For a few moments there was utter silence, Cracis looking as if stunned,
and a slight colour beginning to appear in the visitor's pallid cheeks
as he stood gazing at Marcus' father, waiting for him to speak, while
Cracis after catching his son's wrist and snatching him back, and
without taking his eyes from their visitor, found words at last to
speak.
"Are you mad, boy?" he exclaimed, hoarsely. "Do you know who this is?"
"No, father," cried the boy, passionately, "only that he is a man who
has dared to speak ill of you."
"Ah!" said Cracis, slowly, and with his face softening, as he pressed
the boy's arm; and then, in a voice full of dignity and pride: "May I
ask why Caius Julius has condescended to visit my humble home?"
"I have come as a friend, Cracis," was the reply.
"To continue your old enmity, and in mine absence revile me to my son?"
"Revile? Nonsense!" cried his visitor. "It was by accident. I came,
and found you away, and reviled you?--no! I was but speaking to try
your brave and spirited boy. I never for a moment thought that he would
fire up as he did with all his father's spirit and readiness to resent a
wrong."
"Indeed?" said Cracis, coldly.
"Indeed," replied the visitor. "Only a few minutes ago I was telling
your boy how that once we were the greatest of friends. Did I not?" he
said quickly, turning to Marcus.
"Yes, father, that is right," cried Marcus. "He praised you very highly
at first, and said he was your friend."
"My friend!" said Cracis, bitterly. "My greatest enemy, he meant."
"I was, Cracis, in the past. In my ignorance and pride it was only
after we had parted that I learned all that I had lost in my separation
from my bravest colleague, my truest and wisest counsellor."
"And now," said Cracis, coldly, "you have found out the truth and have
tracked me to my home to accuse me with some base invention to my son."
"Believe me, no!" cried Julius, warmly, and he held out his hand.
"Cracis, after much thought and battling with my pride, the pride that
has come with the position to which I have climbed, I have mastered self
so as to come humbly to my oldest and best friend."
"Why?" said Cracis.
"Because you are the only man I know whose counsel I can respect, and in
whom I could fully trust."
"My greatest enemy comes to me to utter words like these, in the
presence of my son?"
"Yes, and I am proud that he should hear them, so that he may fully
understand that, when I spoke to him lightly as I did, it was but to
test him, to try his spirit, to see whether he was fully worthy to bear
his great father's name."
Cracis was silent for a few moments, gazing searchingly into his
visitor's eyes, which met his frankly and without blenching.
"Is this the truth?" said Cracis, sternly.
"The simple truth. Cracis, we were great friends once, and later the
greatest enemies; but in all those troubles of the past did we ever
doubt each other's words?"
"Never," said Cracis, proudly. "But there is a reason for all this--
something more than a late repentance for the injuries you have done me
in the years that have gone. I ask you again--why have you come?"
"For our country's sake. I have climbed high since we parted, but only
to stand more and more alone, till now, perhaps at the most critical
period of my life, I have been forced to look around me for help, for a
man in whom I can place implicit trust, who will give me his counsel in
the State, and stand beside me in the perils that lie ahead. Cracis,
there is only one man in whom I could trust like that, one only who
would bare his sword and fight bravely by my side, and you are he."
Cracis was silent as he shook his head slowly and turned his eyes away
from his visitor, to let them rest upon his son's upturned face, as the
boy gazed at him in wonder and astonishment at what he heard.
"You do not believe me," cried Julius. "You think that something is
underlying all this," and he spoke with deep earnestness, his voice
broken and changed.
"Yes," said Cracis; "I cannot do otherwise. I do believe you--every
word."
"Then why do you speak so coldly and calmly, when I come to you
penitent, to humble myself to you and ask your help?"
"I speak coldly like this," said Cracis, "because I am fighting hard to
beat down the feelings of pride and triumph that the time has come when
he who drove me from my high position in Rome has sought me out to make
so brave and manly an appeal, for, knowing you as I do to the very core,
I can feel the battle that you must have had with self before you
stooped--you, great general as you are--to come and tell me that you
need my help."
"Stooped!" cried the other. "No, Cracis, that is an ill-chosen word.
It is that I have mastered self and cast away all pride and weakness so
that I might come to you and say: `For the sake of the old times, help
me in this bitter pass, so fraught with peril as it is'; and say, `I
forgive the bygones, and be to me as my brother once again.'"
Cracis was silent, and stood drawing his son closer to him so that he
could rest his arm upon the boy's shoulder, while his visitor stood
before him with his white robe gathered up so as to leave free his
extended arm.
For a few minutes neither spoke, and from the garden there came loud and
clear the joyous trilling of the birds.
"You do not take my hand," said Caius Julius, passionately.
"No, not yet," said Cracis; "but do not mistake me. There is no
bitterness or pride left in my breast. That died out years ago. I am
only thinking."
"Ha!" cried his visitor, with a sigh of relief, "and forgetting the
courtesy due to a long-estranged friend."
"Caius Julius, sit down. You are welcome to my simple, humble home.
Marcus, my boy, you can believe that all our visitor said was to try his
old friend's son to see of what metal he was made. He is a man who, for
years past, has found the necessity of testing those he would have to
trust, of placing them in the balance to try their worthiness and
weight. Boy, we are honoured to-day by the presence of Rome's greatest
son, your father's oldest friend, then his greatest enemy, and now, in
the fulness of time, his brother once again."
As he spoke he took a step forward with extended hands, which the future
conqueror of the world clasped at once in his own, and once more there
was silence in the room.
A minute later Cracis drew back and motioned to his son, who, earnest
and alert, stepped forward, to find himself clasped to their visitor's
breast, before he was released, to draw back wondering whether he liked
or hated this man of whose prowess he had heard so much, and stood
gazing at him wonderingly, as Julius, the Caesar yet to be, sank back,
quivering with emotion, in the nearest seat.
A few minutes later Marcus stood trying to catch his father's eye, for
he too had sunk into a chair and sat back gazing away through the open
window at the sunlit hills.
At last he turned his eye upon his son and read the question in his
speaking face.
"Yes, boy," he said, "you may leave us now. My old friend has much to
say, and I too have much to think. Go and see that proper preparations
are made for our guest. You will honour us--No," he continued, with a
pleasant smile, as he turned to his guest, "we are very simple here, but
you will be welcome and stay here to-night."
"Gladly," cried Julius, eagerly. "Believe me, I shall be proud, for I
have gained my ends."
"Not yet," said Cracis, gravely. "It means so much, and I must have the
night to think. There, Marcus, boy, you know what should be done.
Leave us for a while."
The boy hurried away, to seek the servants, and then to make for Serge,
but checked himself before he was half way to his old companion's room.
"Not yet," he said. "How do I know that I ought to speak?" And he drew
back with a feeling of relief on seeing that the old soldier was right
away crossing one of the fields. "It would not have been right without
speaking to my father first," thought Marcus. "I wonder what they are
saying now?"