; but his frame,

square and strongly built, seemed capable of sustaining a vast amount of

toil or hardship, while his face, notwithstanding its plain features,

denoted repressed enthusiasm, earnest purpose, and honest singleness of

heart. He was indeed one of the pioneers of a religion, destined hereafter

to cover the surface of the earth. Such were the men who went forth in

their master’s name, without scrip or sandals, or change of raiment, to

overrun and conquer the world—who took no thought what they should say

when brought before the kings, and governors, and great ones of the earth,

trusting only in the sanctity of their mission, and the inspiration under

which they spoke. Having little learning, they could refute the wisest

philosophers. Having neither rank nor lineage, they could beard the

Proconsul on his judgment‐seat or the Cæsar on his throne. Homely and

ignorant, they feared not to wander far and wide through strange

countries, and hostile nations, spreading the good tidings with a simple

ungrudging faith that forced men to believe. Weak by nature it may be, and

timid by education, they descended into the arena to meet their martyrdom

from the hungry lion, with a quiet fortitude such as neither soldier nor

gladiator had courage to display. It was a moral their Master never ceased

to inculcate, that His was a message sent not to the noble, and the

prosperous, and the distinguished, for these, if they wished to find Him,

might make their own opportunities to seek Him out; but to the poor and

lowly, the humble and forlorn, especially to those who were in distress

and sorrow, who, having none to help them here, might rely all the more

implicitly on His protection, who is emphatically the friend of the

friendless.

Therefore, the men who did His work seem to have been chosen principally

from the humbler classes of society, from such as could speak to the

multitude in homely phrases and with familiar imagery; whose authority the

most careless and unthinking might perceive originated in no aid of

extraneous circumstances, but came directly from above.

As the speaker warmed to his subject, Esca could not but observe the

change that came over the bearing and appearance of his outward man. At

first the eye was dull, the speech hesitating, the manner diffident.

Gradually a light seemed to steal over his whole countenance, his form

towered erect as though it had actually increased in stature, his words

flowed freely in a torrent of glowing and appropriate language, his action

became dignified, and the whole man clothed himself, as it were, in the

majesty of the subject on which he spoke.

That subject was indeed simple enough, sad, it may be, from an earthly

point of view, and yet how comforting to the mourners gathered round him

beside the new‐made grave! At first he contented himself with a short and

earnest tribute, clothed in the plainest form of speech, to the worth and

endearing qualities of that young girl whom they had just laid in the

earth. “She was precious to us all,” said he, “yet words like these seem

but a mockery to some present here, for whom she was the hope and the joy,

and the very light of an earthly home. Grieve, I say, and weep, and wring

your hands, for such is man’s weak nature, and He who took our nature upon

Him sympathises with our sorrows, and, like the good physician, pities

while He heals. To‐day your wounds are fresh, your hearts are full, your

eyes are blind with tears, you cannot see the truth. To‐morrow you will

wonder why you mourn so bitterly; to‐morrow you will say, ‘It is well; we

are labouring in the sun, she is resting in the shade; we are hungry and

thirsty in a barren land, she is eating the bread and drinking the waters

of life, in the garden of Paradise; we are weary and footsore, wayfarers

still upon the road, but she has reached her home.’

“Yea, now at this very hour, standing here where the earth has just closed

over the young face, tender and delicate even in death, would you have her

back to you if you could? Those who have considered but the troubles that

surround us now, and to whom there is no hereafter, who call themselves

philosophers, and whose wisdom is as the wisdom of a blind man walking on

the brink of a precipice, have themselves said ‘whom the gods love die

young’; and will you grudge that your beloved one should have been called

out of the vineyard, to take her wages and go to her rest, before the

burden and heat of the day? Think what her end might have been. Think that

you might have offered her up to bear witness to the truth, tied to a

stake in the foul arena, face to face with the crouching wild beast

gathered for his spring. Ay! and worse even than this might have befallen

the child, whom you remember, as it were but yesterday, nestling to her

mother’s bosom, or clinging round her father’s knees! ‘The Christians to

the panther, and the maidens to the pandar!’(12) You have heard the brutal

shouts and shuddered with fear and anger while you heard. And you would

have offered her, as Abraham offered Isaac, beating your breasts, and

holding your breath for very agony the while. But is it not better thus?

She has earned the day’s wages, labouring but for an hour at sunrise; she

has escaped the cross, and yet has won the crown!

“But you who hear me, envy not this young maiden, though she be now

arrived where all so long to go. Rather be proud and happy, that your

Master cannot spare you, that He has yet work for you to do. To every

man’s hand is set his appointed task, and every man shall find strength

given him to fulfil it when the time arrives. Some of you will bear

witness before Cæsar, and for such the scourges are already knotted and

the cross is reared; but to these I need scarcely speak of loyalty, for to

them the very suffering brings with it its own fortitude, and they are

indeed blessed who are esteemed worthy of the glory of martyrdom! Some

must go forth to preach the gospel in wild and distant lands; and well I

know that neither toil, nor hardship, nor peril, will cause them to waver

an hair’s‐breadth from their path, yet have they difficulties to meet, and

foes to contend with, that they know not of. Let them beware of pride and

self‐sufficiency, lest, in raising the altar, they make the sacrifice of

more account than the spirit in which it is offered; lest in building the

church they take note of every stone in the edifice, and lose sight of the

purpose for which it was reared. But ye cannot all be martyrs, nor

preachers, nor prophets, nor chief‐priests, yet every one of you, even the

weakest and the lowest here present—woman, child, slave, or barbarian—is

none the less a soldier and a servant of the cross! Every one has his duty

to do, his watch to keep, his enemy to conquer. It is not much that is

required of you—little indeed in comparison with all you have received—but

that little must be given without reserve, and with the whole heart. Has

any one of you left a duty unfulfilled? when he departs from hence let him

go home and accomplish it. Has any one an enemy? let him be reconciled.

Has he done his brother a wrong? let him make amends. Has he sustained an

injury? let him forgive it. Even as you have laid in the grave the

perishable body of the departed, so lay down here every earthly weakness,

every unholy wish, and every evil thought. Nay, as these chief mourners

have to‐night parted and weaned themselves from that which they loved best

on earth, so must you tear out and cast away from you the truest and

dearest affections that stand between you and your service, ay, even

though you rend them from the very inner chambers of your heart. And then,

with constant effort and never‐ceasing prayer, striving, step by step, and

winning, inch by inch, now slipping back it may be where the path is

treacherous, and the hill is steep, to rise from your knees, humbled and

therefore stronger, gaining more than you have lost, you shall arrive at

last, where there is no strife, and no failing, where she for whom you

weep to‐night is even now in glory, where He whom you follow has already

prepared a place for you, and where you who have loved and trusted, shall

be happy for evermore!”

Ceasing, he spread his hands abroad, and implored a blessing on those who

heard him, after which the Christians breaking up their circle, gathered

round the bereaved parents with a few quiet words and gestures of

sympathy, such as those offer who have themselves experienced the sorrows

they are fain to assuage.

“I am in safety here,” whispered Mariamne to the Briton, as she pointed

out a dark figure, with white flowing locks, whom he now recognised as

Calchas. In another moment she was in the old man’s arms, who raised his

eyes to heaven, and thanked God with heartfelt gratitude for her

deliverance.

“Your father and I,” said he, “have sought you with fearful anxiety, and

even now he is raising some of his countrymen to storm the tribune’s

house, and take you from it with the strong hand. Mariamne, you hardly

know how much your father loves his child. And I too was disturbed for

your safety, but I trusted—trusted in that Heaven which never fails the

innocent. Nevertheless, I sought for aid among my brethren, and they have

raised, even the poorest of them, such a sum as would have tempted the

prætor to interfere, even against a man like Placidus. I did but remain

with them to say a prayer while they buried their dead. But now you are

safe, and you will come back with me to your father’s house, and one of

these whom I can trust shall go to tell him at the place where his friends

were to assemble; and Esca, thy preserver for the second time, who is to

me as a son, shall accompany us home—though we shall not need a guard, for

thy father’s friends, tried warriors every man, and armed, will meet us

ere we leave the wilderness for the streets.”

It was a strong temptation to the Briton, but the words he had so lately

heard had sunk deep into his heart. He, too, would fain cast in his lot

amongst these earnest men. He, too, he thought, had a task to perform—a

cherished happiness to forego. With a timely warning, it might be in his

power to save the Emperor’s life, and his very eagerness to accompany

Mariamne but impressed him the more with the conviction that it was his

duty to leave her, now she was in comparative safety, and hasten on his

errand of mercy. Calchas, too, insisted strongly on this view, and though

Mariamne was silent, and even pleaded with her eyes against the risk, he

turned stoutly from their influence, and ere she was clasped in her

father’s arms, the new Christian was already half‐way between the

Esquiline and the palace of Cæsar.

CHAPTER XV

REDIVIVUS

Many had been the debauch at which, himself its chief originator and

promoter, the tribune had assisted; nor had he escaped the penalties that

Nature exacts even from the healthiest constitutions, when her laws are

habitually outraged in the high‐tide of revelry and mirth; but never,

after his longest sittings with the Emperor, had he experienced anything

to compare with the utter prostration of mind and body in which he came to

himself, waking from the deathlike sleep that followed his pledge to

Valeria. With returning consciousness came a sense of painful giddiness,

which, as the velvet cushions of the couch rose and heaved beneath his

sight, confused him utterly as to where he was, or how he got there; then,

sitting up with an effort that seemed to roll a ball of lead across his

brain, he was aware that every vein throbbed at fever‐heat, that his hands

were numbed and swollen, that his mouth was parched, his lips cracked, and

that he had a racking headache—the latter symptom was sufficiently

familiar to be reassuring; he sprang to his feet, regardless of the pang

so sudden a movement shot through his frame, then seizing a goblet from

the table, filled it to the brim with Falernian, and in defiance of the

nausea with which its very fragrance overpowered him, emptied it to the

dregs. The effect, as he expected, was instantaneous; it enabled him to

stand erect, and, passing his hand across his brow, by a strong effort of

the will, he forced himself to connect and comprehend the events that had

led to this horrible and bewildering trance. By degrees, one after

another, like links in a chain, he traced the doings of the day, beginning

a long way back, somewhere about noon, till the immediate past, so to

speak, came more and more tangibly within his grasp. It was with a thrill

of triumphant pleasure that he remembered Valeria’s visit, and his own arm

winding round her handsome form on that very couch. Where was she now? He

looked about him vacantly, almost expecting to find her in the room; as he

did so, his eye lighted on the two goblets, one of them half‐emptied,

still standing on their salver.

To say that Placidus had a conscience would be simply a perversion of

terms; for that monitor, never very troublesome, had since his manhood

been so stifled and silenced as to have become a mere negative quality,

yet in his present unhinged state, a shudder of horror did come over him,

as he recalled the visit to Petosiris, and the poison with which he had

resolved to ensure the silence of his slave. But ere that shudder passed

away, the dark secret Esca knew, the plot from which it was now too late

to draw back, the desperate adventure that every hour brought nearer, and

that must be attempted to‐night—all these considerations came flooding in

on his memory at once, and for a moment he felt paralysed by the height of

the precipice on the brink of which he stood. With the emergency, however,

as was always the case in the tribune’s character, came the energy

required to encounter it. “At least,” he muttered, steadying himself by

the table with one hand, “the cup is nearly empty; the drug cannot but

have done its work. First, I must make sure of the carrion, and then it

will be time enough to find Valeria.” Had he suffered less in body, he

would have laughed his own low malicious laugh, to think how deftly he had

outwitted the woman he professed to love. The laugh, however, died away in

a grin that betrayed more pain than mirth; and the tribune, with

chattering teeth and shaking frame, and wavering uncertain steps, betook

himself to the outer court to make sure with his own eyes that the

stalwart frame of him whom he feared was stiff and cold in death.

His first feeling would have been one of acute apprehension, had not anger

so completely mastered that sensation, when he perceived the slave’s chain

and collar lying coiled on the pavement. Obviously, Esca had escaped; and

was gone, moreover, with his late master’s life completely in his power;

but Placidus possessed a keen intellect and one familiar with sudden

combinations; it flashed upon him at once, that he had been outwitted by

Valeria, and the two had fled together.

The sting was very sharp, but it roused and sobered him. Pacing swiftly

back through the corridors, and stopping for a few minutes to immerse his

head and face in cold water, he returned to the banqueting‐hall, and

eagerly scrutinised with look and smell, and, notwithstanding all that had

happened, even with a sparing taste, the cup from which he had last drunk.

The opiate, however, had been so skilfully prepared that nothing

suspicious could be detected in the flavour of the wine; nevertheless,

reflecting on all the circumstances with a clearer head, as the strength

of his constitution gradually asserted itself, he arrived at the true

conclusion, and was satisfied that Valeria had changed the cups while his

attention was distracted by her charms; that he had purchased a poison he

never doubted for a moment, nor suspected that Petosiris could have dared,

from sheer love of trickery, to substitute an opiate for the deadlier

draught; but he exulted to think that his powerful organisation must have

resisted its effects, and that he who had so often narrowly escaped death

in the field must indeed bear a charmed life. If a suspicion haunted him

that the venom might still be lurking in his system, to do its work more

completely after a short respite, the vague horror of such a thought did

but goad him to make use of the intervening time all the more ardently for

business and pleasure, not forgetting the sacred duty of revenge. _Dum

vivimus vivamus!_ was the tribune’s motto, and if he had been granted but

one hour to live, he would have divided that hour systematically, between

the delights of love, wine, and mischief.

Rapidly, though coolly, he reviewed his position, as though he had been

commanding a cohort hemmed in by the Jewish army. To‐night would make or

mar him. The gladiators would be here within an hour. Esca must, ere this,

have reached the palace and given the alarm. Why had a centurion of Cæsar

not yet arrived with a sufficient guard to arrest him in his own house?

They might be expected at any moment. Should he fly while there was yet

time? What! and lose the brilliant future so nearly within his reach?

No—he would weather this as he had weathered other storms, by skilful and

judicious steering. A man who has no scruples need never be deficient in

resource. To leave his house now, would be a tacit admission of guilt. To

be found alone, undefended, unsuspicious, a strong presumption of

innocence. He would at least have sufficient interest to be taken into the

presence of Cæsar. There, what so easy as to accuse the slave of

treachery, to persuade the Emperor the barbarian had but hatched a plot

against his master’s life; to make the good‐humoured old glutton laugh

with an account of the drugged goblet, and finish the night by a debauch

with his imperial host?

Then, he must be guided by the preparations for defence which he observed

in the palace. If they were weak, he must find some means of communicating

with Hippias, and the attack would be facilitated by his own presence

inside. If, on the contrary, there was an obvious intention of firm

resistance, the conspirators must be warned to postpone their enterprise.

If worst came to the worst, he could always save his own head by informing

against his confederates, and so handing over Hippias and the gladiators

to death.

Some slight compunction visited him at the thought of such an alternative,

but he soon stifled it with the arguments of his characteristic

philosophy. Should he be found, indeed, presiding at a supper‐party

composed of these desperate men, they might defend the gate whilst he fled

directly to Cæsar, and sacrificed them at once. Under any circumstances,

he argued, he had bought them, and had a right to make use of them.

In the meantime, Mariamne would be here directly. She ought to have been

here long ago. Whatever the future threatened, an hour, half an hour, a

quarter, should be devoted to her society, and after that, come what

might, at least he would not have been foiled in every event of the day.

It was when he had arrived at this conclusion, that Esca from his hiding‐

place saw the figure of the tribune, pale, wan, and ghostly, giving

directions for the preparation of the supper‐table.

The evening stole on, the sun‐dial no longer showed the hour, and the

slave whose duty it was to keep count of time by the water‐clock(13) then

in vogue, announced that the first watch of the night was already

advanced. He was followed by Automedon, who came into the presence of his

master, with hanging head and sheepish looks, sadly mistrusting how far

his own favour would bear him harmless in the delivery of the tidings he

had to impart. It was always a perilous duty to inform Placidus of the

failure of any of his schemes. He listened, indeed, with a calm demeanour

and an unmoved countenance, but sooner or later he surely contrived to

visit on the unfortunate messenger the annoyance he himself experienced

from the message.

The tribune’s face brightened as the boy came into the hall; with

characteristic duplicity, however, he veiled even from his charioteer the

impatience in which he had waited his return.

“Have you brought the horses in cool?” said he, with an affectation of

extreme indifference.

Automedon looked greatly relieved.

“Quite cool,” he answered, “most illustrious! and Oarses came part of the

way home, but he got down near the Sacred Gate, and I had no one with me

in the chariot the whole length of the Flaminian Way; and the slaves will

be back presently; and Damasippus—Oh! my lord, do not be

angry!—Damasippus—I fear I have left him dead in the street.”

Here the lad’s courage failed him completely; he had indeed been

thoroughly frightened by the events of the night; and making a piteous

face, he twined his fingers in his long curls and wept aloud.

“What, fool!” thundered the tribune, his brow turning black with rage.

“You have not brought her after all! Silly child,” he added, controlling

himself with a strong effort. “Where is the—the passenger—I charged

Damasippus to bring here with him to‐night?”

“I will tell you the truth,” exclaimed the boy, flinging himself down on

his knees, and snatching at the hem of his master’s garment. “By the

Temple of Vesta, I will tell you the truth. I drove from here across

Tiber, and I waited in the shadow by Tiber‐side; and Jugurtha wouldn’t

stand still, and presently Damasippus brought a—a passenger in his arms,

and put it into the chariot, and bade me go on fast; and we went on at a

gallop till we tried to cross the Appian Way, and then we had to turn

aside, for the houses were burning and the people fighting in the street,

and Scipio was frightened and pulled, and Jugurtha wouldn’t face the

crowd, and I drove on to cross a little farther down, but we were stopped

again by the Vestals, and I couldn’t drive through _them_! So we halted to

let them pass, and then a fierce terrible giant caught the horses and

stopped them once more, and a thousand soldiers, nay, a legion at least,

surrounded the chariot, and they killed Damasippus, and they tore the

passenger out, and killed it too, and Scipio kicked, and I was frightened,

and drove home as fast as I could—and indeed it wasn’t my fault!”

Automedon’s fears had magnified both the number of the assailants and the

dangers undergone. He had not recognised the gladiators, and was

altogether in too confused a state, as the tribune perceived at a glance,

to afford his master any more coherent information than the foregoing.

Placidus bit his lip in baffled anger, for he could not see his way;

nevertheless the boy‐charioteer was a favourite, and he would not visit

the failure of the enterprise on him.

“I am glad the horses are safe,” said he good‐humouredly. “Go, get some

supper and a cup of wine. I will send for you again presently.”

Automedon, agreeably surprised, glanced up at his master’s face ere he

departed, and observed that, although deadly pale, it had assumed the

fixed resolute expression his dependants knew so well.

Placidus had indeed occasion to summon all the presence of mind on which

he prided himself, for even while he spoke, his quick ear caught the tramp

of feet, and the familiar clink of steel. The blood gathered round his

heart as he contemplated the possibility that a maniple of Cæsar’s guards

might even now be occupying the court. It was with a sigh of intense

relief that, instead of the centurion’s eagle crest, he recognised the

tall form of Rufus, accompanied by his comrades, advancing respectfully,

and even with awkward diffidence, through the outer hall. The tribune

could assume—none better—any character it suited him to play at a moment’s

notice; nevertheless there was a ring of real cordiality in his greeting,

for the visitors were more welcome than they guessed.

“Hail! Rufus, Lutorius, Eumolpus!” he shouted boisterously. “Gallant

swordsmen and deep drinkers all! What! old Hirpinus, do I not see thy

broad shoulders yonder in the rear? and Hippias too, the king of the

arena! Welcome, every man of you! Even now the feast is spread, and the

Chian cooling yonder amongst the flowers. Once again, a hearty welcome to

you all!”

The gladiators, still somewhat abashed by the unaccustomed splendour which

met their eyes on every side, responded with less than their usual

confidence to their entertainer. Rufus nudged Lutorius to reply in polite

language, and the Gaul, in a fit of unusual modesty, passed the signal on

to Eumolpus of Ravenna—a beetle‐browed, bow‐legged warrior, with huge

muscles and a heavy, sullen face. This champion looked helplessly about

him and seemed inclined to turn tail and fly, when, to his great relief,

Hippias advanced from the rear of his comrades, and created a diversion in

his favour, of which he availed himself by slinking incontinently into the

background. Placidus clapped his hands, an Asiatic fashion affected by the

more luxurious Romans; and two or three slaves appeared in obedience to

the summons. The gladiators looked on in awe at the sumptuous dresses and

personal beauty of these domestics.

“Hand round wine here amongst my friends. I will but say three words to

your captain, and we will go to supper forthwith.”

So speaking, the tribune led Hippias apart, having resolved that in the

present critical state of affairs it would be better to take him entirely

into his confidence, and trust to the scrupulous notions of fidelity to

their bargains, which such men entertained, for the result.

“There is no time to lose,” observed he anxiously, when he had led Hippias

apart from his followers. “Something has occurred which was out of all our

calculations. Can they overhear us, think ye?”

The fencing‐master glanced carelessly at his band. “Whilst they are at

_that_ game,” said he, “they would not hear the assembly sounding from all

four quarters of the camp. Never fear, illustrious! it will keep them busy

till supper time.”

The band had broken up into pairs, and were hard at work with their

favourite pastime, old as the Alban hills, and handed down to the Roman

Empire from the dynasty of the Pharaohs. It consisted in gambling for

small coins at the following trial of skill:—the players sat or stood,

face to face; each held the left hand erect, on which he marked the

progress of his game. With the right he shot out any one or more of his

four fingers and thumb, or all together, with immense rapidity, guessing

aloud at the same time the sum‐total of the fingers thus brandished by

himself and his adversary, who was employed in the same manner. Whoever

guessed right won a point, which was immediately marked on the left, held

immovable at shoulder‐height for the purpose, and when five of these had

been won the game began again. Nothing could be more simple, nothing

apparently less interesting, and yet it seemed to engross the attention of

the gladiators to the exclusion of all other subjects, even the prospect

of supper and the flavour of the Falernian.(14)

“They are children now,” said Placidus contemptuously. “They will be men

presently, and tigers to‐night. Hippias, the slave has escaped. We must

attack the palace forthwith.”

“I know it,” replied the other quietly. “But the Germans are relieving

guard at this hour. My own people are hardly ready, and it is not dark

enough yet.”

“You know it,” repeated Placidus, even more irritated than astonished by

his companion’s coolness, “you _know_ it, and yet you have not hastened

your preparations? Do you know, too, that this yellow‐haired barbarian has

got your head, and mine, and all the empty skulls of our intelligent

friends who are amusing themselves yonder, under his belt? Do you know

that Cæsar, true to his swinish propensities, will turn like a hunted

boar, when he suspects the least shadow of danger? Do you know that not

one of us may live to eat the very supper waiting for us in the next room?

What are you made of, man, that you can thus look me so coolly in the face

with the sword at both our throats?”

“I can keep my own throat with my hand,” replied the other, totally

unmoved by his host’s agitation. “And I am certainly not accustomed to

fear danger before it comes. But that the barbarian has escaped I saw with

my own eyes, for I left him ten minutes since within a hundred paces of

your own gate.”

The tribune’s eyebrows went up in unfeigned surprise.

“Then he has not reached the palace!” he exclaimed, speaking rather to

himself than his informant.

“Not reached the palace certainly,” replied the latter calmly, “since I

tell you I saw him here. And in very good company too,” he added with a

smile.

The tribune’s astonishment had for once deprived him of his self‐command.

“With Valeria?” he asked unguardedly; and directly he had spoken, a vague

suspicion made him wish that he had held his tongue.

The fencing‐master started and knit his brows. His head was more erect and

his voice sterner when he answered—

“I have seen the lady Valeria too, within the last hour. She had no slaves

with her beyond her usual attendants.”

Anger, curiosity, uncertainty, jealousy, a hundred conflicting emotions

were rankling at the tribune’s heart. What had this handsome gladiator to

do at Valeria’s house? and was it possible that she did not care for the

slave after all? Then what could have been her object throughout? He

marked too the alteration in manner betrayed by Hippias at the mention of

this fair and flighty dame; nor did it seem improbable under all the

circumstances that he entertained a kindly feeling, if nothing more, for

his pupil. Judging men and women by his own evil nature, and knowing well

the favour with which their female admirers regarded these votaries of the

sword, the tribune did not hesitate to put its true construction on such

kindly feelings, and their probable result. From that moment he hated

Hippias—hated him all the more that in the tumult and confusion of the

coming night he might find an opportunity of gratifying his hatred by the

destruction of the gladiator. Many a bold leader has been struck down from

behind by the very followers he was encouraging; and who would ask how a

conspirator met his death, in the attack on a palace and the murder of an

emperor? Even while the thought crossed his mind he took the other by the

hand, and laughed frankly in his face.

“Thou art at home in the private apartments of every lady in Rome, I

believe, my warlike Apollo,” said he. “But, indeed, it is no question now

of such trifling; the business of to‐night must be determined on—ay, and

disposed of—without delay. If my slave had reached the palace our whole

plan must have been altered. I wish, as you did come across him, you had

treated him to that deadly thrust of yours under the short‐ribs, and

brought him in here dead or alive.”

“He will not trouble us,” observed the other coolly. “Take my word for it,

tribune, he is disposed of for the present.”

“What mean you?” asked Placidus, a devilish joy lighting up his sallow

face. “Did you bribe him to secrecy then and there with the metal you are

accustomed to lavish so freely? Gold will buy silence for a time, but

steel ensures it for ever.”

“Nay, tribune,” answered Hippias, with a frank laugh. “We have been

fencing too long in the dark. I will tell you the whole truth. This young

giant of yours is safe enough for the present. I saw him depart with a

pale‐faced girl, in a black hood, whom he promised to take care of as far

as Tiber‐side. Depend upon it, he will think of nothing else to‐night. For

all his broad shoulders the down is yet upon his chin. And a man’s beard

must be grey before he leaves such a fair young lass as that to knock his

head against a wall, even though it be the wall of a palace. No, no,

tribune, he is safe enough, I tell you, for the next twelve hours, at

least!”

“A pale‐faced girl?” repeated Placidus, still harping on Valeria. “What

and who was she? Did you know her? did you speak to her?”

“My people had some wild tale,” replied the fencing‐master, “about a

chariot with white horses, that had been upset in the street, and a girl

all gagged and muffled, whom they pulled out of it, and for whom, of

course, they quarrelled amongst themselves. In faith, had it not been for

to‐night’s business and the oath, you might have seen some sweet practice

in your own porch, for I have two or three here that can make as close and

even work with a sword as a tailor does with his needle. They said

something about her being a Jewess. Very likely she may be, for they swam

across Tiber since we have lost Nero. And the lad might as well be a Jew

as a Briton for that matter. Are you satisfied now, tribune? By the belly

of Bacchus, I must wash my mouth out with Falernian! All this talking

makes a man as thirsty as a camel.”

Satisfied! and after what he had just learnt! Chariot! White horses!

Jewess! There could be no doubt of it. These gladiators must have

blundered on her, thought the tribune, and slain my freedman, and rescued

her from my people, and handed her over to the man whom most I hate and

fear on earth. Satisfied! Perhaps I shall be better satisfied when I have

captured her, and humbled Valeria, and put you out of the way, my gallant

cut‐throat, and seen the slave scourged to death at my own doorpost! Then,

and not till then, shall I be able to drink my wine without a heartburn,

and lay my head on the pillow with some chance of sleep. In the meantime,

to‐night’s work must be done. To‐night’s work, that puts Vespasian

virtually on the throne (for this boy(15) of his shall only keep the

cushion warm till his father takes his seat), that makes Placidus the

first man in the empire. Nay, that might even open a path to the purple

itself. The general is well advanced in years; already somewhat broken and

worn with his campaigns. Titus, indeed, is the darling of the legions, but

all the heart black‐browed Berenice has left him, is wrapped up in war. He

loves it, I verily believe—the daring fool!—for the mere braying of

trumpets, and the clash of steel. Not a centurion exposes himself half so

freely, nor so often. Well, a Zealot’s javelin, or a stone from the

ramparts of some nameless town in Judæa, may dispose of him at any time.

Then there is but Domitian—a clever youth indeed, and an unscrupulous. So

much the worse for him! A mushroom is not the only dish that may be fatal

to an emperor, and if the knot be so secure as to baffle all dexterity,

why, it must be cut with steel. Ay, the Macedonian knew well how the great

game should be played. Satisfied! Like him, I shall never be satisfied

while there is anything more to win! These being the tribune’s thoughts,

it is needless to say that he assumed a manner of the utmost frankness and

carelessness.

“Thirsty!” he repeated, in a loud voice, clapping Hippias on the shoulder.

“Thirsty—I could empty an aqueduct! Welcome again, and heartily, my heroes

all! See, the supper waits. Let us go in and drink out the old Falernian!”

CHAPTER XVI

“MORITURI”

Knowing well with whom he was to deal, Placidus had ordered a repast to be

prepared for his guests on a scale of magnificence unusual even in his

luxurious dwelling. It was advisable, not only to impose on these rude

natures with unaccustomed pomp and parade, but also to excite their

cupidity by the display of gold and jewels while their fiercer passions

were inflamed with wine. The more reckless and desperate they could be

rendered, the more fit would they be for his purpose. There were the

tools, sharp and ready for use, but he thought they would admit of a yet

finer edge, and prepared to put it on accordingly. Therefore, he had

ordered the supper to be laid in an inner apartment, reserved for

occasions of especial state, and in which it was whispered that Vitellius

himself had more than once partaken of his subject’s hospitality; nay, had

even expressed gratification with his entertainment; and which, while

blazing with as much of ornament and decoration as could be crowded into a

supper‐room, was of such moderate dimensions as to bring all the costly

objects it contained within notice of the guests. The tesselated pavement

was of the richest and gaudiest squares, laid together as smooth and

bright as glass. The walls were of polished citron‐wood, heavily gilded

round the skirting and edges, while the panels were covered in the florid

and gradually deteriorating taste of the period, with paintings, brilliant

in colour, and beautiful in execution. These represented mythological

subjects not of the purest nature, but fauns, nymphs, and satyrs were to

be found in the majority, while Bacchus himself was more than once

repeated in all the glory of his swaying paunch; his garland of vine‐

leaves, his ivy‐covered wand, and surrounding clusters of rich, ripe,

purple grapes. To fill the niches between these panels, the goat—an animal

always associated in the Roman mind with wine, perhaps because he drinks

no water—was imitated in precious metals, and in every attitude. Here they

butted, there they browsed, in another corner a pair of them frisked and

gambolled in living kid‐like glee, while yonder, horned and bearded, a

venerable sage in silver gazed upon the guests with a wise Arcadian

simplicity that was almost ludicrous. The tables, which were removed with

every change of dishes, were of cedar, supported on grotesque claws of

bronze, heavily gilt; the couches, framed of ivory and gold, were draped

in various coloured shawls of the softest Asiatic texture, and strewed

with cushions of so rich a crimson as to border nearly on imperial purple.

No dish was of a meaner metal than gold, and the drinking‐cups, in which

Falernian blushed, or Chian sparkled, were studded with rubies, emeralds,

pearls, and other precious stones. The sharp nail of a gladiator might at

any moment have picked out, unobserved, that which would have purchased

his freedom and his life, but the men were honest, as they understood the

term, and the gems were as safe here, and indeed a good deal safer, than

they would have been in the temple of Vesta, or of the Capitoline Jove

himself. In a recess at one end of the apartment, reared like an altar

upon three wide low carpeted steps, from each of which censers exhaled

aromatic odours, stood the sideboard of polished walnut, carved in

exquisite imitation of birds, insects, reptiles, flowers, and fruit. This

was covered by a snowy cloth, and on it glittered, richly chased and

burnished, the tribune’s store of golden cups and vases, which men quoted

at every supper‐table in Rome.

Lutorius, reclining opposite this blaze of magnificence, shaded his eyes

with his hand.

“What is it, my bold Gaul?” asked his host, raising himself on his elbow

to pledge him, and signing to a slave to fill the swordsman’s cup. “Hast

thou got thy guard up already to save thy face?”

“They dazzle me, most illustrious!” answered the ready Gaul. “I had rather

blink at the sunrise flashing on the blue waters from Ostia. I did not

think there had been so much gold in Rome.”

“He has not seen the palace yet,” said Placidus, laughing, as he emptied

his cup and turned to the other guests. “Some of us will indeed be dazzled

to‐night, if I mistake not. What think ye, my friends, must be the plates

and drinking‐vessels where the very shields and helmets of the guards are

solid gold? Meantime, let us wash our eyes with Falernian, lest we mistake

our way and intrude on the privacy of Cæsar in the dark.”

So appropriate a sentiment met with universal approval. The gladiators

laughed loudly, and proffered their cups to be filled. There was no

question now of secrecy or disguise; there was even no further affectation

of ignoring the purpose for which they had met, or the probable result of

the night’s enterprise. Eumolpus, indeed, and one or two more of the

thicker‐witted, satisfied to know that the present moment brought a

magnificent reception and an abundance of good cheer, were willing to

remain in uncertainty about the future, resolving simply to obey the

orders of their captain, and to ask no questions; but even these could not

help learning by degrees that they had before them no work of ordinary

bloodshed, but that they were involved in a conspiracy which was to

determine the empire of the world. It did not destroy their appetite,

though it may have increased their thirst.

In proportion as the wine flowed faster the guests lost their diffidence

and found their tongues. Their host exerted himself to win golden opinions

from all, and entered with ready tact into the characteristics and

peculiarities of each.

“Eumolpus!” said he, as a slave entered bearing an enormous turbot on a

yet larger dish, “fear not to encounter him. He is a worthy foe, and a

countryman of thine own. He left Ravenna but yesterday. In truth, that

fair‐built town sends us the widest turbots and the broadest shoulders in

the empire. Taste him, man, with a cup of Chian, and say if the trainer’s

rations have spoiled thy palate for native food.”

Half‐brutalised as he was by nature and education, the gladiator had still

a kindly feeling for his birthplace. Even now a memory of his boyhood

would sometimes steal across him like a dream. The stretch of sand, the

breezy Adriatic, the waves dashing against the harbour‐walls, and a vision

of curly‐headed, black‐eyed children, of whom he was one, tumbling and

playing on the shore. He felt more human when he thought of such things.

While the tribune spoke he rose in his own esteem; for his host treated

him like a man rather than a beast; and those few careless words gained a

champion for Placidus who was ready to follow him to the death.

So was it with the rest. To Rufus he enlarged on the happiness of a

country life, and the liberty—none the less dear for being

imaginary—enjoyed by a Roman citizen, who, within easy distance of the

capital, could sit beneath his own porch to watch the sunset crimsoning

the Apennines, and tread into home‐made wine the grapes of his own

vineyard. He talked of pruning the elms and training the vines, of

shearing sheep and goading oxen, as though he had been a rustic all his

life, seasoning such glowing descriptions, to suit his listener’s palate,

with the charms even of winter in the snow amongst the hills—the boar

driven through the leafless copse, the wild‐fowl lured from the half‐

frozen lake, the snug and homely roof, the crackling fire, and the

children playing on the hearth.

“’Tis but another night‐watch,” said he cordially, “and it will be my turn

to sup with thee in thy mountain‐home. Half a dozen such strokes as I have

seen thee deal in mere sport, my hero! and thou wilt never need to meddle

with steel again, save in the form of a ploughshare or a hunting‐spear. By

the fillet of Ceres! my friends, there is a golden harvest to‐night, only

waiting for the sickle!”

And Rufus, for whom a few acres of Italian soil, and liberty to cultivate

them in peace, with his wife and children, comprised all of happiness that

life could give, contemplated the prospect thus offered with an

imagination heated by wine, and a determination, truly formidable in a man

of his quiet, dogged resolution, if hard fighting was to count for

anything, not to fail in at least deserving his reward.

“Hirpinus!” exclaimed the host, turning to the veteran, who was a sworn

lover of good cheer, and had already consumed supper enough for two

ordinary men, washed down by proportionate draughts of wine, “thy

favourite morsel is even now leaving the spit. Pledge me in Falernian ere

it comes. Nay, spoil it not with honey, which I hold to be a mistake

unworthy of a gladiator. We will pour a libation to Diana down our

throats, in her capacity of huntress only, my friend; I care not for the

goddess in any other. Ho! slaves! bring here some wild boars!”

As he spoke the domestics reappeared, in pairs, carrying between them as

many wild boars, roasted whole, as there were guests. One of these huge

dishes was set aside for each man, and the carvers proceeded to their

duty, unmoved by the ejaculations of amazement that broke from the

gladiators at such prodigal magnificence.

Their attention was, however, somewhat distracted at this stage of the

feast by the entrance of Euchenor, who slunk to the place reserved for him

with a shade of sullen disappointment lowering on his brow. The host,

however, had resolved that nothing should occur to mar the success of his

entertainment, so refrained from asking any questions as to his absence,

and motioned him courteously to a couch, with as frank a greeting as

though he had been aware of its cause. He suspected treachery

notwithstanding, none the less that Euchenor hastened to explain his tardy

arrival. “He had heard a tumult in the neighbourhood,” he said, “whilst

the guests were entering the house, and had visited the nearest post of

his comrades to ascertain that they had not been attacked. It was some

distance to the palace‐gardens, and he could not avoid missing the earlier

stages of the banquet.”

“You must make up for lost time,” observed Placidus, signing to the slaves

to heap the new‐comer’s plate and fill his cup to the brim. “The later,

the warmer welcome; the earlier, the better cheer;” and whilst he spoke

the friendly words he was resolving that the Greek should be placed in

front that whole night, under his immediate supervision. At the slightest

symptom of treachery or wavering he would slay him with his own hand.

And now the gigantic hunger of these champions seemed to be appeased at

last. Dish had succeeded dish in endless variety, and they had applied

themselves to each as it came with an undiminished energy that astonished

the domestics accustomed to the palled appetites of jaded men of pleasure

like their lord. Even the latter—though he tried hard, for he especially

prided himself on his capacity of eating and drinking—found it impossible

to keep pace with his guests. Their great bodily powers, indeed, increased

by severe and habitual training, enabled them to consume vast quantities

of food, without experiencing those sensations of lassitude and repletion

which overcome weaker frames. It seemed as though most of what they ate

went at once to supply the waste created by years of toil, and as soon as

swallowed, fed the muscles instead of burdening the stomach. It was

equally so with wine. Such men can drink draught after draught, and

partake freely in the questionable pleasures of intoxication, whilst they

pay none of its penalties. A breath of fresh air, a few minutes’ exercise,

and their brains are cool, their eyes clear, their whole system

strengthened for the time, and stimulated, rather than stupefied, by their

excess.

The gladiators lay back on their couches in extreme bodily content. The

cups were still quickly filled and emptied, but more in compliance with

the customs of conviviality than the demands of thirst. They were all

talking at once, and every man saw both present and future through the

rosy medium of the wine he had imbibed.

There were two, however, of the party who had not suffered their real

inmost attention to stray for an instant from the actual business of the

night, who calculated the time exactly as it passed—who watched the men

through the succeeding phases of satisfaction, good‐humour, conviviality,

and recklessness, stopping just short of inebriety, and seized the very

moment at which the iron was hot enough to strike. The same thought was in

the brain of each, when their eyes met; the same words were springing to

their lips, but Hippias spoke first.

“No more wine to‐night, tribune, if work is to be done! The circus is

full; the arena swept; the show paid for. When the prætor takes his seat

we are ready to begin.”

Placidus glanced significantly in his face, and rose, holding a brimming

goblet in his hand. The suddenness of the movement arrested immediate

attention. The men were all silent, and looking towards their host.

“Good friends!” said he. “Trusty swordsmen! Welcome guests! Listen to me.

To‐night we burn the palace—we overthrow the empire—we hurl Cæsar from his

throne. All this you know, but there is something more you do not know.

One has escaped who is acquainted with the plot. In an hour it may be too

late. We are fast friends; we are in the same galley—the land is not a

bowshot off. But the wind is rising—the water rushing in beneath her keel.

Will you bend your backs forthwith and row the galley safe home with me?”

The project was a favourite one, the metaphor suited to their tastes. As

the tribune paused, acclamations greeted him on all sides, and “We will!

We will!” “Through storm and sunshine!” “Against wind and weather!” sprang

from many an eager lip. It was obvious the men were ready for anything.

“One libation to Pluto!” added the host, emptying his cup, and the guests

leaping to their feet followed his example with a mad cheer. Then they

formed in pairs, as they were accustomed in the amphitheatre, and Euchenor

with a malicious laugh exclaimed—_Morituri te salutant_.

It was enough! The ominous words were caught up and repeated in wild

defiance and derision, boding small scruples of mercy or remorse. Twice

they marched round the supper‐room to the burden of that ghastly chant,

and when shaking off the fumes of wine they snatched eagerly at their

arms, Placidus put himself at their head with a triumphant conviction

that, come what might, they would not fail him in his last desperate throw

for the great game.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GERMAN GUARD

[Initial A]

All was in confusion at the palace of the Cæsars. The civil war that had

now been raging for several hours in the capital, the tumults that

pervaded every quarter of the city, had roused the alarm, and to a certain

extent the vigilance of such troops as still owned allegiance to

Vitellius. But late events had much slackened the discipline for which

Roman soldiers were so famous, and that could be but a spurious loyalty

which depended on amount of pay and opportunities for plunder, which was

accustomed moreover to see the diadem transferred from one successful

general to another at a few months’ interval. Perhaps his German guards

were the only soldiers of Vitellius on whom he could place any reliance;

but even these had been reduced to a mere handful by slaughter and

desertion, while the few who remained, though unimpeachable in their

fidelity, were wanting in every quality that constitutes military

efficiency, except the physical strength and desperate courage they

brought with them from the north.

They were, however, the Emperor’s last hope. They occupied palace‐gardens

to‐night, feeding their bivouac‐fires with branches from its stately

cedars, or uprooting its exotic shrubs to hurl them crackling in the

blaze. The Roman citizens looking on their gigantic forms moving to and

fro in the glare, shuddered and whispered, and pointed them out to each

other as being half men, half demons, while a passing soldier would raise

his eagle crest more proudly, relating how those were the foes over whom

the legions had triumphed, and would turn forthwith into a wineshop to

celebrate his prowess at the expense of some admiring citizen in the

crowd.

One of these German mercenaries may be taken as a sample of the rest. He

was standing sentry over a narrow wicket that afforded entrance to the

palace‐gardens, and was the first obstacle encountered by Esca, after the

latter had hastened from the Esquiline to give intelligence of the design

against Cæsar’s life. Leaning on his spear, with his tall frame and large

muscles thrown into strong relief by the light of the bivouac‐fire behind

him, he brought to the Briton’s mind many a stirring memory of his own

warlike boyhood, when by the side of just such champions, armed in such a

manner, he had struggled, though in vain, against the discipline and the

strategy of the invader. Scarcely older than himself, the sentry possessed

the comely features and the bright colouring of youth, with a depth of

chest and squareness of shoulder that denoted all the power of mature

manhood. He seemed indeed a formidable antagonist for any single foe, and

able to keep at bay half a score of the finest men who stood in the front

rank of the legions. He was clad in a long white garment of linen,

reaching below the knee, and fastened at the neck by a single clasp of

gold; his shield and helmet too, although this was no state occasion, but

one on which he would probably be massacred before morning, were of the

same metal, his spear‐head and sword of the finest‐tempered steel. The

latter, especially, was a formidable weapon. Considerably longer than the

Roman’s, which was only used for the thrust at close quarters, it could

deal sweeping blows that would cleave a headpiece or lop a limb, and

managed lightly as a riding‐wand by the German’s powerful arm, would hew

fearful gaps in the ranks of an enemy, if their line wavered, or their

order was in any degree destroyed.

Notwithstanding the warlike nature of his arms and bearing, the sentry’s

face was fair and smooth as a woman’s; the flaxen down was scarcely

springing on his chin, and the golden locks escaped beneath his helmet,

and clustered in curls upon his neck. His light blue eye, too, had a mild

and rather vacant expression as it roved carelessly around; but the Romans

had long ago learned that those light blue eyes could kindle into sparks

of fire when steel was crossed, could glare with invincible hatred and

defiance even when fixed in death.

Esca’s heart warmed to the barbarian guardsman with a feeling of sympathy

and kindred. The latter sentiment may have suggested the plan by which he

obtained entrance to the palace, for the difficulty of so doing had

presented itself to him in brighter colours every moment as he approached.

Pausing, therefore, at a few paces from the sentry, who levelled his spear

and challenged when he heard footsteps, the Briton unbuckled his sword and

cast it down between them, to indicate that he claimed protection and had

no intention of offence. The other muttered some unintelligible words in

his own language. It was obvious that he knew no Latin and that their

conversation must be carried on by signs. This, however, rather smoothed

than enhanced the difficulty; and it was a relief to Esca that the first

impulse of the German had not been to alarm his comrades and resort to

violence. The latter seemed to entertain no apprehension from any single

individual, whether friend or foe, and looked, moreover, with favourable

eyes on Esca’s appearance, which bore a certain family likeness to that of

his own countrymen. He suffered him therefore to approach his post,

questioning him by signs, to which the Briton replied in the same manner,

perfectly ignorant of their meaning, but with a fervent hope that the

result of these mysterious gestures might be his admission within the

wall.

Under such circumstances the two were not likely to arrive at a clear

understanding. After a while the German looked completely puzzled, and

passed the word in his own language to a comrade within hearing,

apparently for assistance. Esca heard the sound repeated in more than one

voice, till it died away under the trees; there was obviously a strong

chain of sentries round Cæsar’s palace. In the meantime the German would

not permit Esca to approach within spear’s‐length of his post, though he

kept him back good‐humouredly with the butt‐end of that weapon, nor would

he suffer him to pick his sword up and gird it round his waist

again—making nevertheless, all the while, signs of cordiality and

friendship; but though Esca responded to these with equal warmth, he was

no nearer the inside than at first.

Presently the heavy tramp of armed men smote his ear, and a centurion,

accompanied by half a dozen soldiers, approached the wicket. These bore a

strong resemblance, both in form and features, to the sentry who had

summoned them; but their officer spoke Latin, and Esca, who had gained a

little time to mature his plan, answered the German centurion’s questions

without hesitation.

“I belong to your own division,” said he, “though I come from farther

north than your troop, and speak a different dialect. We were disbanded

but yesterday, by a written order from Cæsar. It has turned out to be a

forgery. We have been scattered through half the wineshops in Rome, and a

herald came round and found me drinking, and bade me return to my duty

without delay. He said we were to muster somewhere hereabouts, that we

should find a post at the palace, and could join it till our own officers

came back. I am but a barbarian, I know little of Rome, but this is the

palace, is it not? and you are a centurion of the German guard?”

He drew himself up as he spoke with military respect, and the officer had

no hesitation in believing his tale, the more so that certain of Cæsar’s

troops had lately been disbanded at a time when their services seemed to

be most in requisition. Taking charge of Esca’s weapon, he spoke a few

words in his own language to the sentry, and then addressed the Briton.

“You may come to the main‐guard,” said he. “I should not mind a few more

of the same maniple. We are likely to want all we can get to‐night.”

As he conducted him through the gardens, he asked several questions

concerning the strength of the opposing party, the state of the town, and

the general feeling of the citizens towards Vitellius, all which Esca

parried to the best of his abilities, hazarding a guess where he could,

and accounting for his ignorance where he could not, on the plea that he

had spent his whole time since his dismissal in the wineshops—an excuse

which the centurion’s knowledge of the tastes and habits of his division

caused him to accept without suspicion of its truth.

Arrived at the watch‐fire, Esca’s military experience, slight as it had

been, was enough to apprise him of the imminent dangers that threatened

the palace in the event of an attack. The huge Germans lounged and lay

about in the glare of the burning logs, as though feast, and song, and

revelry were the objects for which they were mustered. Wine was flowing

freely in large flagons, commensurate to the noble thirst of these

Scandinavian warriors; and even the sentries leaving their posts at

intervals, as caprice or indolence prompted, strode up to the watch‐fire,

laughed a loud laugh, drained a full beaker, and walked quietly back

again, none the worse, to their beat. All hailed a new comrade with the

utmost glee, as a further incentive to drink; and although Esca was

pleased to find that none but their centurion was familiar with Latin, and

that he was consequently free from much inconvenient cross‐examination, it

was obvious that there was no intention of letting him depart without

pledging them in deep draughts of the rough and potent Sabine wine.

With youth, health, and a fixed resolve to keep his wits about him, the

Briton managed to perform this part of a soldier’s duty to the

satisfaction of his entertainers. The moments seemed very long, but whilst

the Germans were singing, drinking, and making their remarks upon him in

their own language, he had time to think of his plans. To have declared at

once that he knew of a plot against Cæsar, and to call upon the centurion

to obtain his admittance to the person of the Emperor, would, he was well

aware, only defeat his own object, by throwing suspicion on himself as a

probable assassin and confederate of the conspirators. To put the officer

on the alert, would cause him, perhaps, to double his sentries, and to

stop the allowance of wine in course of consumption; but Esca saw plainly

that no resistance from within the palace could be made to the large force

his late master would bring to bear upon it. The only chance for the

Emperor was to escape. If he could himself reach his presence, and warn

him personally, he thought he could prevail upon him to fly. This was the

difficulty. A monarch in his palace is not visible to everyone who may

wish to see him, even when his own safety is concerned; but Esca had

already gained the interior of the gardens, and that success encouraged

him to proceed.

The Germans, though believing themselves more vigilant than usual (to such

a low state the boasted discipline of Cæsar’s body‐guard had fallen), were

confused and careless under the influence of wine, and their attention to

the new‐comer was soon distracted by a fresh chorus and a fresh flagon.

Esca, under pretence that he required repose, managed to withdraw himself

from the glare of the firelight, and borrowing a cloak from a ruddy

comrade with a stentorian voice, lay down in the shadow of an arbutus, and

affected profound repose. By degrees, coiling himself along the sward like

a snake, he slipped out of sight, leaving his cloak so arranged as to

resemble a sleeping form, and sped off in the direction of the palace, to

which he was guided by numerous distant lights.

Some alarm had evidently preceded him even here. Crowds of slaves, both

male and female, chiefly Greeks and Asiatics, were pouring from its

egresses and hurrying through the gardens in obvious dismay. The Briton

could not but remark that none were empty‐handed, and the value of their

burdens denoted that those who now fled had no intention ever to return.

They took little notice of him when they passed, save that a few of the

more timid, glancing at his stalwart figure, turned aside and ran the

swifter; while others, perceiving that he was unarmed, for he had left his

sword with the Germans, shot at him some contemptuous gesture or ribald

jest, which they thought the barbarian would not understand in time to

resent.

Thus he reached the spacious front of the palace, and here, indeed, the

trumpets were sounding, and the German guard forming, evidently for

resistance to an attack. There was no mistaking the expression of the

men’s faces, nor the clang of their heavy weapons. Though they filled the

main court, however, a stream of fugitives still poured from the side‐

doors, and through one of these, the Briton determined he would find no

difficulty in effecting an entrance. Glancing at the fine men getting

under arms with such business‐like rapidity, he thought how even that

handful might make such a defence as would give Cæsar time to escape,

either at the back of the palace, or, if that were invested, disguised as

one of the slaves who were still hurrying off in motley crowds; and

notwithstanding his new‐born feelings, he could not help, from old

association, wishing that he might strike a blow by the side of these

stalwart guardsmen, even for such a cause as theirs.

Observing a door opening on a terrace which had been left completely

undefended, Esca entered the palace unopposed, and roamed through hall

after hall without meeting a living creature. Much of value had already

been cleared away, but enough remained to have excited the cupidity of the

richest subject in Rome. Shawls, arms, jewels, vases, statues, caskets,

and drinking‐cups were scattered about in a waste of magnificent

confusion, while in many instances rapacious ignorance had carried off

that which was comparatively the dross, and left the more precious

articles behind. Esca had never even dreamed of such gorgeous luxury as he

now beheld. For a few minutes his mind was no less stupefied than his eye

was dazzled, and he almost forgot his object in sheer wonder and

admiration; but there was no time to be lost, and he looked about in vain

for some clue to guide him through this glittering wilderness to the

presence of the Emperor.

The rooms seemed endless, opening one into another, and each more splendid

than the last. At length he heard the sound of voices, and darting eagerly

forward, found himself in the midst of half a dozen persons clad in robes

of state, with garlands on their heads, reclining round the fragments of a

feast, a flagon or two of wine, and a golden cornucopia of fruit and

flowers. As he entered, these started to their feet, exclaiming, “They are

upon us!” and huddled together in a corner, like a flock of sheep when

terrified by a dog. Observing, however, that the Briton was alone and

unarmed, they seemed to take courage, and a fat figure thrusting itself

forward, exclaimed in one breath, “He is not to be disturbed! Cæsar is

busy. Are the Germans firm?”

His voice shook and his whole frame quivered with fear, nevertheless Esca

recognised the speaker. It was his old antagonist Spado, a favourite

eunuch of the household, in dire terror for his life, yet showing the one

redeeming quality of fidelity to the hand that fed him. His comrades kept

behind him, taking their cue from his conduct as the bellwether of the

flock, yet trusting fervently his wisdom would counsel immediate flight.

“I know you,” said Esca hurriedly. “I struck you that night in anger. It

is all over now. I have come to save your lives, all of you, and to rescue

Cæsar.”

“How?” said Spado, ignoring his previous injuries in the alarm of the

hour. “You can save us? You can rescue Cæsar? Then it _is_ true. The

tumult is grown to a rebellion! The Germans are driven in, and the game is

lost!”

The others caught up their mantles, girded themselves, and prepared for

instant flight.

“The guard can hold the palace for half an hour yet,” replied Esca coolly.

“But the Emperor must escape. Julius Placidus will be here forthwith, at

the head of two hundred gladiators, and the tribune means to murder his

master as surely as you stand trembling there.”

Ere he had done speaking, he was left alone in the room with Spado. The

tribune’s character was correctly appreciated, even by the eunuchs of the

palace, and they stayed to hear no more; but Spado only looked blankly in

the Briton’s face, wringing his fat hands, and answered to the other’s

urgent appeals, “His orders were explicit. Cæsar is busy. He must not be

disturbed. He said so himself. Cæsar is busy!”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BUSINESS OF CÆSAR

Thrusting Spado aside without ceremony, and disregarding the eunuch’s

expostulations in obedience to the orders he had received, Esca burst

through a narrow door, tore down a velvet curtain, and found himself in

the private apartment of the Emperor. Cæsar’s business was at that moment

scarcely of an urgency to weigh against the consideration of Cæsar’s life.

Vitellius was reclining on a couch, his dress disordered and ungirt, a

garland of roses at his feet, his heavy face, of which the swollen

features had lost all their early comeliness, expressing nothing but

sullen torpid calm; his eye fixed on vacancy, his weak nerveless hands

crossed in front of his unwieldy person, and his whole attitude that of

one who had little to occupy his attention, save his own personal

indulgence and comfort. Yet for all this, the mind was busy within that

bloated form. There are moments in existence, when the past comes back to

us day by day, and incident by incident, shining out in colours vivid and

lifelike as the present. On the eve of an important crisis, during the

crisis itself if we are not permitted to take an active part in it but

compelled to remain passive, the mere sport of its contingencies, for the

few minutes that succeed a complete demolition of the fabric we have been

building all our lives, we become possessed of this faculty, and seem, in

a strange dream‐like sense, to live our time over again.

For the last few days, even Vitellius had awoke to the conviction that his

diadem was in danger, for the last few hours he had seen cause to tremble

for his life; nevertheless, none of the usual habits of the palace had

been altered; and even when Primus, the successful general of his

dangerous rival, Vespasian, occupied the suburbs, his reverses did but

elicit from the Emperor a call for more wine and a heartless jest. To‐day

he must have seen clearly that all was lost, yet the supper to which he

sat down with half a dozen favourite eunuchs, was no less elaborate than

usual, the wine flowed as freely, the Emperor ate as enormously, and when

he could eat no more, retired to pass his customary half‐hour in perfect

silence and repose, nor suffered the important process of digestion to be

disturbed by the fact that his very gates must ere midnight be in

possession of the enemy.

Nevertheless, as if in warning of what was to come, the pageant of his

life seemed to move past his half‐closed eyes; and who shall say how vain

and empty such a pageant may have appeared even to the besotted glutton,

who, though he had the address to catch the diadem of the Cæsars, when it

was thrown to him by chance, knew but too well that he had no power to

retain it on his head when wrested by the grasp of force. Though feeble

and worn out, he was not old, far short of threescore years, yet what a

life of change and turmoil and vicissitudes his had been! Proconsul of

Africa, favourite of four emperors, it must have been a certain

versatility of talent that enabled him to rule such an important province

with tolerable credit, and yet retain the good graces of successive

tyrants, resembling each other in nothing save incessant caprice. An

informer with Tiberius; a pander to the crimes, and a proselyte to the

divinity of mad Caligula; a screen for Messalina’s vices, and an easy

adviser to her easy and timid lord; lastly, everything in turn with

Nero—chariot‐driver, singer, parasite, buffoon, and in all these various

parts, preserving the one unfailing characteristic of a consummate and

systematic debauchee. It seemed but yesterday that he had thrown the dice

with Claudius, staking land and villas as freely as jewels and gold,

losing heavily to his imperial master; and, though he had to borrow the

money at high usury, quick‐witted enough to perceive the noble reversion

he had thus a chance of purchasing. It seemed but yesterday that he flew

round the dusky circus, grazing the goal with practised skill, and, by a

happy dexterity, suffering Caligula to win the race so narrowly, as to

enchance the pleasure of imperial triumph. It seemed but yesterday that he

sang with Nero, and flattered the monster by comparing him with the

sirens, whose voices charmed mariners to their destruction.

And now was it all over? Must he indeed give up the imperial purple and

the throne of blazing gold?—the luxurious banquets and the luscious wines?

He shuddered and sickened while he thought of a crust of brown bread and a

pitcher of water. Nay, worse than this, was he sure his life was safe? He

had seen death often—what Roman had not? But at his best, in the field,

clad in corselet and headpiece, and covered with a buckler, he had thought

him an ugly and unwelcome visitor. Even at Bedriacum, when he told his

generals as he rode over the slain, putrefying on the ground, that “a dead

enemy smelt sweet, and the sweeter for being a citizen,” he remembered now

that his gorge had risen while he spoke. He remembered, too, the German

body‐guard that had accompanied him, and the faithful courage with which

his German levies fought. There were a few of them in the palace yet. It

gave him confidence to recollect this. For a moment the soldier‐spirit

kindled up within, and he felt as though he could put himself at the head

of those blue‐eyed giants, lead them into the very centre of the enemy,

and die there like a man. He rose to his feet, and snatched at one of the

weapons hanging for ornament against the wall, but the weak limbs failed,

the pampered body asserted itself, and he sank back helpless on the couch.

It was at this moment that Esca burst so unceremoniously into the

Emperor’s presence.

Vitellius did not rise again, less alarmed, perhaps, than astonished. The

Briton threw himself upon his knees, and touched the broad crimson binding

of the imperial gown.

“There is not a moment to lose!” said he. “They are forcing the gates. The

guard has been driven back. It is too late for resistance; but Cæsar may

yet escape if he will trust himself to me.”

Vitellius looked about him, bewildered. At that moment a shout was heard

from the palace‐gardens, accompanied by a rush of many feet, and the

ominous clash of steel. Esca knew that the assailants were gladiators. If

they came in with their blood up, they would give no quarter.

“Cæsar must disguise himself,” he insisted earnestly. “The slaves have

been leaving the palace in hundreds. If the Emperor would put on a coarse

garment and come with me, I can show him the way to safety; and Placidus,

hastening to this apartment, will find it empty.”

With all his sensual vices, there was yet something left of the old Roman

spirit in Vitellius, which sparkled out in an emergency. After the first

sudden surprise of Esca’s entrance, he became cooler every moment. At the

mention of the tribune’s name he seemed to reflect.

“Who are you?” said he, after a pause; “and how came you here?”

Short as had been his reign he had acquired the tone of royalty; and could

even assume a certain dignity, notwithstanding the urgency of his present

distress. In a few words Esca explained to him his danger, and his

enemies.

“Placidus,” repeated the Emperor thoughtfully, and as if more concerned

than surprised; “then there is no chance of the design failing; no hope of

mercy when it has succeeded. Good friend! I will take your advice. I will

trust you, and go with you, where you will. If I am an Emperor to‐morrow,

you will be the greatest man in Rome.”

Hitherto he had been leaning indolently back on the couch. Now he seemed

to rouse himself for action, and stripped the crimson‐bordered gown from

his shoulders, the signet‐ring from his hand.

“They will make a gallant defence,” said he, “but if I know Julius

Placidus, he will outnumber them ten to one. Nevertheless they may hold

him at bay with their long swords till we get clear of the palace. The

gardens are dark and spacious; we can hide there for a time, and take an

opportunity of reaching my wife’s house on Mount Aventine; Galeria will

not betray me, and they will never think of looking for me there.”

Speaking thus coolly and deliberately, but more to himself than his

companion, Cæsar, divested of all marks of splendour in his dress and

ornaments, stripped to a plain linen garment, turning up his sleeves and

girding himself the while, like a slave busied in some household work

requiring activity and despatch, suffered the Briton to lead him into the

next apartment, where, deserted by his comrades, and sorely perplexed

between a vague sense of duty and a strong inclination to run away, Spado

was pacing to and fro in a ludicrous state of perturbation and dismay.

Already the noise of fighting was plainly distinguished in the outer

court. The gladiators, commanded by Hippias and guided by the treacherous

tribune, had overpowered the main body of the Germans who occupied the

imperial gardens, and were now engaged with the remnant of these faithful

barbarians at the very doors of the palace.

The latter, though outnumbered, fought with the desperate courage of their

race. The Roman soldier in his cool methodical discipline, was sometimes

puzzled to account for that frantic energy, which acknowledged no

superiority either of position or numbers, which seemed to gather a

fresher and more stubborn courage from defeat; and even the gladiators,

men whose very livelihood was slaughter, and whose weapons were never out

of their hands, found themselves no match for these large savage warriors

in the struggle of a hand‐to‐hand combat, recoiled more than once in

baffled rage and astonishment from the long swords, and the blue eyes, and

the tall forms that seemed to tower and dilate in the fierce revelry of

battle.

The military skill of Placidus, exercised before many a Jewish rampart,

and on many a Syrian plain, had worsted the main body of the Germans by

taking them in flank. Favoured by the darkness of the shrubberies, he had

contrived to throw a hundred practised swordsmen unexpectedly on their

most defenceless point. Surprised and outnumbered, they retreated

nevertheless in good order, though sadly diminished, upon their comrades

at the gate. Here the remaining handful made a desperate stand, and here

Placidus, wiping his bloody sword upon his tunic, whispered to Hippias—

“We must put Hirpinus and the supper‐party in front! If we can but carry

the gate, there are a score of entrances into the palace. Remember! we

give no quarter, and we recognise no one.”

Whilst the chosen band who had left the tribune’s table were held in check

by the guard, there was a moment’s respite, during which Cæsar might

possibly escape. Esca, rapidly calculating the difficulties in his own

mind, had resolved to hurry him through the most secluded part of the

gardens into the streets, and so running the chance of recognition which

in the darkness of night, and under the coarse garb of a household slave,

was but a remote contingency, to convey him by a circuitous route to

Galeria’s house, of which he knew the situation, and where he might be

concealed for a time without danger of detection. The great obstacle was

to get him out of the palace without being seen. The private door by which

he had himself entered, he knew must be defended, or the assailants would

have taken advantage of it ere this, and he dared not risk recognition, to

say nothing of the chances of war, by endeavouring to escape through the

midst of the conflict at the main gate. He appealed to Spado for

assistance.

“There is a terrace at the back here,” stammered the eunuch; “if Cæsar can

reach it, a pathway leads directly down to the summer‐house in the

thickest part of the gardens; thence he can go between the fish‐ponds

straight to the wicket that opens on the Appian Way.”

“Idiot!” exclaimed the Emperor angrily, “how am I to reach the terrace?

There is no door, and the window must be a man’s height at least from the

ground.”

“It is your only chance of life, illustrious!” observed Esca impatiently.

“Guide us to the window, friend,” he added, turning to Spado, who looked

from one to the other in helpless astonishment, “and tear that shawl from

the couch; we may want it for a rope to let the Emperor down.”

A fresh shout from the combatants at the gate, while it completely

paralysed the eunuch, seemed to determine Vitellius. He moved resolutely

forward, followed by his two companions, Spado whispering to the Briton,

“You are a brave young man. We will all escape together, I—I will stand by

you to the last!”

They needed but to cross a passage and traverse another room. Cæsar peered

over the window‐sill into the darkness below, and drew back.

“It is a long way down,” said he. “What if I were to break a limb?”

Esca produced the shawl he had brought with him from the adjoining

apartment, and offered to place it under his arms and round his body.

“Shall I go first?” said Spado. “It is not five cubits from the ground.”

But the Emperor thought of his brother Lucius and the cohorts at

Terracina. Could he but gain the camp there he would be safe, nay more, he

could make head against his rival; he would return to Rome with a

victorious army; he would retrieve the diadem and the purple, and the

suppers at the palace once more.

“Stay where you are!” he commanded Spado, who was looking with an eager

eye at the window. “I will risk it. One draught of Falernian, and I will

risk it and be gone.”

He turned back towards the banqueting‐room, and while he did so another

shout warned him that the gate was carried, and the palace in possession

of the conspirators.

Esca followed the Emperor, vainly imploring him to fly. Spado, taking one

more look from the window ere he risked his bones, heard the ring of

armour and the tramp of feet coming round the corner of the palace, on the

very terrace he desired to reach. White and trembling, he tore the garland

from his head and gnawed its roses with his teeth in the inpotence of his

despair. He knew the last chance was gone now, and they must die.

The Emperor returned to the room where he had supped; seized a flagon of

Falernian, filled himself a large goblet which he half‐emptied at a

draught, and set it down on the board with a deep sigh of satisfaction.

The courtyard had been taken at last, and the palace surrounded.

Resistance was hopeless, and escape impossible. The Germans were still

fighting, indeed, within the rooms, disputing inch by inch the glittering

corridors, and the carved doorways, and the shining polished floors, now

more slippery than ever with blood. Pictures and statues seemed to look

down in calm amazement at thrust and blow and death‐grapple, and all the

reeling confusion of mortal strife. But the noise came nearer and nearer;

the Germans, falling man by man, were rapidly giving ground. Esca knew the

game was lost at last, and he turned to his companions in peril with a

grave and clouded brow.

“There is nothing for it left,” said he, “but to die like men. Yet if

there be any corner in which Cæsar can hide,” he added, with something of

contempt in his tone, “I will gain him five minutes more of life, if this

glittering toy holds together so long.”

Then he snatched from the wall an Asiatic javelin, all lacquered and

ornamented with gold, cast one look at the others, as if to bid them

farewell, and hurried from the room. Spado, a mass of shaking flesh, and

tumbled garments and festive ornaments strangely out of keeping with his

attitude, cowered down against the wall, hiding his face in his hands; but

Vitellius, with something akin even to gratification on his countenance,

returned to the half‐emptied cup, and raising it to his lips, deliberately

finished his Falernian.

CHAPTER XIX

AT BAY

It was not in Esca’s nature to be within hearing of shrewd blows and yet

abstain from taking part in the fray. His recent sentiments had indeed

undergone a change that would produce timely fruit; and neither the words

of the preacher in the Esquiline, nor the example of Calchas, nor the

sweet influence of Mariamne, had been without their effect. But it was

engrained in his very character to love the stir and tumult of a fight.

From a boy his blood leaped and tingled at the clash of steel. His was the

courage which is scarcely exercised in the tide of personal conflict, and

must be proved rather in endurance than in action—so naturally does it

force itself to the front when men are dealing blow for blow. His youth,

too, had been spent in warfare, and in that most ennobling of all warfare

which defends home from the aggression of an invader. He had long ago

learned to love danger for its own sake, and now he experienced besides a

morbid desire to have his hand on the tribune’s throat, so he felt the

point and tried the shaft of his javelin with a thrill of savage joy,

while, guided by the sounds of combat he hurried along the corridor to

join the remnant of the faithful German guard. Not a score of them were

left, and of these scarce one but bled from some grievous wound. Their

white garments were stained with crimson, their gaudy golden armour was

hacked and dinted, their strength was nearly spent, and every hope of

safety gone; but their courage was still unquenched, and as man after man

went down, the survivors closed in and fought on, striking desperately

with their faces to the foe. The tribune and his chosen band, supported by

a numerous body of inferior gladiators, were pressing them sore. Placidus,

an expert swordsman, and in no way wanting physical courage, was

conspicuous in the front. Hippias alone seemed to vie with the tribune in

reckless daring, though Hirpinus, Eumolpus, Lutorius, and the others, were

all earning their wages with scrupulous fidelity, and bearing themselves

according to custom, as if fighting were the one business of their lives.

When Esca reached the scene of conflict the tribune had just closed with a

gigantic adversary. For a minute they reeled in the death‐grapple, then

parted as suddenly as they met, the German falling backward with a groan,

the tribune’s blade as he brandished it aloft dripping with blood to the

very hilt.

“_Euge!_” shouted Hippias, who was at his side, parrying at the same

moment, with consummate address, a sweeping sword‐cut dealt at him from

the dead man’s comrade. “That was prettily done, tribune, and like an

artist!”

Esca, catching sight of his enemy’s hated face, dashed in with the bound

of a tiger, and taking him unawares, delivered at him so fierce and rapid

a thrust as would have settled accounts between them, had Placidus

possessed no other means of defence than his own skilful swordsmanship;

but the fencing‐master, whose eye seemed to take in all the combatants at

once, cut through the curved shaft of the Briton’s weapon with one turn of

his short sword, and its head fell harmless on the floor. His hand was up

for a deadly thrust when Esca found himself felled to the ground by some

powerful fist, while a ponderous form holding him down with its whole

weight, made it impossible for him to rise.

“Keep quiet, lad,” whispered a friendly voice in his ear; “I was forced to

strike hard to get thee down in time. Faith! the master gives short

warning with his thrusts. Here thou’rt safe, and here I’ll take care thou

shalt remain till the tide has rolled over us, and I can pass thee out

unseen. Keep quiet! I tell thee, lest I have to strike thee senseless for

thine own good.”

In vain the Briton struggled to regain his feet; Hirpinus kept him down by

main force. No sooner had the gladiator caught sight of his friend, than

he resolved to save him from the fate which too surely threatened all who

were found in the palace, and with characteristic promptitude, used the

only means at his disposal for the fulfilment of his object. A moment’s

reflection satisfied Esca of his old comrade’s good faith. Life is sweet,

and with the hope of its preservation came back the thought of Mariamne.

He lay still for a few minutes, and by that time the tide of fight had

rolled on, and they were left alone. Hirpinus rose first with a jovial

laugh.

“Why, you went down, man,” said he, “like an ox at an altar. I would have

held my hand a little—in faith I would—had there been time. Well, I must

help thee up, I suppose, seeing that I put thee down. Take my advice, lad,

get outside as quick as thou canst. Keep the first turning to the right of

the great gate, stick to the darkest part of the gardens, and run for thy

life!”

So speaking, the gladiator helped Esca to his feet, and pointed down the

corridor where the way was now clear. The Briton would have made one more

effort to save the Emperor, but Hirpinus interposed his burly form, and

finding his friend so refractory, half‐led, half‐pushed him to the door of

the palace. Here he bade him farewell, looking wistfully out into the

night, as though he would fain accompany him.

“I have little taste for the job here, and that’s the truth,” said he, in

the tone of a man who has been unfairly deprived of some expected

pleasure. “The Germans made a pretty good stand for a time, but I thought

there were more of them, and that the fight would have lasted twice as

long. Good luck go with thee, lad; I shall perhaps never see thee again.

Well, well, it can’t be helped. I have been bought and paid for, and must

go back to my work.”

So, while Esca, hopeless of doing any more good, went his way into the

gardens, Hirpinus re‐entered the palace to follow his comrades, and assist

in the search for the Emperor. He was somewhat surprised to hear loud

shouts of laughter echoing from the end of the corridor. Hastening on to

learn the cause of such strangely‐timed mirth, he came upon Rufus lying

across the prostrate body of a German, and trying hard to stanch the blood

that welled from a fatal gash inflicted by his dead enemy, ere he went

down. Hirpinus raised his friend’s head, and knew it was all over.

“I have got it,” said Rufus, in a faint voice; “my foot slipped and the

clumsy barbarian lunged in over my guard. Farewell, old comrade! Bid the

wife keep heart. There is a home for her at Picenum, and—the boys—keep

them out of the Family. When you close with these Germans—disengage—at

half distance, and turn your wrist down with the—old—thrust, so as to”—

Weaker and weaker came the gladiator’s last syllables, his head sank, his

jaw dropped, and Hirpinus, turning for a farewell look at the comrade with

whom he had trained, and toiled, and drank, and fought, for half a score

of years, dashed his hand angrily to his shaggy eyelashes, for he saw him

through a mist of tears.

Another shout of laughter, louder still and nearer, roused him to action.

Turning into the room whence it proceeded, he came upon a scene of combat,

nearly as ludicrous as the last was pitiful. Surrounded by a circle of

gladiators, roaring out their applause and holding their sides with mirth,

two most unwilling adversaries were pitted against each other. They

seemed, indeed, very loth to come to close quarters, and stood face to

face with excessive watchfulness and caution.