THE TRUE LOVE.
Dear, my Lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.
JULIUS CÆSAR.
The sun rose clear and bright on the following morning; the air was fresh
and exhilarating, and full of mirthful inspiration. But Paullus Arvina
rose unrefreshed and languid, with his mind ill at ease; for the reaction
which succeeds ever to the reign of any vehement excitement, had fallen on
him with its depressing weight; and not that only, but keen remorse for
the past, and, if possible, anxiety yet keener for the future.
Disastrous dreams had beset his sleeping hours; and, at his waking, they
and the true occurrences of the past day, seemed all blended and confused
into one horrible and hideous vision.
Now he envisaged the whole dark reality of his past conduct, of his
present situation. Lucia, the charming siren of the previous evening,
appeared in her real colors, as the immodest, passionate wanton; Catiline
as the monster that indeed he was!
And yet, alas! alas! as the clear perception of the truth dawned on him,
it was but coupled with a despairing sense, that to these he was linked
inevitably and forever.
The oath! the awful oath which he had sworn in the fierce whirl of
passion, registered by the arch-traitor—the oath involving, not alone, his
own temporal and eternal welfare, but that of all whom he loved or
cherished; his own pure, beautiful, inimitable Julia, to whom his heart
now reverted with a far deeper and more earnest tenderness, after its
brief inconstancy; as he compared her strong, yet maidenly and gentle
love, with the wild and ungovernable passions of the wanton, for whom he
had once sacrificed her.
Paullus Arvina was not naturally, not radically evil. Far from it, his
impulses were naturally virtuous and correct, his calm sober thoughts
always honorable and upright; but his passions were violent and
unregulated; his principles of conduct not definitively formed; and his
mind wavering, unsettled, and unsteady.
His passions on the previous day had betrayed him fatally, through the
dark machinations of the conspirator, and the strange fascinations of his
lovely daughter, into the perpetration of a great crime. He had bound
himself, by an oath too dreadful to be thought of without shuddering, to
the commission of yet darker crimes in future.
And now the mists of passion had ceased to bedim his mental vision, his
eyes were opened, that he saw and repented most sincerely the past guilt.
How was he to avoid the future?
To no man in these days, could there be a doubt even for a moment—however
great the sin of swearing such an oath! No one in these days, knowing and
repenting of the crime, would hesitate a moment, or fancy himself bound,
because he had committed one vile sin in pledging himself thus to guilt,
to rush on deeper yet into the perpetration of wickedness.
The sin were in the swearing, not in the breaking of an oath so vile and
shameful.
But those were days of dark heathenish superstition, and it was far beyond
the reach of any intellect perhaps of that day to arrive at a conclusion,
simple as that to which any mind would now leap, as it were instinctively.
In those days, an omitted rite, an error in the ceremonial tribute paid to
the marble idol, was held a deeper sin than adultery, incest, or blood
shedding. And the bare thought of the vengeance due for a broken oath
would often times keep sleepless, with mere dread, the eyes of men who
could have slumbered calmly on the commission of the deadliest crimes.
Such, then, was the state of Arvina’s mind on that morning—grieving with
deep remorse for the faults of which he confessed himself guilty;
trembling at the idea of rushing into yet more desperate guilt; and at the
same time feeling bound to do so, in despite of his better thoughts, by
the fatal oath which bound him to the arch traitor.
While he was sitting in his lonely chamber, with his untasted meal of ripe
figs, and delicate white bread, and milk and honeycomb before him,
devouring his own heart in his fiery anguish, and striving with all his
energies of intellect to devise some scheme by which he might escape the
perils that seemed to hem him round on every side, his faithful freedman
entered, bearing a little billet, on which his eye had scarcely fallen
before he recognized the shapely characters of Julia’s well-known writing.
He broke the seal which connected the flaxen band, and with a trembling
eye, and a soul that feared it knew not what, from the very consciousness
of guilt, he read as follows:
"A day has passed, my Paullus, and we have not met! The first day in which
we have not met and conversed together, since that whereon you asked me to
be yours! I would not willingly, my Paul, be as those miserable and most
foolish girls, of whom my mother has informed me, who, given up to
jealousy and doubt, torment themselves in vain, and alienate the noble
spirits, which are bound to them by claims of affection only, not of
compulsion or restraint. Nor am I so unreasonable as to think, that a man
has no duties to perform, other than to attend a woman’s leisure. The Gods
forbid it! for whom I love, I would see great, and famous, and esteemed in
the world’s eyes as highly as in mine! The house, it is true, is our
sphere—the Forum and the Campus, the great world with its toils, its
strifes, and its honors, yours! All this I speak to myself often. I
repeated it many, many times yesterday—it ought to have satisfied me—it
did satisfy my reason, Paul, but it spoke not to my heart! That whispers
ever, ’he came not yesterday to see me! he promised, yet he came not!’ and
it will not be answered. Are you sick, Paullus, that you came not? Surely
in that case you had sent for me. Hortensia would have gone with me to
visit you. No! you are not sick, else most surely I had known it! Are you
then angry with me, or offended? Unconscious am I, dearest, of any fault
against you in word, thought, or deed. Yet will I humble myself, if you
are indeed wroth with me. Have I appeared indifferent or cold? oh! Paul,
believe it not. If I have not expressed the whole of my deep tenderness
which is poured out all, all on thee alone—my yearning and continued love,
that counts the minutes when thou art not near me; it is not that I cease
ever to think of thee, to adore thee, but that it were unmaidenly and
overbold to tell thee of it. See, now, if I have not done so here; and my
hand trembles, and my cheek burns, and almost I expect to see the pallid
paper blush, to find itself the bearer of words so passionate as these.
But you will pardon me, and come to me forthwith, and tell me, if
anything, in what I have displeased thee.
"It is a lovely morning, and Hortensia has just learned from Caius
Bibulus, that at high noon the ambassadors of the wild Allobroges will
march in with their escort over the Mulvian Bridge. She wishes much to see
the pomp, for we are told that their stature is gigantic and their
presence noble, and their garb very wild, yet magnificent withal and
martial. Shall we go forth and see them? Hortensia will carry me in her
carpentum, and you can either ride with us on horseback, or if you be not
over proud take our reins yourself as charioteer, or, what will perhaps be
the best of all, come in your own car and escort us. I need not say that I
wish to see you _now_, for _that_ I wish always. Come, then, and quickly,
if you would pleasure your own Julia."
"Sweet girl," he exclaimed, as he finished reading it, "pure as the snow
upon Soracte, yet warm and tender as the dove. Inimitable Julia! And
I—I—Oh, ye gods! ye gods! that beheld it!" and he smote his brow heavily
with his hand, and bit his lip, till the blood almost sprang beneath the
pressure of his teeth; but recovering himself in a moment, he turned to
Thrasea—"Who brought this billet? doth he wait?"
"Phædon, Hortensia’s Greek boy, brought it, noble Paullus. He waits for
your answer in the atrium."
"Quick, then, quick, Thrasea, give me a reed and paper."
And snatching the materials he wrote hastily:
"Chance only, evil chance, most lovely Julia, and business of some weight,
restrained me from you most unwilling yesterday. More I shall tell you
when we meet—indeed all! for what can I wish to conceal from you, the
better portion of my soul. Need I say that I come—not, alas, on the wings
of my love, or I should be beside you as I write, but as quickly as the
speed of horses may whirl me to your presence; until then, fare you well,
and confide in the fidelity of Paullus."
"Give it to Phædon," he said, tossing the note to Thrasea, "and say to
him, ’if he make not the better haste, I shall be at Hortensia’s house
before him.’ And then, hark ye, tell some of those knaves in the hall
without, to make ready with all speed my light chariot, and yoke the two
black horses Aufidus and Acheron. With all speed, mark ye! And then
return, good Thrasea, for I have much to say to you, before I go."
When he was left alone, he arose from his seat, walked three or four times
to and fro his chamber, in anxious and uneasy thought; and then saying,
"Yes! yes! I will not betray him, but I will take no step in the business
any farther, and I will tell him so to-night. I will tell him, moreover,
that Cicero has the dagger, for now that Volero is slain, I see not well
how it can be identified. The Gods defend me from the dark ones whom I
have invoked. I will not be untrue to Rome, nor to Julia, any more—perish
the whole earth, rather! Ay! and let us, too, perish innocent, better than
to live guilty!"
As he made up his mind, by a great effort, to the better course, the
freedman returned, and announcing that the car would be ready forthwith,
inquired what dress he should bring him.
"Never mind that! What I have on will do well enough, with a
_petasus_;(15) for the sun shines so brightly that it will be scarce
possible to drive bare headed. But I have work for you of more importance.
You know the cave of Egeria, as men call it, in the valley of the Muses?"
"Surely, my Paullus."
"I know, I know; but have you ever marked the ground especially around the
cave—what opportunities there be for concealment, or the like?"
"Not carefully," he answered, "but I have noticed that there is a little
gorge just beyond the grotto, broken with crags and blocks of tufo, and
overgrown with much brushwood, and many junipers and ivy."
"That will do then, I warrant me," replied Arvina. "Now mark what I tell
you, Thrasea; for it may be, that my life shall depend on your acting as I
direct. At the fourth hour of the night, I am to meet one in the grotto,
on very secret business, whom I mistrust somewhat; who it is, I may not
inform you; but, as I think my plans will not well suit his councils, I
should not be astonished were he to have slaves, or even gladiators, with
him to attack me—but not dreaming that I suspect anything, he will not
take many. Now I would have you arm all my freedmen, and some half dozen
of the trustiest slaves, so as to have in all a dozen or fifteen, with
corslets under their tunics, and boarspears, and swords. You must be
careful that you are not seen going thither, and you were best send them
out by different roads, so as to meet after nightfall. Hide yourselves
closely somewhere, not far from the cavern’s mouth, whence you may see,
unseen yourselves, whatever passes. I will carry my light hunting horn;
and if you hear its blast rush down and surround the cave, but hurt no
man, nor strike a blow save in self-defence, until I bid you. Do you
comprehend me?"
"I comprehend, and will obey you to the letter, Paullus," answered the
grave freedman, "but will not you be armed?"
"I will, my Thrasea. Leave thou a leathern hunting helmet here on the
table, and light scaled cuirass, which I will do on under my toga. I shall
be there at the fourth hour precisely; but it were well that ye should be
on your posts by the second hour or soon after. For it may be, he too will
lay an ambuscade, and so all may be discovered."
"It shall be done, most noble master."
"And see that ye take none but trustworthy men, and that ye all are
silent—to would be ruin."
"As silent as the grave, my Paullus," answered the freedman.
"The car and horses are prepared, Paullus," exclaimed a slave, entering
hastily.
"Who goes with me to hold the reins?" asked his master.
"The boy Myron."
"It is well. Fetch me a petasus, and lay the toga in the chariot. I may
want it. Now, Thrasea, I rely on you! Remember—be prudent, sure, and
silent."
"Else may I perish ill," replied the faithful servitor, as his master,
throwing the broad brimmed hat carelessly on his curly locks, rushed out,
as if glad to seek relief from his own gloomy thoughts in the excitement
of rapid motion; and, scarcely pausing to observe the condition or
appearance of his beautiful black coursers, sprang into the low car of
bronze, shaped not much differently from an old fashioned arm chair with
its back to the horses; seized the reins, and drove rapidly away, standing
erect—for the car contained no seats—with the boy Myron clinging to the
rail behind him.
A few minutes brought him through the Cyprian lane and the Suburra to the
Virbian slope, by which he gained the Viminal hill, and the Hortensian
villa; at the door of which, in a handsome street leading through the
Quirinal gate to the Flaminian way, or great northern road of Italy, stood
the carpentum, drawn by a pair of noble mules, awaiting its fair freight.
This was a two-wheeled covered vehicle, set apart mostly for the use of
ladies; and, though without springs, was as comfortable and luxurious a
carriage as the art of that day could produce; nor was there one in Rome,
with the exception of those kept for public use in the sacred processions,
that could excel that of the rich and elegant Hortensia.
The pannels were beautifully painted, and the arched top or tilt supported
by gilded caryatides at the four corners. Its curtains and cushions were
of fine purple cloth; and altogether, though far less convenient, it was a
much gayer and more sumptuous looking vehicle than the perfection of
modern coach building.
The ladies were both waiting in the atrium, when the young man dismounted
from his car; and never had his Julia, he thought, looked more lovely than
she did this morning, with the redundant masses of her rich hair confined
by a net of green and gold, and a rich _pallium_, or shawl of the same
colors, gracefully draped over her snowy stola, and indicating by the soft
sweep of its outlines the beauties of a figure, which it might veil but
could not conceal.
Joyously, in the frank openness of her pure nature, she sprung forward to
meet him, with both her fair hands extended, and the ingenuous blood
rising faintly to her pale cheeks.
"Dear, dearest Paul—I am so happy, so rejoiced to see you."
Nothing could be more tender, more affectionate, than all her air, her
words, her manner. Love flashed from her bright eyes irrepressible, played
in the dimples of her smiling mouth, breathed audible in every tone of her
soft silvery voice. Yet was there nothing that the gravest and most rigid
censor could have wished otherwise—nothing that he could have pronounced,
even for a moment, too warm, or too free for the bearing of the chariest
maiden.
The very artlessness of her emotions bore evidence to their purity, their
holiness. She was rejoiced to see her permitted lover, she felt no shame
in that emotion of chaste joy, and would no more have dreamed of
concealing it from him whom she loved so devotedly, than of masking her
devotion to the Gods under a veil of indifference or coldness.
Here was the very charm of her demeanor, as here was the difference
between her manner, and that of her rival Lucia.
In Julia, every thought that sprang from her heart, was uttered by her
lips in frank and fearless innocence; she had no thought she was ashamed
of, no wish she feared to utter. Her clear bright eyes dwelt unabashed and
fondly on the face of him she loved; and no scrutiny could have detected
in their light, one glance of unquiet or immodest passion. Her manner was
warm and unreserved toward Paul, because she had a right to love him, and
cared not who knew that she did so. Lucia’s was as cold as snow, on the
contrary; yet it required no second glance to perceive that the coldness
was but the cover superinduced to hide passions too warm for revelation.
Her eye was downcast; yet did its stolen glances speak things, the secret
consciousness of which would have debased the other in her own estimation
beyond the hope of pardon. Her tongue was guarded, and her words slow and
carefully selected, for her imaginations would have made the brazen face
of the world blush for shame could it have heard them spoken.
Hortensia smiled to witness the manifest affection of her sweet child; but
the smile was, she knew not why, half mournful, as she said—
"You are unwise, my Julia, to show this truant how much you prize his
coming; how painfully his absence depresses you. Sages declare that women
should not let their lords guess, even, how much they are loved."
"Why, mother," replied Julia, her bright face gleaming radiantly with the
pure lustre of her artless spirit, "I _am_ glad to see him; I _do_ prize
his coming; I _do_ love Paullus. Why, then, should I dissemble, when to do
so were dishonest, and were folly likewise?"
"You should not tell him so, my child," replied the mother, "I fear you
should not tell him so. Men are not like us women, who love but the more
devotedly, the more fondly we are cherished. There is, I fear, something
of the hunter’s, of the conqueror’s, ardour, in their passion; the pursuit
is the great allurement; the winning the great rapture; and the prize,
once securely won, too often cast aside, and disregarded."
"No! no!" returned the girl eagerly, fixing her eyes on her lover’s
features, as if she would read therein the outward evidences of that
nobility of soul, which she believed to exist within. "I will not believe
it; it were against all gratitude! all honor! all heart-truth! No, I will
not believe it; and if I did, Hortensia, by all the Gods, I had rather
live without love, than hold it on so vile a tenure of deceit. What,
treasure up the secrets of your soul from your soul’s lord? No! no! I
would as soon conceal my devotion from the powers of heaven, as my
affections from their rightful master. I, for one, never will believe that
all men are selfish and unfaithful."
"May the Gods grant, my Julia, that sad experience shall never teach you
that they are so. I, at least, will believe, and pray, that, what his sex
may be soever, our Paullus will prove worthy ever of that best gift of
God, a pure woman’s pure and unselfish love."
"Oh! may it be so," answered Paullus, clasping his hands fervently
together. "May I die ere I wrong my Julia! and be you sure, sweet girl,
that your simple trust is philosophy far truer than the sage’s lore. Base
must his nature be, and his heart corrupt, who remains unsubdued to
artlessness and love, such as yours, my Julia."
"But tell us, now," said the elder lady, "what was it that detained you,
and where were you all the day? We expected you till the seventh hour of
the night, yet you came not."
"I will tell you, Hortensia," he replied; "as we drive along; for I had
rather do so, where there be no ears to overhear us. You must let me be
your charioteer to-day, and your venerable grey-headed coachman shall ride
with my wild imp Myron, in the car, if you will permit it."
"Willingly," she replied. "Then something strange has happened. Is it not
so?"
"I knew it," exclaimed Julia, clasping her snowy hands together, "I knew
it; I have read it in his eye this half hour. What can it be? it is
something fearful, I am certain."
"Nay! nay! be not alarmed; if there were danger, it is passed already. But
come, let me assist you to the carriage; I will tell you all as we go. But
if we do not make good speed, the pomp will have passed the bridge before
we reach it."
The ladies made no more delay, but took their places in the carriage, Paul
occupying the front seat, and guiding the sober mules with far more ease,
than Hortensia’s aged charioteer experienced in restraining the speed of
Arvina’s fiery coursers, and keeping them in their place, behind the
heavier carpentum.
The narrow streets were now passed, and threading the deep arch of the
Quirinal gate, they struck into a lane skirting the base of the hill of
gardens, on the right hand, by which they gained the great Flaminian way,
just on the farther confines of the Campus; when they drove rapidly toward
the Milvian bridge, built a few years before by Æmilius Scaurus, and
esteemed for many a year the masterpiece of Roman architecture.
As soon as they had cleared the confines of the busy city, within which
the throng of vehicles, and the passengers, as well on foot as on
horseback, compelled Arvina to give nearly the whole of his attention to
the guidance of the mules—he slackened the reins, and leaving the docile
and well-broken animals to choose their own way, giving only an occasional
glance to their movements, commenced the detail of his adventures at the
point, where he parted from them on the night before the last.
Many were the emotions of fear, and pity, and anxiety which that tale
called forth; and more than once the tears of Julia were evoked by
sympathy, first, with her lover’s daring, then with the grief of Thrasea.
But not a shade of distrust came to cloud her pure spirit, for Paullus
mentioned nothing of his interview with Catiline on the Cælian, or in the
Campus; much less of his dining with him, or detecting in him the murderer
of the hapless Volero.
Still he did not attempt to conceal, that both Cicero and himself had
suspicions of the identity of the double murderer, or that he was about to
go forth that very evening, for the purpose of attempting—as he
represented it—to ascertain, beyond doubt, the truth of his suspicions.
And here it was singular, that Julia evinced not so much alarm or
perturbation as her mother; whether it was that she underrated the danger
he was like to run, or overrated the prowess and valor of her lover. But
so it was, for though she listened eagerly while he was speaking, and
gazed at him wistfully after he had become silent, she said nothing. Her
beautiful eyes, it is true, swam with big tear-drops for a moment, and her
nether lip quivered painfully; but she mastered her feelings, and after a
short space began to talk joyously about such subjects as were suggested
by the pleasant scenery, through which their road lay, or the various
groups of people whom they met on the way.
Ere long the shrill blast of a cavalry trumpet was heard from the
direction of the bridge, and a cloud of dust surging up in the distance
announced the approach of the train.
There was a small green space by the wayside, covered with short mossy
turf, and overshadowed by the spreading branches of a single chesnut,
beneath which Paullus drew up the mules of Hortensia’s carriage, directing
the old charioteer, who seemed hard set to manage his high-bred and fiery
steeds, to wheel completely off the road, and hold them well in hand on
the green behind him.
By this time the procession had drawn nigh, and two mounted troopers,
glittering in casques of highly polished bronze, with waving crests of
horsehair, corslets of burnished brass, and cassocks of bright scarlet
cloth, dashed by as hard as their fiery Gallic steeds could trot, their
harness clashing merrily from the rate at which they rode. Before these
men were out of sight, a troop of horse rode past in serried order, five
abreast, with a square crimson banner, bearing in characters of gold the
well-known initials, S. P. Q. R., and surmounted by a gilded eagle.
Nothing could be more beautifully accurate than the ordered march and
exact discipline of this little band, their horses stepping proudly out,
as if by one common impulse, in perfect time to the occasional notes of
the _lituus_, or cavalry trumpet, by which all their manœuvres were
directed; and the men, hardy and fine-looking figures, in the prime of
life, bestriding with an air of perfect mastery their fiery chargers, and
bearing the weight of their heavy panoply beneath the burning sunshine of
the Italian noon, as though a march of thirty miles were the merest
child’s play.
About half a mile in the rear of this escort, so as to avoid the dust
which hung heavily, and was a long time subsiding in the breathless
atmosphere, came the train of the ambassadors from the Gaulish Highlands,
and on these men were the eyes of the Roman ladies fixed with undisguised
wonder, not unmixed with admiration. For their giant stature, strong
limbs, and wild barbaric dresses, were as different from those of the
well-ordered legionaries, as were their long light tresses, their blue
eyes, keen and flashing as a falcon’s, and their fair ruddy skins, from
the clear brown complexions, dark locks, and black eyes of the Italian
race.
The first of these wild people was a young warrior above six feet in
height, mounted on a superb grey charger, which bore his massive bulk as
if it were unconscious of his burthen. His large blue eyes wandered around
him on all sides with a quick flashing glance that took in everything, yet
seemed surprised at nothing; though almost everything which he beheld must
have been strange to him. His long red hair flowed down in wavy masses
over his neck and shoulders, and his upper lip, though his cheeks and his
chin were closely shaven, was clothed with an immense moustache, the ends
of which curled upward nearly to his eyes.
Upon his head he wore a casque of bronze, covered with studs of silver,
and crested by two vast polished horns, the spoil of the fiercest animal
of Europe’s forests—the gigantic and indomitable Urus. A coat of mail,
composed of bright steel rings interwoven in the Gaulish fashion, covered
his body from the throat downward to the hips, leaving his strong arms
bare to the shoulder, though they were decorated with so many chains,
bracelets, and armlets, and broad rings of gold and silver, as would have
gone far to protect them from a sword cut.
His legs were clothed, unlike those of any southern people, in
tightly-sitting pantaloons—_braccæ_, as they were called—of gaily
variegated tartans, precisely similar to the trews of the Scottish
Highlander—a much more ancient part of the costume, by the way, than the
kilt, or short petticoat, now generally worn—and these trews, as well as
the streaming plaid, which he wore belted gracefully about his shoulders,
shone resplendent with checkers of the brightest scarlet, azure, and
emerald, and white, interspersed here and there with lines and squares of
darker colors, giving relief and harmony to the general effect.
A belt of leather, studded with bosses and knobs of coral and polished
mountain pebbles, girded his waist, and supported a large purse of some
rich fur, with a formidable dirk at the right side, and, at the left,
suspended by gilt chains from the girdle, a long, straight, cutting
broadsword, with a basket hilt—the genuine claymore, or great sword—to
resist the sweep of which Marcellus had been fain, nearly five hundred
years before, to double the strength of the Roman casque, and to add a
fresh layer of wrought iron to the tough fabric of the Roman buckler.
This ponderous blade constituted, with the dagger, the whole of his
offensive armature; but there was slung on his left shoulder a small round
targe, of the hide of the mountain bull, bound at the rim, and studded
massively with bronze, and having a steel pike projecting from the
centre—in all respects the same instrument as that with which the clans
received the British bayonet at Preston Pans and Falkirk.
The charger of this gallantly-attired chief was bedecked, like his rider,
with all the martial trappings of the day; his bridle, mounted with bits
of ponderous Spanish fabric, was covered with bosses gemmed with amber and
unwrought coral; his housings, of variegated plaid, were elaborately
fringed with embroideries of gold; and his rich scarlet poitrel was
decked, in the true taste of the western savage, with tufts of human hair,
every tuft indicating a warrior slain, and a hostile head embalmed in the
coffers of the valiant rider.
"See, Julia, see," whispered Arvina, as he passed slowly by their chariot,
"that must be one of their great chiefs, and a man of extraordinary
prowess. Look at the horns of the mighty Urus on his helmet, a brute
fiercer, and well nigh as large as a Numidian elephant. He must have slain
it, single-handed in the forest, else had he not presumed to wear its
trophies, which belong only to the greatest of their champions. For every
stud of silver on his casque of bronze he must have fought in a pitched
battle; and for each tuft of hair upon his charger’s poitrel he must have
slain a foe in hand-to-hand encounter. There are eighteen tufts on this
side, and, I warrant me, as many on the other. Doubtless, he has already
stricken down thirty-six foemen."
"And he numbers not himself as yet so many years! Ye Gods! what monsters,"
exclaimed Julia, shuddering at the idea of human hair used as a
decoration. "Are they not anthropophagi, the Gauls, my Paullus?"
"No, by the Gods! Julia," answered Arvina, laughing; "but very valiant
warriors, and hospitable beyond measure to those who visit their native
mountains; admirers, too, of women, whom they regard as almost divine,
beyond all things. I see that stout fellow looking wild admiration at you
now, from his clear blue eyes, though he would fain be thought above the
reach of wonder."
"Are they believers in the Gods, or Atheists, as well as barbarous?"
"By Jupiter! neither barbarous, to speak the truth, nor Atheists; they
worship Mercury and Jove, Mars and Apollo, and Diana, as we do; and though
their tongues be something wild, and their usages seem strange to us, it
cannot be denied that they are a brave and noble race, and at this time
good friends to the Roman people. Mark that old chieftain; he is the
headman of the tribe, and leader of the embassy, I doubt not."
While he was speaking, a dozen other chiefs had ridden by, accompanied by
the chiefs of the Roman escort, some men in the prime of life, some
grizzled and weather-beaten, and having the trace of many a hard-fought
field in the scars that defaced their sunburnt visages. But the last was
an old man, with long silver hair, and eyebrows and mustachios white as
the snow on his native Jura; the principal personage evidently of the
band, for his casque was plated with gold, and his shirt of mail richly
gilded, and the very plaid which he wore, alternately checked with
scarlet, black, and gold.
He also, as he passed, turned his deep grey eye toward the little group on
the green, and his face lightened up, as he surveyed the athletic form and
vigorous proportions of the young patrician, and he leaned toward the
officer, who rode beside him, a high crested tribune of the tenth legion,
and enquired his name audibly.
The soldier, who had been nodding drowsily over his charger’s neck, tired
by the long and dusty ride, looked up half bewildered, for he had taken no
note of the spectators, but as his eyes met those of Arvina, he smiled and
waved his hand, for they were old companions, and he laughed as he gave
the required information to the ancient warrior.
The gaze of the old man fell next on the lovely lineaments of Julia, and
dwelt there so long that the girl lowered her eyes abashed; but, when she
again raised them, supposing that he had passed by, she still met the
firm, penetrating, quiet gaze, rivetted on her face, for he had turned
half round in the saddle as he rode along.
A milder light came into his keen, hawk-like eye, and a benignant smile
illuminated his gray weather-beaten features, as he surveyed and marked
the ingenuous and artless beauty of her whole form and face; and he
whispered into the tribune’s ear something that made him too turn back,
and wave his hand to Paul, and laugh merrily.
"Now, drive us homeward, Paullus," said Hortensia, as the cohort of
infantry which closed the procession, marched steadily along, dusty and
dark with sweat, yet proud in their magnificent array, and solid in their
iron discipline. "Drive us homeward as quickly as you may. You will dine
with us, and if you must need go early to your meeting, we will not hinder
you."
"Gladly will I dine with you; but I must say farewell soon after the third
hour!"
They soon arrived at the hospitable villa, and shortly afterward the
pleasant and social meal was served. But Paul was not himself, though the
lips he loved best poured forth their fluent music in his ear, and the
eyes which he deemed the brightest, laughed on him in their speaking
fondness.
Still he was sad, silent, and abstracted, and Julia marked it all; and
when he rose to say farewell, just as the earliest shades of night were
falling, she arose too; and as she accompanied him to the door, leaning
familiarly on his arm, she said—
"You have not told me all, Paullus. I thought so while you were yet
speaking; but now I am sure of it. I will not vex you at this time with
questions, but will devour my anxiety and grief. But to-morrow, to-morrow,
Paullus, if you love me indeed, you will tell me all that disturbs you.
True love has no concealment from true love. Do not, I pray you, answer
me; but fare you well, and good fortunes follow you."