COLLECTION
OF
BRITISH AUTHORS
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
VOL. 2388.
No. XIII; OR, THE STORY OF THE LOST VESTAL
BY
EMMA MARSHALL.
IN ONE VOLUME.
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
By the same Author,
MRS. MAINWARING’S JOURNAL 1 vol.
BENVENUTA 1 vol.
LADY ALICE 1 vol.
DAYSPRING 1 vol.
LIFE’S AFTERMATH 1 vol.
IN THE EAST COUNTRY 1 vol.
IN FOUR REIGNS 1 vol.
ON THE BANKS OF THE OUSE 1 vol.
IN THE CITY OF FLOWERS 1 vol.
ALMA 1 vol.
UNDER SALISBURY SPIRE 1 vol.
THE END CROWNS ALL 1 vol.
WINCHESTER MEADS 1 vol.
EVENTIDE LIGHT 1 vol.
WINIFREDE’S JOURNAL 1 vol.
BRISTOL BELLS 1 vol.
IN THE SERVICE OF RACHEL LADY RUSSELL 1 vol.
A LILY AMONG THORNS 1 vol.
PENSHURST CASTLE 1 vol.
KENSINGTON PALACE IN THE DAYS OF QUEEN MARY II. 1 vol.
THE WHITE KING’S DAUGHTER 1 vol.
THE MASTER OF THE MUSICIANS 1 vol.
AN ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER 1 vol.
A HAUNT OF ANCIENT PEACE 1 vol.
CASTLE MEADOW 1 vol.
IN THE CHOIR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY 1 vol.
THE YOUNG QUEEN OF HEARTS 1 vol.
UNDER THE DOME OF ST. PAUL’S 1 vol.
THE PARSON’S DAUGHTER 1 vol.
NO. XIII;
OR, THE
STORY OF THE LOST VESTAL.
BY
EMMA MARSHALL,
AUTHOR OF “LIFE’S AFTERMATH,” “DAYSPRING,”
“IN THE EAST COUNTRY,” ETC.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION._
LEIPZIG
BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1886.
_The Right of Translation is reserved._
“The darkness is past,
And the True Light now shineth.”
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works.”
INTRODUCTION.
Recent discoveries in the Roman Forum have brought to light many
interesting relics. Amongst these are the statues of the Vestales
Maximæ, of which, in spite of the efforts of the lime-burners and
stone-cutters of the Middle Ages, who were distinguished for their
work of wholesale destruction, thirty-six inscriptions, and fourteen
statues, have been discovered.
The pedestals on which the statues were placed bear inscriptions, and
the names of the Vestales Maximæ whose virtues are recorded.
There is one exception--the name is carefully erased--and we can know
her of whom so much is said in praise, only as _Number Thirteen_.
An attempt has been made to clothe the memory of this Vestal with some
probable, though of course wholly fictitious, incidents; and to assume
as a certainty the idea, which has been thrown out as a possibility,
that her conversion to Christianity was discovered, and that one in
authority desired to leave no trace of her family or her name to future
generations.
But, though her name has perished, her virtues remain engraven on the
imperishable stone, and these help us to call her before us, in all the
grace and dignity of a beautiful life, passed in the cloisters of the
Vestals’ home.
The incidents which have gathered round her supposed history, are more
or less connected with the persecution and martyrdom of the Early
Church in Britain, and afterwards in Rome.
A glance like this into the past may be made useful to the young
reader, if it should quicken a desire for the intelligent study of
history, and help the student to look upon the events of bygone ages as
they affected real men and women, who had the same hopes and fears, and
aims and ends, as we have, who are living so long after them.
We are, naturally perhaps, too apt to think of those of whom we read in
these distant ages, as myths rather than as the brothers and sisters
of the one great family of God, to which we all belong. Their human
hearts beat with the same affections as ours, and through the mists of
superstition and ignorance the lamp of an undying love shines out here
and there, as a light in a dark place.
Thus, through the symbol of the sacred fire, which the Vestals vowed
to keep for ever burning, we may see the foreshadowing of the mission
of every Christian woman, matron or maiden, whose high vocation it is
to keep the light of truth, purity, and love, for ever burning in her
daily life, and by giving light to those around fulfil the command of
her Master, when He said--
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works,
and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER I. A silent City 9
-- II. Night 21
-- III. The missing Slave 39
-- IV. Capture and Death 55
-- V. Claudius fulfils his Vow 72
-- VI. By Land and Sea 92
-- VII. Rome 105
-- VIII. Discipleship 122
-- IX. Dayspring 142
-- X. Sunset 161
-- XI. June, 313--The Festival of Vesta 177
-- XII. Vanishing 198
-- XIII. A.D. 333--Alexandria 211
-- XIV. The Cross 227
-- XV. The Crown of Light 240
-- XVI. Onward and Upward 248
-- XVII. Triumph 266
No. XIII;
OR,
THE STORY OF THE LOST VESTAL.
CHAPTER I.
A SILENT CITY.
There was silence in the city of Verulam on a bright summer day now
nearly sixteen hundred years ago. It was a strange silence which
reigned in the deserted streets of the old Roman city, which, with its
baths and public buildings, was reckoned one of the finest in that
sea-girt island, which the mistress of the world had made her own.
A vast crowd had left the city gates at dawn on that cloudless morning
of early summer; women and children, stately matrons and tender
maidens, all poured out of the town towards a river, some in chariots,
many on foot, but all eager to get a good position on a flower-covered
hill where a scene which would fill their hearts with an unhealthful
excitement was to be enacted. For many of the Roman ladies, who wore
costly robes, and fared delicately, and were at once the envy and
admiration of the Britons, had inherited for the most part the passion
for a sight which would now blanch the cheeks of their descendants, and
fill their hearts with horror and shame.
There are exceptions to every rule, and though at a first glance the
city looked entirely deserted, business and pleasure alike stopped, and
the forum and temples empty, yet from one or two of the houses of the
higher class of Roman nobility the inhabitants had not gone forth with
the multitude, but had preferred remaining at home.
The villa of the noble Roman, Severus, was one of these; it was built,
like all Roman houses, round a square, which was open to the sky above.
A fountain played in the centre, and round the marble basin were
planted the golden iris with its long-pointed leaves, and palms with
their fan-like foliage; while the water-lilies, just opening their
rounded buds, were rocking on the water, as it rose and fell with a
gentle splash, pleasant to the ear and soothing to the spirit.
Couches covered with rich stuffs were arranged round this outer hall or
“atrium,” and on one of them a lady was reclining; a little maiden of
eleven years old at her feet, and a slave standing by her side, with a
cup in one hand and a cloth in the other, fringed with gold lace, with
which she wiped the lips of her mistress when she sipped the draught
offered her, after nibbling at a sweet hard cake which she held in her
hand.
The early sunshine had not yet come into the court, and the lady said,
shuddering--
“Another scarf, Ebba, it is so cold. Ah, me! how I long for the warmth
of my own country.”
Ebba placed the salver on a shelf which was just behind the couch, and
taking a rich violet mantle from a carved chest threw it round her
mistress.
“Is thy master gone with the multitude, and has he taken Casca with
him?”
“Yes, lady, there is no one left in the house but myself and the child
Hyacintha.”
At the sound of her name the young girl looked up. She had been so
engrossed with a chain of Venetian shells she was threading upon gold
silk, that she had apparently no thought for anything besides.
“Mother!” she exclaimed, “tell me about the sight every one has gone
forth to see. Why could I not go? My father might have taken me with
Casca.”
“Nay, Hyacintha, the crowd would have been too great. I dare not expose
thee to its dangers.”
“The man who is to die is a very evil man, is he not, mother?”
“Nay, child, I have not heard so much said.”
Then the fair-haired British Ebba turned towards the child.
“The man is a good man,” she said. “He gave bread to the hungry, he
clothed the naked, and he has perished because he would fain save the
life of his friend.”
“Ah, that is noble!” said the little maiden with a light of interest
kindled in her clear eyes. “Ah! that is noble; why should he die?”
“Thou art too young, my daughter, to understand the reason why a man
like this Alban should die. But the reason is good, nevertheless. The
old faith must be protected and defended, if it be possible.”
Ebba’s lips were seen to move, but no sound passed them.
“These Christians,” the lady continued, “are trying to upset, and pull
down, and destroy our religion and our worship; it is only meet that
they should be hindered from further mischief.”
Again Ebba’s lips moved, and the child, looking up, thought she caught
the words--
“They cannot be hindered, for God is for them.”
“Ebba is murmuring to herself, mother,” Hyacintha said. “Bid her to
speak so that we may hear.”
But the curtain which fell over the entrance to the dining-hall was
seen to quiver as the British slave-girl disappeared behind it.
Then the lady exclaimed, “I wish Ebba would take more heed of her ways,
for if she is defiled with the foreign superstitions, there will be
trouble for us. There is enough trouble as it is. Ah! me, why do people
make so much of religion? Jupiter or Apollo, or the Christian’s God, it
is all the same to me!”
And the lady leaned back upon her pillow, and very soon the dark lashes
were resting on her cheeks, and she was wrapt in a gentle slumber.
There are always people in all ages of the world of the same easy
temperament as this wife of the noble Severus. The city might be
deserted; the rage of a tyrannical governor might vent itself on the
brave and loyal-hearted Alban, by torture and death, but what did it
concern Cæcilia?
As I said, many other ladies of her rank had gone out that day to
see the cruel sight, and to feast their eyes on a scene from which
delicately nurtured women might have been supposed to turn with
loathing. But Cæcilia, the wife of Severus, hated trouble, and looking
on life as one long festival, disliked to think of anything which
seemed to point to the probability, that to many it was a season of
trial and suffering. So, lulled by the fountain in the atrium of
her husband’s beautiful villa, she enjoyed a dreamy repose, and was
unconscious of all that was passing about her, and that her little
daughter had put aside the shells and also disappeared behind the
curtain.
Ebba was on the gallery that ran round the atrium, and when she saw
Hyacintha pull aside the curtain she came to the head of the marble
stairs, and beckoned to her.
The child went up to her, saying--
“What is it you said, Ebba?”
“Come hither and look from the gallery over the country, and you will
see.”
As she spoke, Ebba mounted still higher to the square opening in the
roof, on one side of which was a small covered gallery, whence an
extensive view was spread out, of the town and river and country
beyond. The child gazed upon the view before her with wistful,
questioning eyes.
The throng of people spread over the fields, which were smiling in
the June sunshine; and along the great Watling Street, and across the
bridge, there was a continuous stream of all ages and sexes.
The low murmur of the moving multitude reached the place where the
Briton slave and her little mistress stood, and upon a hill rising on
the opposite bank by the river there was an erection, round which the
glittering helmets of soldiers were shining in the sun. Hyacintha drew
closer to Ebba, and said, in a low tone--
“Tell me, Ebba, are they going to see the man killed? I wish you would
speak, and,” she murmured, “tell me all you know.”
“If I were to tell you that,” the young Briton said, “I should be
seized and tortured; and I am not ready to confess my faith.”
“Thy faith? Is not thy faith to believe that the gods are above, and
watch over men; and that if men and women submit to their decrees they
are protected and safe.”
Ebba shook her head.
“I know not if the Romans are safe under the care of their gods. I know
they have enslaved us and are stern masters.”
“Am I not kind to thee, Ebba?” said Hyacintha; “I would fain be kind;
but of late thou hast been so strange and sad. Never can I win a laugh
from thee. Never wilt thou play the harp for me to dance and sing. Tell
me all that is in thy heart.”
Ebba clasped her hands, and leaning upon the balustrade she said--
“If I were brave, and not a coward, I should tell thee all. Nay, I
should tell the world; but I am a coward, and I durst not.”
Hyacintha seated herself on one of the cushioned seats on the balcony,
while Ebba continued to look out on the moving multitude and the
distant hill, the shining river and the sunny slopes around it,
silently and sadly.
Ebba was a large, strongly-built maiden of some eighteen or twenty
years. She had been born a slave in the Roman’s household, and had
never known any other life. Her complexion was florid, and her hair
the richest auburn. She wore the badge of her master on her arm; and
her dress was of woollen material, girt in at the waist by a band, but
falling loosely to her ankles.
Ebba was skilful and clever, and was a favourite with her mistress, who
had many attendants, but always gave Ebba the preference. Time had been
when Ebba had been foremost in providing amusement, for she could dance
to the tambourine, and her broad face was generally lighted by a smile.
She was quick in arranging flowers, in plaiting her lady’s hair, and
weaving into it coins and gold ornaments with a skill which few could
rival.
Of late a change had passed over her, and instead of a merry girl,
who had a light jest and a sally for every one, she was a grave, sad
woman, often speaking to herself in low tones, and taking no part in
the festive revelries of Severus’s household. The child Hyacintha
was, even at eleven years old, most unusually beautiful. She was born
of a patrician race on both sides, and fulfilled all the conditions
of her noble birth in her form and features. Her figure, even now,
when childhood was passing into girlhood, was lithe and supple, and
the Roman maiden developed early, for fourteen was considered as the
entrance into womanhood.
Hyacintha’s eyes were of that dusky hue which, taking a new colour with
every varying light, defies description. Her hair was of a deep golden
brown; and though she had every distinctive feature of her race in the
well-cut features, and curved, short upper lip, with rather a massive
chin, her complexion was fair.
Hyacintha had been born in the north during her father’s first year
of office about the person of the Governor; thus the Italian sunshine
had not given her complexion the rich dark hue which characterised her
mother.
No one could look at Hyacintha, even at that early age, without seeing
that there was in her something beyond the ordinary type of girlhood.
Her mother might dream away life, and know no higher pleasures than
the acquisition of beautiful dresses and ornaments, and in the
entertainment of guests, and driving along the level Watling Street
in her well-appointed chariot, but Hyacintha had already other aims
and views. The child had heard from her father that maidens of their
house had been chosen to keep the sacred fire burning in the temple
of Vesta--that fire which was never to be quenched--that light which,
coming from heaven, was to keep the sacred flame alive in every Roman’s
hearth and heart!
Hyacintha would ask her mother many questions about this temple, and
the beautiful city so far away, and when her mother complained of the
chilling winds and dark skies of the northern climate, she would ask--
“Why do we not return to Rome?”
The British slave-girl, Ebba, could tell her nothing of that distant
city; but of late, when she spoke of it, she would speak of another
city fairer and more beautiful than Rome could be, and when Hyacintha
asked how people reached it, she would clasp her hands and say--
“By a rough and terrible way, from which the timid shrank, but the
brave of heart went forth boldly to tread.”
Several times in the course of that long summer’s day did little
Hyacintha mount to the balcony and look out on the crowd which covered
the hill-side.
Now and then a few stragglers returned, or a chariot with prancing
steeds rolled along the great Watling Street.
Women, tired of carrying their children, came back to the city, and by
the evening there were knots of people in the city all talking of what
had happened on the hill above the river. Just at sunset the servants
of Severus’s household returned, and the evening meal was laid in
the inner hall or banqueting-room. Very soon the wheels of chariots
were heard rolling up, and Hyacintha ran down to meet her father and
brother, and hear the news.
Severus had several officers and gentlemen with him, and was scarcely
conscious of his little daughter’s presence till she pulled the sleeve
of his robe.
“Tell me, father, is the man dead?”
“Ay, little one, and so may all the enemies of the gods perish. But
such a story is not for thy ears, my Hyacintha. See, take thy lute and
play to us while we sup. These fellows have had enough of freedom for
one day, and the supper is late. How now, slaves!” Severus exclaimed,
clapping his hands, “let the guests be served.”
The couches were soon filled by the company, and Cæcilia reclined at
the head of the board, dressed in the richest violet silk, with gold
trimmings, a long veil floating at the back of her head.
Ebba was in attendance, and a seat at the end of the sofa or couch was
reserved for Hyacintha.
“Where have you left Casca? Where is my son?” Cæcilia asked.
“The boy is weary, and the day has been too much for him. He has not
the nerve and muscle of a Spartan,” was the reply; “not so much as our
little maiden here, I verily believe.”
“And, indeed,” said a grave man, who was one of the guests, “it was a
sight to affect a boy of your son’s tender years.”
The Roman father laughed.
“Nay, may he never see worse sights than that we have witnessed to-day.
There was not enough terror in it; these miserable Christians need
stronger discipline; they are so stubborn. When the beasts spring on
them in the arena, and a huge leopard plays with one like a ball, then
it is somewhat thrilling, I grant, but to-day! Fill the cups, and let
us drink to the health of the Governor, and pour out a libation to the
gods in token of gratitude that it has been given to us to crush out
another at least of these reptiles.”
“Nay, now,” said a young man, “you forget the executioner.”
“Aye, so I did, that was a fine addition to the scene. I could laugh
now to think of it!”
Severus saw that his little daughter was following every word that was
said with extreme earnestness, and that Ebba, who was standing with a
scent-bottle and a large fan close to her mistress, was scanning the
face of the last speaker eagerly.
“Bid the musicians strike up,” Severus said; “our talk is scarcely
pleasant for ladies to hear. And then, when we have had a good stirring
melody, my little daughter shall sing us a good-night strain on her
lute. Eh, my pretty one?”
“Father, I pray you to excuse me to-night,” Hyacintha said; “I am
weary, and I have no heart to sing.”
She stepped down from her place on her mother’s couch, and with a
curtsey, and graceful wave of her hand to the guests at the table,
disappeared.