While this conversation was taking place, Melissa and her companion had
reached the shore of the lake, the large inland sea which washed the
southern side of the city and afforded anchorage for the Nile-boats. The
ferry-boat which would convey them to the gardens of Polybius started
from the Agathodaemon Canal, an enlarged branch of the Nile, which
connected the lake with the royal harbor and the Mediterranean; they
had, therefore, to walk some distance along the shore.
The setting sun shot slanting rays on the glittering surface of the
glassy waters in which the numberless masts of the Nile-boats were
mirrored.
Vessels large and small, with white or gayly-painted lateen sails
gleaming in the evening glow, large galleys, light skiffs, and restless,
skimming pleasure-boats, were flitting to and fro; and among them, like
loaded wagons among chariots and horsemen, the low corn-barges scarcely
seemed to move, piled as they were with pyramids of straw and grain as
high as a house.
The bustle on the quay was less conspicuous than usual, for all who
were free to follow their curiosity had gone into the city. There were,
however, many slaves, and Caesar’s visit no more affected their day’s
toil than it did the course of the sun. To-day, as every other day, they
had to pack and unload; and though few ships were sailing, numbers were
arriving from the south, and throwing out the landing-bridges which
connected them with the shore.
The number of pleasure-boats, on the other hand, was greater than usual;
for business was suspended, and many who hated the crowd found pleasure
in rowing in their own boats. Others had come to see the imperial barge,
which had been newly furnished up, and which was splendid enough to
attract even the luxurious Alexandrians. Gold and ivory, purple sails,
bronze and marble statues at the prow and stern, and in the little
shrines on the after-deck, combined in a gorgeous display, made all the
more brilliant by the low sun, which added vividness to every hue.
It was pleasant to linger on the strand at this hour. Spreading
sycamores and plumed palms cast a pleasant shade; the heat of the day
had abated, and a light air, which always blew in from the lake, fanned
Melissa’s brow. There was no crushing mob, and no dust came up from the
well-watered roadway, and yet the girl had lost her cheerful looks,
in spite of the success of her bold venture; and Andreas walked by her
side, silent and ill-pleased.
She could not understand him; for, as long as she could remember, his
grave looks had always brightened at anything that had brought gladness
to her or to her mother. Besides, her success with the Roman would be
to the advantage of Diodoros, and the freedman was devoted to him.
Every now and then she perceived that his eye rested on her with a
compassionate expression, and when she inquired whether he were anxious
about the sufferer, he gave her some evasive answer, quite unlike his
usual decisive speech. This added to her alarm. At last his dissatisfied
and unsatisfactory replies vexed the usually patient girl, and she told
him so; for she could not suspect how painfully her triumph in her hasty
deed jarred on her truth-loving friend. He knew that it was not to
the great Galenus, but to the wealthy Serenus Samonicus, that she had
spoken; for the physician’s noble and thoughtful features were familiar
to him from medals, statues, and busts. He had seen Samonicus, too, at
Antioch, and held his medical lore, as expressed in verse, very cheap.
How worthless would this man’s help be! In spite of his promise,
Diodoros would after all have to be conveyed to the Serapeum; and yet
Andreas could not bear to crush his darling’s hopes.
He had hitherto known her as a patient, dutiful child; to-day he had
seen with what unhesitating determination she could carry out a purpose;
and he feared that, if he told her the truth, she would at once make her
way into Caesar’s quarters, in defiance of every obstacle, to crave the
assistance of the true Galen. He must leave her in error, and yet
he could not bear to do so, for there was no art in which he was so
inexpert as that of deceit. How hard it was to find the right answer,
when she asked him whether he did not hope everything from the great
physician’s intervention, or when she inquired what were the works to
which Galen owed his chief fame!
As they came near to the landing-stage whence the ferry started, she
wanted to know how old he should suppose the Roman leech to be; and
again he avoided answering, for Galen was above eighty, and Serenus
scarcely seventy.
She looked up at him with large, mournful eyes, saying, “Have I offended
you, or is there something you are concealing from me?”
“What could you do to offend me?” he replied; “life is full of sorrows,
my child. You must learn to have patience.”
“Patience!” echoed Melissa, sadly. “That is the only knowledge I have
ever mastered. When my father is more sullen than you are, for a week at
a time, I scarcely heed it. But when you look like that, Andreas, it is
not without cause, and that is why I am anxious.”
“One we love is very sick, child,” he said, soothingly; but she was not
to be put off so, and exclaimed with conviction:
“No, no, it is not that. We have learned nothing fresh about
Diodoro--and you were ready enough to answer me when we came away from
the Christian’s house. Nothing but good has happened to us since, and
yet you look as if the locusts had come down on your garden.”
They had reached a spot on the shore where a ship was being unloaded
of its cargo of granite blocks from Syene. Black and brown slaves were
dragging them to land. An old blind man was piping a dismal tune on
a small reed flute to encourage them in their work, while two men of
fairer hue, whose burden had been too heavy for them, had let the end
of the column they were carrying sink on the ground, and were being
mercilessly flogged by the overseer to make them once more attempt the
impossible.
Andreas had watched the scene; a surge of fury had brought the blood to
his face, and, stirred by great and genuine emotion, he broke out:
“There--there you see the locusts which destroy my garden--the
hail which ruins my crops! It falls on all that bears the name of
humanity--on me and you. Happy, girl? None of us can ever be happy till
the Kingdom shall arise for which the fullness of the time is come.”
“But they dropped the column; I saw them myself,” urged Melissa.
“Did you, indeed?” said Andreas. “Well, well, the whip, no doubt, can
revive exhausted powers. And that is how you look upon such deeds!--you,
who would not crush a worm in the garden, think this is right and just!”
It suddenly struck Melissa that Andreas, too, had once been a slave,
and the feeling that she had hurt him grieved her to the heart. She had
often heard him speak sternly and gravely, but never in scorn as he did
now, and that, too, distressed her; and as she could not think of the
right thing to say in atonement for the wrong she had done, she could
only look up with tearful entreaty and murmur, “Forgive me!”
“I have nothing to forgive,” he replied in an altered tone. “You have
grown up among the unjust who are now in power. How should you see more
clearly than they, who all walk in darkness? But if the light should
be shown to you by one to whom it hath been revealed, it would not be
extinguished again.--Does it not seem a beautiful thing to you to live
among none but brethren and sisters, instead of among oppressors and
their scourged victims; or is there no place in a woman’s soul for the
holy wrath that came upon Moses the Hebrew? But who would ever have
spoken his great name to you?”
Melissa was about to interrupt his vehement speech, for, in a town where
there were so many Jews, alike among the citizens and the slaves, even
she had heard that Moses had been their lawgiver; but he prevented her,
by adding hastily: “This only, child, I would have you remember--for
here is the ferry--the worst ills that man ever inflicts on his
fellow-man are the outcome of self-interest; and, of all the good he may
do, the best is the result of his achieving self-forgetfulness to secure
the happiness and welfare of others.”
He said no more, for the ferry-boat was about to put off, and they had
to take their places as quickly as possible.
The large flat barge was almost unoccupied; for the multitude still
lingered in the town, and more than one seat was empty for the weary
girl to rest on. Andreas paced to and fro, for he was restless; but
when Melissa beckoned to him he came close to her, and, while he leaned
against the little cabin, received her assurance that she now quite
understood his desire to see all slaves made free. He, if any one, must
know what the feelings of those unhappy creatures were.
“Do I not know!” he exclaimed, with a shake of the head. Then, glancing
round at the few persons who were sitting at the other end of the boat,
he went on sadly: “To know that, a man must himself have been branded
with the marks of his humiliation.” He showed her his arm, which was
usually hidden by the long sleeve of his tunic, and Melissa exclaimed in
sorrowful surprise: “But you were free-born! and none of our slaves bear
such a brand. You must have fallen into the hands of Syrian pirates.”
He nodded, and added, “I and my father.”
“But he,” the girl eagerly put in, “was a great man.”
“Till Fate overtook him,” Andreas said.
Melissa’s tearful eyes showed the warm sympathy she felt, as she asked:
“But how could it have happened that you were not ransomed by your
relations? Your father was, no doubt, a Roman citizen; and the law--”
“The law forbids that such a one should be sold into slavery,” Andreas
broke in, “and yet the authorities of Rome left him in misery--left--”
At this, her large, gentle eyes flashed with indignation, and, stirred
to the depths of her nature, she exclaimed:
“How was such horrible injustice possible? Oh, let me hear. You know how
truly I love you, and no one can hear you.”
The wind had risen, the waves splashed noisily against the broad boat,
and the song of the slaves, as they plied their oars, would have drowned
a stronger voice than the freedman’s; so he sat down by her side to do
her bidding.
And the tale he had to tell was sad indeed.
His father had been of knightly rank, and in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius he had been in the service of Avidius Cassius, his
fellow-countryman, the illustrious governor of Asia as ‘procurator ab
epistolis’. As holding this high post, he found himself involved in the
conspiracy of Avidius against the emperor. After the assassination
of his patron, who had already been proclaimed emperor by the troops,
Andreas’s father had been deprived of his offices, his citizenship, and
his honors; his possessions were confiscated, and he was exiled to the
island of Anaphe. It was to Caesar’s clemency that he owed his life.
On their voyage into exile the father and son fell into the hands of
Syrian pirates, and were sold in the slave-market of Alexandria to two
separate masters. Andreas was bought by a tavern-keeper; the procurator,
whose name as a slave was Smaragdus, by the father of Polybius; and
this worthy man soon learned to value his servant so highly, that he
purchased the son also, and restored him to his father. Thus they were
once more united.
Every attempt of the man who had once held so proud a position to get
his release, by an act of the senate, proved vain. It was with a broken
heart and enfeebled health that he did his duty to his master and to his
only child. He pined in torments of melancholy, till Christianity opened
new happiness to him, and revived hope brought him back from the very
brink of despair; and, even as a slave, he found the highest of all
dignities--that, namely, which a Christian derives from his faith.
At this point Melissa interrupted her friend’s narrative, exclaiming, as
she pointed across the waters:
“There! there! look! In that boat--I am sure that is Alexander! And he
is making for the town.”
Andreas started up, and after convincing himself that she was indeed
right, for the youth himself had recognized his sister, who waved her
hand to him, he wrathfully exclaimed:
“Madman!” and by intelligible and commanding signs he ordered the
reckless young artist to turn his little skiff, and follow in the wake
of the ferry-boat, which was by this time nearing land.
But Alexander signaled a negative, and, after gayly blowing a kiss to
Melissa, plied his oars again with as much speed and energy as though he
were rowing for a wager. How swiftly and steadily the keel of his little
boat cut through the crisply foaming waves on which it rose and fell!
The daring youth did not lack strength, that was certain, and the couple
who watched him with so much uneasiness soon understood that he was
striving to overtake another and larger bark which was at some distance
in front of him. It was being pulled by slaves, whose stalwart arms made
the pace a good one, and under the linen awning which shaded the middle
part of it two women were seated.
The rays of the sun, whose fiery globe was now sinking behind the
palm-groves on the western shore, flooded the sky with ruby light,
and tinged the white robes of these women, the light canopy over their
heads, and the whole face of the lake, with a rosy hue; but neither
Andreas nor his companion heeded the glorious farewell of departing day.
Melissa pointed out to her friend the strangeness of her brother’s
attire, and the hood which, in the evening light, seemed to be bordered
with gold. He had on, in fact, a Gallic mantle, such as that which had
gained Caesar the nickname of Caracalla, and there was in this disguise
something to reassure them; for, if Alexander pulled the hood low
enough, it would hide the greater part of his face, and make it
difficult to recognize him. Whence he had procured this garment was not
hard to divine, for imperial servants had distributed them in numbers
among the crowd. Caesar was anxious to bring them into fashion, and it
might safely be expected that those Alexandrians who had held out their
hands to accept them would appear in them on the morrow, as no order
required that they should be worn. Alexander could not do better than
wear one, if only by such means he could escape Zminis and his men.
But who were the women he was pursuing? Before Melissa could ask the
question, Andreas pointed to the foremost boat, and said:
“Those are Christian women, and the bark they are in belongs to Zeno,
the brother of Seleukus and of the high-priest of Serapis. That is his
landing-creek. He lives with his family, and those of the faith to whom
he affords refuge, in the long, white house you can just see there among
the palm-trees. Those vineyards, too, are his. If I am not mistaken, one
of the ladies in that boat is his daughter, Agatha.”
“But what can Alexander want of two Christian women?” asked Melissa.
Andreas fired up, and a vein started on his high forehead as he retorted
angrily:
“What should he not want! He and those who are like him--the
blind--think nothing so precious as what satisfies the eye.--There! the
brightness has vanished which turned the lake and the shore to gold.
Such is beauty!--a vain show, which only glitters to disappear, and is
to fools, nevertheless, the supreme object of adoration!”
“Then, is Zeno’s daughter fair?” asked the girl.
“She is said to be,” replied the other; and after a moment’s pause he
added: “Yes, Agatha is a rarely accomplished woman; but I know better
things of her than that. It stirs my gall to think that her sacred
purity can arouse unholy thoughts. I love your brother dearly; for
your mother’s sake I can forgive him much; but if he tries to ensnare
Agatha--”
“Have no fear,” said Melissa, interrupting his wrathful speech.
“Alexander is indeed a butterfly, fluttering from flower to flower,
and apt to be frivolous over serious matters, but at this moment he
is enslaved by a vision--that of a dead girl; and only last night, I
believe, he pledged himself to Ino, the pretty daughter of our neighbor
Skopas. Beauty is to him the highest thing in life; and how should it be
otherwise, for he is an artist! For the sake of beauty he defies
every danger. If you saw rightly, he is no doubt in pursuit of Zeno’s
daughter, but most likely not to pay court to her, but for some other
season.”
“No praiseworthy reason, you may be sure,” said Andreas. “Here we are.
Now take your kerchief out of the basket. It is damp and cool after
sundown, especially over there where I am draining the bog. The land
we are reclaiming by this means will bring your future husband a fine
income some day.”
They disembarked, and ere long reached the little haven belonging to
Polybius’s estate. There were boats moored there, large and small, and
Andreas hailed the man who kept them, and who sat eating his supper, to
ask him whether he had unmoored the green skiff for Alexander.
At this the old fellow laughed, and said: “The jolly painter and his
friend, the sculptor, met Zeno’s daughter just as she was getting into
her boat with Mariamne. Down they came, running as if they had gone mad.
The girl must have turned their heads. My lord Alexander would have it
that he had seen the spirit of one who was dead, and he would gladly
give his life to see her once again.”
It was now dark, or it would have alarmed Melissa to see the ominous
gravity with which Andreas listened to this tale; but she herself was
sufficiently startled, for she knew her brother well, and that no risk,
however great, would stop him if his artistic fancy were fired. He, whom
she had believed to be in safety, had gone straight into the hands of
the pursuers; and with him caution and reflection were flown to the
winds when passion held sway. She had hoped that her friend Ino had at
last captured the flutterer, and that he would begin to live a settled
life with her, as master of a house of his own; and now, for a
pretty face, he had thrown everything to the winds, even the duty of
self-preservation. Andreas had good reason to be angry, and he spoke no
more till they reached their destination, a country house of handsome
and important aspect.
No father could have received his future daughter more heartily than did
old Polybius. The fiend gout racked his big toes, stabbing, burning, and
nipping them. The slightest movement was torture, and yet he held out
his arms to her for a loving embrace, and, though it made him shut his
eyes and groan, he drew her pretty head down, and kissed her cheeks and
hair. He was now a heavy man, of almost shapeless stoutness, but in
his youth he must have resembled his handsome son. Silvery locks flowed
round his well-formed head, but a habit of drinking wine, which, in
spite of the gout, he could not bring himself to give up, had flushed
his naturally good features, and tinged them of a coppery red, which
contrasted strangely with his snowy hair and beard. But a kind heart,
benevolence, and a love of good living, beamed in every look.
His heavy limbs moved but slowly, and if ever full lips deserved to be
called sensual, they were those of this man, who was a priest of two
divinities.
How well his household understood the art of catering for his love
of high living, was evident in the meal which was served soon after
Melissa’s arrival, and to eat which the old man made her recline on the
couch by his side.
Andreas also shared the supper; and not the attendant slaves only, but
Dame Praxilla, the sister of their host, whose house she managed, paid
him particular honor. She was a widow and childless, and, even during
the lifetime of Diodoros’s mother, she had given her heart, no longer
young, to the freedman, without finding her love returned or even
observed. For his sake she would have become a Christian, though she
regarded herself as so indispensable to her brother that she had rarely
left him to hold intercourse with other Christians. Nor did Andreas
encourage her; he doubted her vocation. Whatever happened in the house,
the excitable woman made it her own concern; and, although she had known
Melissa from childhood, and was as fond of her as she could be of
the child of “strangers,” the news that Diodoros was to marry the
gem-cutter’s daughter was displeasing to her. A second woman in the
house might interfere with her supremacy; and, as an excuse for her
annoyance, she had represented to her brother that Diodoros might
look higher for a wife. Agatha, the beautiful daughter of their rich
Christian neighbor Zeno, was the right bride for the boy.
But Polybius had rated her sharply, declaring that he hoped for no
sweeter daughter than Melissa, who was quite pretty enough, and in whose
veins as pure Macedonian blood flowed as in his own. His son need look
for no wealth, he added with a laugh, since he would some day inherit
his aunt’s.
In fact, Praxilla owned a fine fortune, increasing daily under the care
of Andreas, and she replied:
“If the young couple behave so well that I do not rather choose to
bestow my pittance on worthier heirs.”
But the implied threat had not disturbed Polybius, for he knew his
sister’s ways. The shriveled, irritable old lady often spoke words hard
to be forgiven, but she had not a bad heart; and when she learned that
Diodoros was in danger, she felt only how much she loved him, and her
proposal to go to the town next morning to nurse him was sincerely
meant.
But when her brother retorted: “Go, by all means; I do not prevent you!”
she started up, exclaiming:
“And you, and your aches and pains! How you get on when once my back is
turned, we know by experience. My presence alone is medicine to you.”
“And a bitter dose it is very often,” replied the old man, with a laugh;
but Praxilla promptly retorted: “Like all effectual remedies. There is
your ingratitude again!”
The last words were accompanied by a whimper, so Polybius, who could not
bear to see any but cheerful faces, raised his cup and drank her health
with kindly words. Then refilling the tankard, he poured a libation, and
was about to empty it to Melissa’s health, but Praxilla’s lean frame was
standing by his side as quickly as though a serpent had stung her. She
was drawing a stick of asparagus between her teeth, but she hastily
dropped it on her plate, and with both hands snatched the cup from her
brother, exclaiming:
“It is the fourth; and if I allow you to empty it, you are a dead man!”
“Death is not so swift,” replied Polybius, signing to a slave to bring
him back the cup. But he drank only half of it, and, at his sister’s
pathetic entreaties, had more water mixed with the wine. And while
Praxilla carefully prepared his crayfish--for gout had crippled even his
fingers--he beckoned to his white-haired body-slave, and with a cunning
smile made him add more wine to the washy fluid. He fixed his twinkling
glance on Melissa, to invite her sympathy in his successful trick, but
her appearance startled him. How pale the child was--how dejected and
weary her sweet face, with the usually bright, expressive eyes!
It needed not the intuition of his kind heart to tell him that she was
completely exhausted, and he desired his sister to take her away to bed.
But Melissa was already sound asleep, and Praxilla would not wake her.
She gently placed a pillow under her head, laid her feet easily on the
couch, and covered them with a wrap. Polybius feasted his eyes on the
fair sleeper; and, indeed, nothing purer and more tender can be imagined
than the girl’s face as she lay in dreamless slumber.
The conversation was now carried on in subdued tones, so as not to
disturb her, and Andreas completed the history of the day by informing
them that Melissa had, by mistake, engaged the assistance not of the
great Galen but of another Roman practiced in the healing art, but of
less illustrious proficiency. He must, therefore, still have Diodoros
conveyed to the Serapeum, and this could be done very easily in the
morning, before the populace should again besiege the temple. He must
forthwith go back to make the necessary arrangements. Praxilla whispered
tenderly:
“Devoted man that you are, you do not even get your night’s rest.” But
Andreas turned away to discuss some further matters with Polybius;
and, in spite of pain, the old man could express his views clearly and
intelligently.
At last he took his leave; and now Praxilla had to direct the slaves who
were to carry her brother to bed. She carefully arranged the cushions
on his couch, and gave him his medicine and night-draught. Then she
returned to Melissa, and the sight of the sleeping girl touched her
heart. She stood gazing at her for some time in silence, and then bent
over her to wake her with a kiss. She had at last made up her mind to
regard the gem-cutter’s daughter as her niece, so, determined to treat
her as a child of her own, she called Melissa by name.
This awoke the sleeper, and when she had realized that she was still in
Polybius’s eating-room, she asked for Andreas.
“He has gone back to the town, my child,” replied Praxilla. “He was
anxious about your betrothed.”
“Is he worse, then?” asked Melissa, in alarm. “No, no,” said the widow,
soothingly. “It is only--I assure you we have heard nothing new--”
“But what then?” Melissa inquired. “The great Galen is to see him early
to-morrow.” Praxilla tried to divert her thoughts. But as the girl would
take no answer to her declaration that Galen himself had promised to
see Diodoros, Praxilla, who was little used to self-command, and who was
offended by her persistency, betrayed the fact that Melissa had spoken
to the wrong man, and that Andreas was gone to remove Diodoros to the
Serapeum.
At this, Melissa suddenly understood why Andreas had not rejoiced with
her, and at the same time she said to herself that her lover must on no
account be exposed to so great a danger without her presence. She must
lend her aid in transporting him to the Serapeum; and when she firmly
expressed her views to the widow, Praxilla was shocked, and sincerely
repented of having lost her self-control. It was far too late, and when
the housekeeper came into the room and gladly volunteered to accompany
Melissa to the town, Praxilla threatened to rouse her brother, that he
might insist on their remaining at home; but at last she relented, for
the girl, she saw, would take her own way against any opposition.
The housekeeper had been nurse to Diodoros, and had been longing to
help in tending him. When she left the house with Melissa, her eyes were
moist with tears of joy and thankfulness.