How Pompeius Stamped with His Feet
I
A messenger to the consuls! He had ridden fast and furious, his horse
was flecked with foam and straining on his last burst of speed. On
over the Mulvian Bridge he thundered; on across the Campus Martius; on
to the Porta Ratumena--with all the hucksters and street rabble
howling and chasing at his heels.
"News! News for the consuls!"
"What news?" howled old Laeca, who was never backward in a street
press.
"Terrible!" shouted the messenger, drawing rein, "Caesar is sweeping
all before him! All Thermus's troops have deserted him at Iguvium.
Attius Varus has evacuated Auximum, and his troops too have dispersed,
or joined Caesar. All the towns are declaring for the enemy. _Vah!_ He
will be here in a few days at most! I am the last of the relay with
the news. I have hardly breathed from Eretum!"
And the courier plunged the spur into his hard-driven mount, and
forced his way into the city, through the mob. "Caesar advancing on
Rome!" The Jewish pedlers took up the tale, and carried it to the
remotest tenement houses of Janiculum. The lazy street-idlers shouted
it shrilly. Laeca, catching sight of Lucius Ahenobarbus, just back from
Baiae, and a little knot of kindred spirits about him, was in an
instant pouring it all in their ears. The news spread, flew, grew. The
bankers on the Via Sacra closed their credit books, raised their
shutters, and sent trusted clerks off to suburban villas, with due
orders how to bury and hide weighty money-bags. The news came to that
very noble lady Claudia, sister-in-law of the consul, just at the
moment when she was discussing the latest style of hairdressing with
the most excellent Herennia; and the cheeks of those patrician ladies
grew pale, and they forgot whether or not it was proper to wear ivory
pins or a jewel-set head-band, at the dinner-party of Lucius Piso that
evening. The news came to Lentulus Crus while he was wrangling with
Domitius as to who should be Caesar's successor as Pontifex
Maximus--and those distinguished statesmen found other things to think
of.
The news flew and grew. The noble senators overheard their slaves
whispering,--how it was rumoured on the street or in the Forum that
Caesar was in full advance on the city, that his cavalry were close to
the gates. Caesar at the gates! Why had they not remembered how rapidly
he could advance? Why had they trusted the assurance of the traitor
Labienus that the legions would desert their Imperator? Resist? By
what means? The walls were walls only in name; the city had long
outgrown them, spreading through a thousand breaches. There was not a
trained soldier this side of Capua, whither Pompeius had departed only
the day before to take command of the Apulian legions. Caesar was
coming! Caesar--whose tribunes the oligarchs had chased from the
Senate! Caesar--whom they had proclaimed a rebel and public enemy! He
was coming like a second Marius, who thirty-eight years before had
swept down on Rome, and taken a terrible vengeance on enemies less
bitter to him than they to the great Julian. "_Moriendum est_,"[157]
had been the only reply to every plea for mercy. And would Caesar now
be more lenient to those who had aimed to blast his honour and shed
his blood?
[157] He has got to die.
Evening drew on, but the calamity was only delayed. There was not a
soldier to confront the invader. Few men that night could sleep. Rich
and poor alike, all trembled. To their imaginations their foe was an
ogre, implacable, unsparing. "Remember how it was in Sulla's day,"
croaked Laeca to Ahenobarbus. "Remember how he proscribed forty
senators and sixteen hundred equites with one stroke. A fine example
for Caesar! And Drusus, who is with the rebels, is little likely to say
a good word in your behalf, eh?"
"The gods blast your tongue!" cried the young man, wringing his hands
in terror; for that Drusus would ruin him, if he gained the chance,
Lucius had not the least doubt in the world.
So passed the night, in fear and panic. When morning came everything
save flight seemed suicide. There was a great government treasure in
the Temple of Saturn. The Senate had voted that the money be delivered
to Pompeius. But the consuls were too demoralized to take away a
denarius. They left the great hoard under mere lock and key--a present
to their bitterest enemy. Then began the great exodus. Hardly a man
had done more than gather a few valuables together: property,
children, wives--all these were left to the avenger. Down the Via
Appia, toward Campania, where was their only safety, poured the
panic-stricken company. Every carriage, every horse, was in service.
The hard-driven chariots of the consuls were the tokens merely of the
swiftest flight. Lentulus Crus fled; Caius Marcellus, his colleague,
was close behind; Domitius fled, with his sons; Cato fled, ironically
exclaiming that they would have to leave everything to Pompeius now,
"for those who can raise up great evils can best allay them." Favonius
fled, whose first words, when he met the Magnus, were to command him
to "stamp on the ground for the legions so sorely needed." Piso,
Scipio, and many another fled--their guilty hearts adding wings to
their goings. Cicero fled--gazing in cynical disgust at the panic and
incompetence, yet with a sword of Damocles, as he believed, hanging
over his head also. "I fear that Caesar will be a very Phalaris, and
that we may expect the very worst," he wrote to his intimate friend
Atticus, who, safe from harm and turmoil, was dwelling under the calm
Athenian sky. A great fraction of the Senate departed; only those
stayed who felt that their loyalty to the advancing Imperator was
beyond dispute, or who deemed themselves too insignificant to fall
beneath his displeasure. In the hour of crisis the old ties of
religion and superstition reasserted themselves. Senators and
magistrates, who had deemed it a polite avocation to mock at the gods
and deny the existence of any absolute ethical standards, now, before
they climbed into their carriages for flight, went, with due ritual,
into the temples of the gods of their fathers, and swore hecatombs of
milk-white Umbrian steers to Capitoline Jove, if the awful deity would
restore them to the native land they then were quitting. And as they
went down from the temples and hastened toward the gates, friends and
clients who could not join their flight crowded after them, sighing,
lamenting, and moaning. Out over the Campagna they streamed, this
company of senators, praetors, consuls--men who had voted thrones to
kings, and decreed the deposition of monarchs; whose personal wealth
was princely, whose lineage the noblest in the world, whose ancestors
had beaten down Etruscan, Gaul, Samnite, and Carthaginian, that their
posterity might enjoy the glory of unequalled empire. And these
descendants fled, fled not before any foe, but before their own guilty
consciences; abandoning the city of their fathers when not a sword had
flashed against her gates! The war had been of their making; to send
Caesar into outlawry the aristocracy had laboured ten long years. And
now the noble lords were exiles, wanderers among the nations. To Capua
they went, to find small comfort there, and thence to join Pompeius in
further flight beyond the seas to Greece. But we anticipate. Enough
that neither Lentulus Crus, nor Domitius, nor Cato, nor the great
Magnus himself, ever saw Rome again.
II
Agias stood in a shop by the Sacred Way watching the stream of
fugitives pouring down toward the Porta Capena. At his side was a
person whom a glance proclaimed to be a fellow-Greek. The stranger was
perhaps fifty, his frame presented a faultless picture of symmetry and
manly vigour, great of stature, the limbs large but not ungainly. His
features were regular, but possessed just enough prominence to make
them free from the least tinge of weakness. The Greek's long, thick,
dark but grey-streaked beard streamed down upon his breast; his hair,
of similar hue, was long, and tossed back over his shoulders in loose
curls. His dress was rich, yet rude, his chiton and cloak short, but
of choice Milesian wool and dyed scarlet and purple; around his neck
dangled a very heavy gold chain set with conspicuously blazing jewels.
The ankles, however, were bare, and the sandals of the slightest and
meanest description. The stranger must once have been of a light, not
to say fair, complexion; but cheeks, throat, arms, and feet were all
deeply bronzed, evidently by prolonged exposure to wind and weather.
Agias and his companion watched the throng of panic-struck exiles. The
younger Greek was pointing out, with the complacency of familiar
knowledge, the names and dignities of the illustrious fugitives.
"Yonder goes Cato," he was saying; "mark his bitter scowl! There goes
Marcus Marcellus, the consular. There drives the chariot of Lucius
Domitius, Caesar's great enemy." And Agias stopped, for his friend had
seized his arm with a sudden grasp, crushing as iron. "Why, by all
the gods, Demetrius, why are you staring at him that way?"
"By Zeus!" muttered the other, "if I had only my sword! It would be
easy to stab him, and then escape in this crowd!"
"Stab him!" cried Agias. "Demetrius, good cousin, control yourself.
You are not on the deck of your trireme, with all your men about you.
Why should you be thus sanguinary, when you see Lucius Domitius? Why
hate him more than any other Roman?"
The consular, unaware of the threat against him, but with a compelling
fear of Caesar's Gallic cavalry lending strength to the arm with which
he plied the whip--for the law against driving inside the city no man
respected that day--whirled out of sight.
Demetrius still strained at his cousin's arm.
"Listen, Agias," he said, still hoarsely. "Only yesterday I ran upon
you by chance in the crowd. We have many things to tell one another,
chiefly I to tell you. Why do I hate Lucius Domitius? Why should you
hate him? Who made you a slave and me an outlaw? Your father died
bankrupt; you know it was said that Philias, his partner, ruined him.
That was truth, but not the whole truth. Philias was under deep
obligations to a certain Roman then in the East, who knew of several
crimes Philias had committed, crimes that would bring him to the cross
if discovered. Do you understand?"
"Hardly," said Agias, still bewildered. "I was very young then."
"I will go on. It was shortly before Pompeius returned to Rome from
the East. Your father had charge of the banking firm in Alexandria,
Philias of the branch at Antioch. I was a clerk in the Antioch
banking-house. I knew that Philias was misusing his partner's name and
credit. The Roman whom I have mentioned knew it too, and had a supple
Greek confidant who shared his spoils and gave the touches to his
schemes. He had good cause to know: he was levying blackmail on
Philias. At last a crisis came; the defalcation could be concealed no
longer. Philias was duly punished; he was less guilty than he seemed.
But the Roman--who had forced from him the money--he was high on the
staff of the proconsul--let his confederate and tool suffer for his
own fault. He kept his peace. I would not have kept mine; I would not
have let the real ruiner of my uncle escape. But the Roman had me
seized, with the aid of his Greek ally; he charged me with treasonable
correspondence with the Parthians. He, through his influence with the
proconsul, had me bound to the oar as a galley slave for life. I would
have been executed but for another Roman, of the governor's suite, who
was my friend. He pleaded for my life; he believed me innocent. He
saved my life--on what terms! But that is not all he did. He bribed my
guards; I escaped and turned outlaw. I joined the last remnants of the
Cilician pirates, the few free mariners who have survived Pompeius's
raid. And here I am in Rome with one of my ships, disguised as a
trader, riding at the river wharf."
"And the name of the Roman who ruined you and my father?" said Agias.
"Was Lucius Domitius. The friend who saved me was Sextus Drusus, son
of Marcus Drusus, the reformer. And if I do not recompense them both
as they deserve, I am not Demetrius the pirate, captain of seven
ships!"
"You will never recompense Sextus Drusus," remarked Agias, quietly.
"He has been dead, slain in Gaul, these five years."
"Such is the will of the gods," said Demetrius, looking down.
"But he has left a son."
"Ah! What sort of a man?"
"The noblest of all noble Romans. He is the Quintus Drusus who saved
my life, as last night I told you."
"Mithras be praised! The name is so common among these Latins that I
did not imagine any connection when you mentioned it. What can I do to
serve him?"
"Immediately, nothing. He is with Caesar, and, as you see, the enemies
of the Imperator are not likely, at present, to work his friends much
mischief. Yet it is singular that his chief enemy and yours are so
near akin. Lucius Ahenobarbus, son of Domitius, is thirsting for
Drusus's blood."
"If I had my sword!" muttered Demetrius, clapping his hand to his
thigh. "It is not too late to run after the fugitives!"
"Come, come," remonstrated Agias, feeling that his newly found cousin
was indeed a fearful and wonderful man after twelve years of lawless
and godless freebooter's life. "At my lodgings we will talk it all
over; and there will be time enough to scheme the undoing of Domitius
and all his family."
And with these words he led the sanguinary sea-king away.
* * * * *
Agias indeed found in Demetrius a perfect mine of bloody romance and
adventure. It had been the banking clerk's misfortune, not his fault,
that every man's hand had been against him and his against every man.
Demetrius had been declared an outlaw to Roman authority; and Roman
authority at that time stretched over very nearly every quarter of the
civilized world. Demetrius had been to India, to intercept the Red Sea
traders. He had been beyond the Pillars of Hercules and set foot on
those then half-mythical islands of the Canaries. He had plundered a
hundred merchantmen; he had fought a score of Roman government
galleys; he had been principal or accessory to the taking of ten
thousand lives. All this had been forced upon him, because there was
no tolerable spot on the planet where he might settle down and be free
from the grasp of punishment for a crime he had never committed.
Demetrius had boldly come up to Rome on a light undecked yacht.[158]
The harbor masters had been given to understand that the captain of
the craft was an Asiatic princeling, who was visiting the capital of
the world out of a quite legitimate curiosity. If they had had any
doubts, they accepted extremely large fees and said nothing. The real
object of the venture was to dispose of a large collection of rare
gems and other valuables that Demetrius had collected in the course of
his wanderings. Despite the perturbed state of the city, the worthy
pirate had had little difficulty in arranging with certain wealthy
jewellers, who asked no questions, when they bought, at a very large
discount, bargains of a most satisfactory character. And so it came to
pass, by the merest luck, that the two cousins were thrown together in
a crowd, and partly Agias, through his dim childish recollections of
his unfortunate relative, and partly Demetrius, through memories of
his uncle's boy and the close resemblance of the lad to his father,
had been prompted first to conversation, then to mutual inquiries,
then to recognition.
[158] A _celox_ of one bank of oars, a small ship much used by
the pirates.
Demetrius had no intention of leaving Rome for a few days. Under
existing circumstances the chances of his arrest were not worth
considering. His cousin was eager to show him all the sights; and the
freebooter was glad of a little relaxation from his roving life, glad
to forget for an instant that his country was his squadron, his rights
at law were his cutlass. Moreover, he had taken a vast liking to
Agias; deeply dipped in blood himself, he dared not desire his cousin
to join him in his career of violence--yet he could not part with the
bright, genial lad so hastily. Agias needed no entreaties, therefore,
to induce his cousin to enjoy his hospitality.
III
Fabia the Vestal was in direful perplexity. Her heart had gone with
Drusus in his flight to Ravenna; she had wished herself beside him, to
be a man, able to fight a man's battles and win a man's glory. For the
first time in her life the quiet routine of the Temple service brought
her no contentment; for the first time she felt herself bound to a
career that could not satisfy. She was restless and moody. The younger
Vestals, whose attendance on the sacred fire and care of the Temple
she oversaw, wondered at her exacting petulance. Little Livia brought
her aunt to her senses, by asking why she, Fabia, did not love her any
more. The lady summoned all her strength of character, and resumed her
outward placidity. She knew that Drusus was safe with Caesar, and
exposed only to the ordinary chances of war. She became more at ease
as each successive messenger came into the city, bearing the tidings
of the Gallic proconsul's advance. Too innocent herself of the
political turmoils of the day to decide upon the merits of the
parties, her hopes and wishes had gone with those of her nephew; so
pure and unquestioning was her belief that he would espouse only the
right. And when the great panic came; when trembling consulars and
pallid magistrates rushed to the Temple of Vesta to proffer their last
hurried vows, before speeding away to Capua, their refuge; Fabia stood
all day beside the altar, stately, gracious, yet awe-inspiring, the
fitting personification of the benignant Hearth Goddess, who was above
the petty passions of mortals and granted to each an impartial favour.
Yet Fabia was sorely distressed, and that too on the very day of the
great exodus of the Senate. She had heard for some time past rumours
of the depredations of a certain band of robbers upon the Sabine and
AEquian country. It was said that a gang of bandits, headed by a
gigantic Gaul, had plundered some farms near Carsioli and infested the
mountain regions round about. Fabia had connected this gang and its
chieftain with Dumnorix and the remnant of his gladiators, who escaped
after their disastrous affray at Praeneste. As for Publius Gabinius,
who had on one occasion given her such distress, nothing had been
heard or seen of him since the Praeneste affair. It was generally
believed, however, that he was still with Dumnorix. And a few days
before the panic in the city, Fabia had received a letter. A strange
slave had left it at the Atrium Vestae, and had gone away without
explanations. It ran thus:--
"To the very noble Vestal, the Lady Fabia, greeting:--
Though I am now so unfortunate as to be barred from the doors of all
law-abiding men, do not imagine this will forever continue. In the
confusion and readjustments of war, and the calamities of many, the
affairs of some, one time enemies of Fortune, come to a happy issue.
Do not say that Mars may not lead Amor and Hymen in his train. All
things come to them who wait. I wait. Remember the life you spend in
the Temple is no longer obligatory. Be no cage bird who will not fly
out into the sunlight when the door is opened freely. Be surprised and
angry at nothing. _Vale_."
There was no date, no signature. The hand was distorted, evidently for
disguise. Fabia was in a dilemma. She did not need to be told that in
all probability--though she had no proof--the writer was Gabinius. She
was extremely reluctant to tell any one of her escape from his
clutches in the villa by the Appian Way. However, some confidant
seemed necessary. She knew that Fonteia, the senior Vestal, the
Maxima, would never treat her other than as a sister, and to her she
read the letter and imparted her story and fears. Fonteia did not
regard the matter in a very serious light. She was herself an old
woman, grown grey in the service of Vesta. She said that Fabia had
been most fortunate to remain in the Temple service so long as she had
and not be harassed by more than one impious and overbold suitor. The
only thing to do was to be careful and avoid anything that would give
false appearances. As for Fabia's fears that Gabinius would attempt to
carry her away perforce, as he had perhaps treated earlier
sweethearts, Fonteia scoffed at the suggestion. The Atrium Vestae was
in the heart of the city; there was a constant patrol on duty. For a
man to enter the Building at night meant the death penalty. Whosoever
did violence to a Vestal fell under a religious curse; he was a _homo
sacer_, a "sacred man," a victim devoted to the gods, whom it was a
pious deed to slay. And thus comforted, with the assurance that the
whole power of the Republic would rise for her personal defence, Fabia
was fain to put the disquieting letter from her heart.
Then followed the night of panic, and the succeeding day. There were
no longer any magistrates in Rome. The great palaces of the patricians
stood deserted, exposed to the unfaithful guardianship of freedmen and
slaves. The bankers' booths were closed, the shops did not raise their
shutters. On the streets swarmed the irresponsible and the vicious.
Men of property who had not fled barred their doors and stood guard
with their servants to beat back would-be plunderers. There were no
watchmen at the gates, no courts sitting in the basilicas. After the
great flight of the early morning, Rome was a city without warders,
police, or government.
Fabia did not realize this fact until late in the afternoon, when she
started forth, on foot and unattended, to visit a friend on the
Caelian. The half-deserted streets and barricaded houses filled her
with uneasy tremors. The low, brutish creatures that she met gave her
little heed; but the sight of them, alone and not offset by any more
respectable fellow-strollers, made her turn back to the Atrium Vestae.
As she hastened on her way homeward an uneasy sensation haunted her
that she was being followed. She halted, faced about. The street was
narrow, the light was beginning to fade. The figure of a man was
vanishing in the booth of some bold vintner, who had ventured to risk
plunder for the sake of sales. She proceeded. A moment later a half
glance over the shoulder and a straining of the eyes told her that the
stranger was continuing his pursuit. He kept very close to the side of
the buildings. His face and form were quite lost in shadow. Fabia
quickened her pace; the stranger increased his also, yet made no
effort to cut down the distance between them. The Vestal began to feel
the blood mantling to her cheeks and leaving them again. She was so
near to the Forum and the Atrium Vestae now that she could not be
overtaken. But why did the stranger follow?
There was a gap in the houses ahead. Through a narrow alley the dying
light was streaming. Fabia passed it, timed herself, glanced back. For
an instant, and only an instant (for the stranger walked rapidly), the
light glared full upon his face. But Fabia needed to see no more. It
was the face of Publius Gabinius. By a mighty effort she prevented
herself from breaking into a run. She passed into the doorway of the
Atrium Vestae, and sank upon a divan, shivering with fright.
Recollecting herself, she went to Fonteia and told her the discovery.
The Maxima, however, by that singular fatuity which sometimes takes
possession of the wisest of people,--especially when the possible
danger is one which never in all their long experience has come to a
head,--received her warnings with blank incredulity.
"You should not go out of the house and Temple," she said, "until
there is some proper policing of the city. No doubt Gabinius has come
back for the sake of riot and plunder, and having met with you by
chance could not resist the temptation to try to have an interview;
but you are in no possible danger here."
"But, Fonteia," urged the younger Vestal, "I know him to be a bold,
desperate man, who fears not the gods, and who from the law can expect
no mercy. And we in this house are but weak women folk. Our only
defence is our purity and the reverence of the people. But only the
evil wander the streets to-night; and our virtuous lives make us only
the more attractive prey to such men as Gabinius."
"Fabia," said the other Vestal, severely, "I am older than you. I have
beheld sights you have never seen. I saw the riots when Saturninus and
Glaucia came to their ends; when Marius was chased from Rome and
Sulpicius put to death; when Marius returned with Cinna; and all the
massacres and strife attending the taking of the city by Sulla. But
never has the name of Vesta been insufficient to protect us from the
violence of the basest or the most godless. Nor will it now. I will
trust in the goddess, and the fear of her, which protects her maidens
against all men. We will sleep to-night as usual. I will not send
anywhere to have guards stationed around the house and Temple."
Fabia bowed her head. The word of the aged Maxima was law in the
little community. Fabia told herself that Fonteia was right--not even
Gabinius would dare to set unhallowed foot inside the Atrium Vestae.
But the vision of the coarse, sensual face of her unloved lover was
ever before her. In ordinary times she would have been tempted to go
to one of the consuls and demand that Fonteia be overruled; but in
ordinary times there would not have been the least need of adding to
the already sufficient city watch. It lacked four hours of midnight
before she brought herself to take her tablets and write the following
brief note:--
"Fabia the Vestal to Agias her good friend, greeting. I am in some
anxiety to-night. Gabinius, Lucius Ahenobarbus's friend, is in the
city. He means, I fear, to work me some mischief, though the cause
whereby I have good reason to dread him is too long here to write. The
Atrium Vestae has nothing to protect it to-night--as you well may
understand--from impious, violent men. Can you not guard me overnight?
I do not know how. Gabinius may have all Dumnorix's band with him. But
you alone are equal to an host. I trust you, as Drusus and Cornelia
have trusted you. _Vale_."
Fabia called one of the young slave-girls who waited on the Vestals.
The relation between servant and mistress, in the Temple company, was
almost ideal in its gentle loyalty. The slaves were happy in their
bondage.
"Erigone," she said, putting the tablets in the girl's hand, "I am
about to ask of you a very brave thing. Do you dare to take this
letter through the city?" and she told her how to find Agias's
lodgings. "Come back in the morning if you dread a double journey. But
do not tell Fonteia; she would be angry if she knew I sent you, though
there is nothing but what is right in the letter."
"I will carry the tablets to Scythia for you, domina," replied the
girl, kissing the hem of her mistress's robe. "I know all the streets.
If I live, the letter shall be delivered."
"Go by the alleys," enjoined Fabia; "they are safer, for you will not
be seen. Speak to no one. Let none stop you."
Erigone was gone in the night, and Fabia went to her chamber. She was
reproaching herself for having sent the letter. Rome by darkness was
an evil place for a young maid to traverse, and never worse than that
night. Fabia repeated to herself that she had committed an act of
selfish folly, possibly sacrificing an implicitly loyal servant to the
mere gratification of a perfectly ungrounded panic. She was undressed
by her other women, and lay down with Livia fast asleep in her arms;
and she kissed the little one again and again before slumber stole
over her.
IV
Demetrius had been astonishing his cousin that evening by the quantity
of strong wine he could imbibe without becoming in the least tipsy.
Agias marvelled at the worthy pirate's capacity and hardness of head,
and, fortunately for his own wits, did not attempt to emulate the
other's potations. Consequently, as the evening advanced, Demetrius
simply became more and more good-natured and talkative, and Agias more
entranced with his cousin's narration of the Indian voyage.
The younger Greek was about to order his yawning servants to fill up
another _krater_,[159] when the conversation and drinking were
interrupted by the arrival of Erigone. She, poor girl, had set out
bravely enough; but once outside of the Atrium Vestae every shadow had
been a refuge of cutthroats, every noise the oncoming of goblins.
Fortunately for her, she did not know the contents of the tablets she
carried pressed to her breast, or she would have been all the more
timorous. Once a few half-sober topers screamed ribald words after
her, as she stole past a low tavern. She had lost her way, in the
darkness and fright, among the alleys; she had dodged into a doorway
more than once to hide from approaching night rovers. But at last she
had reached her destination, and, pale and weary, placed the letter in
Agias's hands. The young Greek read and grew grave. Even better than
Fabia he understood how reckless a profligate Publius Gabinius might
be, and how opportune was the night for carrying out any deed of
darkness.
[159] Wine-mixing bowl.
"Brave girl!" he said, commending Erigone for persevering on her
errand. "But how long ago did you leave your mistress?"
"It was the second hour of the night[160] when I started," she
replied.
[160] The Romans divided the night into 12 hours (from sunrise to
sunset); thus the length of the hour varied with the seasons: but
at the time here mentioned the "second hour" was about 8 P.M. The
water-clocks could show only regular, not solar, time.
Agias glanced at the water-clock.
"By Zeus!" he cried, "it is now the fourth hour! You have been two
hours on the way! Immortal gods! What's to be done? Look here,
Demetrius!"
And he thrust the letter before his cousin, and explained its meaning
as rapidly as he could.
Demetrius puffed hard through his nostrils.
"_Mu! mu!_ This is bad business. If there were time I could have
twenty as stout men as ever swung sword up from the yacht and on guard
to die for any relative or friend of Sextus Drusus. But there's not a
moment to lose. Have you any arms?"
Agias dragged two short swords out of a chest. Demetrius was already
throwing on his cloak.
"Those are poor, light weapons," commented the pirate. "I want my
heavy cutlass. But take what the gods send;" and he girded one about
him. "At least, they will cut a throat. Do you know how to wield
them?"
"After a fashion," replied Agias, modestly, making haste to clasp his
paenula.
Leaving Erigone to be cared for by the slaves and sent home the next
morning, the two Greeks hastened from the house. Agias could hardly
keep pace with his cousin's tremendous stride. Demetrius was like a
war-horse, which snuffs the battle from afar and tugs at the rein to
join in the fray. They plunged through the dark streets. Once a man
sprang out from a doorway before them with a cudgel. He may have been
a footpad; but Demetrius, without pausing in his haste, smote the
fellow between the eyes with a terrible fist, and the wretched
creature dropped without a groan. Demetrius seemed guided to the Forum
and Via Sacra as if by an inborn instinct. Agias almost ran at his
heels.
"How many may this Dumnorix have with him?" shouted the pirate over
his shoulder.
"Perhaps ten, perhaps twenty!" gasped Agias.
"A very pretty number! Some little credit to throttle them," was his
answer; and Demetrius plunged on.
The night was cloudy, there was no moonlight. The cold, chill wind
swept down the Tiber valley, and howled mournfully among the tall,
silent basilicas and temples of the Forum. The feet of the two Greeks
echoed and reëchoed as they crossed the pavement of the enclosure.
None addressed them, none met them. It was as if they walked in a city
of the dead. In the darkness, like weird phantoms, rose the tall
columns and pediments of the deserted buildings. From nowhere twinkled
the ray of lamp. Dim against the sky-line the outlines of the
Capitoline and its shrines were now and then visible, when the night
seemed for an instant to grow less dark.
They were close to the Atrium Vestae. All was quiet. No light within,
no sound but that of the wind and their own breathing without.
"We are not too late," whispered Agias.
The two groped their way in among the pillars of the portico of the
_Regia,_[161] and crouched down under cover of the masonry, half
sheltered from the chilly blasts. They could from their post command a
tolerably good view of one side of the Atrium Vestae. Still the
darkness was very great, and they dared not divide their force by one
of them standing watch on the other side. The moments passed. It was
extremely cold. Agias shivered and wound himself in his mantle. The
wine was making him drowsy, and he felt himself sinking into
semiconsciousness, when a touch on his arm aroused him.
[161] The official residence of the Pontifex Maximus.
"_St!"_ whispered Demetrius. "I saw a light moving."
Agias stared into the darkness.
"There," continued the pirate, "see, it is a lantern carefully
covered! Only a little glint on the ground now and then. Some one is
creeping along the wall to enter the house of the Vestals!"
"I see nothing," confessed Agias, rubbing his eyes.
"You are no sailor; look harder. I can count four men in the gloom.
They are stealing up to the gate of the building. Is your sword ready?
Now--"
But at this instant Demetrius was cut short by a scream--scream of
mortal terror--from within the Atrium Vestae. There were shouts, howls,
commands, moans, entreaties, shrieks. Light after light blazed up in
the building; women rushed panic-struck to the doorway to burst forth
into the night; and at the open portal Agias saw a gigantic figure
with upraised long sword, a Titan, malevolent, destroying,
terrible,--at the sight whereof the women shrank back, screaming yet
the more.
"Dumnorix!" shouted Agias; but before he spoke Demetrius had leaped
forward.
Right past the sword-wielding monster sprang the pirate, and Agias,
all reckless, was at his heels. The twain were in the atrium of the
house. A torch was spluttering and blazing on the pavement, shedding
all around a bright, flickering, red glare. Young Vestals and
maid-servants were cowering on their knees, or prone on cushions,
writhing and screaming with fear unspeakable. A swart Spanish brigand,
with his sabre gripped in his teeth, was tearing a gold-thread and
silk covering from a pillow; a second plunderer was wrenching from its
chain a silver lamp. Demetrius rushed past these also, before any
could inquire whether he was not a comrade in infamy. But there were
other shouts from the peristylium, other cries and meanings. As the
pirate sprang to the head of the passage leading to the inner house, a
swarm of desperadoes poured through it, Gauls, Germans, Africans,
Italian renegadoes,--perhaps ten in all,--and in their midst--half
borne, half dragged--something white!
"_Io triumphe!_" called a voice from the throng, "my bird will leave
her cage!"
"The lady! Gabinius!" cried Agias, and, without waiting for his
cousin, the young Greek flung himself forward. One stroke of his short
sword sent a leering negro prone upon the pavement; one snatch of his
hand seized the white mantle, and held it--held it though half a dozen
blades were flashing in his face in an eye's twinkling. But the
prowess of twenty men was in the arm of Demetrius; his sword was at
once attacker and shield; with a single sweeping blow he smote down
the guard and cleft the skull of a towering Teuton; with a lightning
dart he caught up the ponderous long sword of the falling brigand,
passed his own shorter weapon to his left hand, and so fought,--doubly
armed,--parrying with his left and striking with his right. And how he
struck! The whole agile, supple nature of the Greek entered into every
fence. He struck and foiled with his entire body. Now a bound to one
side; now a dart at an opponent's head; fighting with feet, head,
frame, and not with hands only. And Agias--he fought too, and knew not
how he fought! When a blow was aimed at him, Demetrius always parried
it before he could raise his sword; if he struck, Demetrius had felled
the man first; but he never let go of the white dress, nor quitted the
side of the lady. And presently, he did not know after how long--for
hours make minutes, and minutes hours, in such a melee--there was a
moment's silence, and he saw Publius Gabinius sinking down upon the
pavement, the blood streaming over his cloak; and the brigands, such
as were left of them, scurrying out of the atrium cowed and
panic-struck at the fall of their leader. Then, as he threw his arms
about Fabia, and tried to raise her to her feet, he saw the giant
Dumnorix, with his flail-like sword, rushing back to the rescue.
Four brigands lay dead in the atrium and none of the others dared look
the redoubtable Greek swordsman in the eyes; but Dumnorix came on--the
incarnation of brute fury. Then again Demetrius fought,--fought as the
angler fights the fish that he doubts not to land, yet only after due
play; and the Gaul, like some awkward Polyphemus, rushed upon him,
flinging at him barbarous curses in his own tongue, and snorting and
raging like a bull. Thrice the Greek sprang back before the monster;
thrice the giant swung his mighty sword to cleave his foeman down, and
cut the empty air; but at the fourth onset the Hellene smote the
ex-lanista once across the neck, and the great eyes rolled, and the
panting stopped, and the mighty Gaul lay silent in a spreading pool of
blood.
Already there were shouts and cries in the Forum. Torches were dancing
hither and thither. The slave-maids of the Vestals ran down the Via
Sacra shrieking and calling for aid. Out from the dark tenements
rushed the people. The thieves ran from their lairs; the late drinkers
sprang from their wine. And when the wretched remnants of Dumnorix's
band of ex-gladiators and brigands strove to flee from the holy house
they had polluted, a hundred hands were put forth against each one,
and they were torn to pieces by the frenzied mob. Into the Atrium
Vestae swarmed the people, howling, shouting, praising the goddess,
fighting one another--every man imagining his neighbour a cutthroat
and abductor.
Agias stood bearing up Fabia in his arms; she was pale as the driven
snow. Her lips moved, but no sound passed from them. Fonteia, the old
Maxima, with her white hair tumbling over her shoulders, was still
huddled in one corner, groaning and moaning in a paroxysm of
unreasoning terror, without dignity or self-control. A frightened maid
had touched the torch to the tall candelabra, and the room blazed with
a score of lights; while in at the doorway pressed the multitude--the
mob of low tapsters, brutal butchers, coarse pedlers, and drunkards
just staggering from their cups. The scene was one of pandemonium.
Dumnorix lay prone on a costly rug, whose graceful patterns were being
dyed to a hideous crimson; over one divan lay a brigand--struggling in
the last agony of a mortal wound. Three comrades lay stretched stiff
and motionless on the floor. Gory swords and daggers were strewn all
over the atrium; the presses of costly wood had been torn open, their
contents scattered across the room. There was blood on the frescoes,
blood on the marble feet of the magnificent Diomedes, which stood
rigid in cold majesty on its pedestal, dominating the wreck below.
Agias with Fabia stood at the end of the atrium near the exit to the
peristylium. Demetrius, seemingly hardly breathed by his exertions,
leaned on his captured long sword at his cousin's side. The multitude,
for an instant, as they saw the ruin and slaughter, drew back with a
hush. Men turned away their faces as from a sight of evil omen. Who
were they to set foot in the mansion of the servants of the awful
Vesta? But others from behind, who saw and heard nothing, pressed
their fellows forward. The mob swept on. As with one consent all eyes
were riveted on Fabia. What had happened? Who was guilty? Why had
these men of violence done this wrong to the home of the hearth
goddess? And then out of a farther corner, while yet the people
hesitated from reverence, staggered a figure, its face streaming with
blood, its hands pressing its side.
"_Quirites_," cried a voice, the voice of one speaking with but one
remaining breath, "ye have rewarded me as the law demands; see that
_she_" and a bloody forefinger pointed at Fabia, "who led me to this
deed, is not unpunished. _She_ is the more guilty!"
And with a groan the figure fell like a statue of wood to the
pavement; fell heavily, and lay stirring not, neither giving any
sound. In his last moment Publius Gabinius had sought a terrible
revenge.
And then madness seized on the people.
"She is his sweetheart! She is his paramour!" cried a score of filthy
voices. "She has brought down this insult to the goddess! There is no
pontifex here to try her! Tear her in pieces! Strike! Slay!"
But Demetrius had turned to his cousin.
"Agias," he said, making himself heard despite the clamour, "do you
believe the charge of that man?"
"No villain ever would avenge himself more basely."
"Then at all costs we must save the lady."
It was time. A fat butcher, flourishing a heavy cleaver, had leaped
forward; Fabia saw him with glassy, frightened eyes, but neither
shrieked nor drew back. But Demetrius smote the man with his long
sword through the body, and the brute dropped the cleaver as he fell.
"Now," and Demetrius seized the Vestal around the waist, as lightly as
a girl would raise a kitten, and flung her across his shoulders. One
stride and he was in the passage leading to the peristylium; and
before the mob could follow Agias had dashed the door in their faces,
and shot the bolt.
"It will hold them back a moment," muttered Demetrius, "but we must
hasten."
They ran across the peristylium, the pirate chief with his burden no
less swift than Agias. The door to the rear street was flung open, and
they were out in a narrow alleyway. Just as they did so, a howl of
many voices proclaimed that the peristylium door had yielded.
"Guide me by the straightest way," commanded the sea rover.
"Where?" was Agias's question.
"To the wharves. The yacht is the only safe place for the lady. There
I will teach her how I can honour a friend of Sextus Drusus."
Agias felt that it was no time for expostulation. A Vestal Virgin take
refuge on a pirate ship! But it was a matter of life and death now,
and there was no time for forming another plan. Once let the mob
overtake them, and the lives of all three were not worth a sesterce.
Agias found it necessary to keep himself collected while he ran, or he
would lose the way in the maze of streets. The yacht was moored far
below the Pons Sublicius, and the whole way was full of peril. It was
no use to turn off into alleys and by-paths; to do so at night meant
to be involved in a labyrinth as deadly for them as that of the Cretan
Minos. The mob was on their heels, howling, raging. The people were
beginning to wake in their houses along the streets. Men bawled "Stop
thief!" from the windows, imagining there had been a robbery. Once two
or three figures actually swung out into the way before them, but at a
stray glint of lantern light falling on Demetrius's naked long sword,
they vanished in the gloom. But still the mob pressed on, ever gaining
accessions, ever howling the more fiercely. Agias realized that the
weight of his burden was beginning to tell on even the iron frame of
his cousin. The pursuers and pursued were drawing closer together. The
mob was ever reenforced by relays; the handicap on Demetrius was too
great. They had passed down the Vicus Tuscus, flown past the dark
shadow of the lower end of the Circus Maximus. At the Porta Trigemina
the unguarded portal had stood open; there was none to stop them. They
passed by the Pons Sublicius, and skirted the Aventine. Stones and
billets of wood began to whistle past their ears,--the missiles of the
on-rushing multitude. At last the wharves! Out in the darkness stood
the huge bulk of a Spanish lumberman; but there was no refuge there.
The grain wharves and the oil wharves were passed; the sniff of the
mackerel fisher, the faint odour from the great Alexandrian
merchantman loaded with the spices of India, were come and gone. A
stone struck Agias in the shoulder, he felt numb in one arm, to drag
his feet was a burden; the flight with the Caesarians to the Janiculum
had not been like to this,--death at the naked sword had been at least
in store then, and now to be plucked in pieces by a mob! Another stone
brushed forward his hair and dashed, not against Demetrius ahead, but
against his burden. There was--Agias could hear--a low moan; but at
the same instant the fleeing pirate uttered a whistle so loud, so
piercing, that the foremost pursuers came to a momentary stand, in
half-defined fright, In an instant there came an answering whistle
from the wharf just ahead. In a twinkling half a dozen torches had
flashed out all over a small vessel, now barely visible in the night,
at one of the mooring rings. There was a strange jargon of voices
calling in some Oriental tongue; and Demetrius, as he ran, answered
them in a like language. Then over Agias's head and into the thick
press of the mob behind, something--arrows no doubt--flew whistling;
and there were groans and cries of pain. And Agias found uncouth,
bearded men helping or rather casting him over the side of the vessel.
The yacht was alive with men: some were bounding ashore to loose the
hawsers, others were lifting ponderous oars, still more were shooting
fast and cruelly in the direction of the mob, while its luckless
leaders struggled to turn in flight, and the multitude behind,
ignorant of the slaughter, was forcing them on to death. Above the
clamour, the howls of the mob, the shouts of the sailors, the grating
of oars, and the creaking of cables, rang the voice of Demetrius; and
at his word a dozen ready hands put each command into action. The
narrow, easy-moving yacht caught the current; a long tier of white
oars glinted in the torchlight, smote the water, and the yacht bounded
away, while a parting flight of arrows left misery and death upon the
quay.
Agias, sorely bewildered, clambered on to the little poop. His cousin
stood grasping one of the steering paddles; the ruddy lantern light
gleamed on the pirate's frame and face, and made him the perfect
personification of a sea-king; he was some grandly stern Poseidon, the
"Storm-gatherer" and the "Earth-shaker." When he spoke to Agias, it
was in the tone of a despot to a subject.
"The lady is below. Go to her. You are to care for her until I rejoin
my fleet. Tell her my sister shall not be more honoured than she, nor
otherwise treated. When I am aboard my flag-ship, she shall have
proper maids and attendance. Go!"
Agias obeyed, saying nothing. He found Fabia lying on a rude pallet,
with a small bale of purple silk thrust under her head for a pillow.
She stared at him with wild, frightened eyes, then round the little
cabin, which, while bereft of all but the most necessary comforts, was
decorated with bejeweled armour, golden lamps, costly Indian
tapestries and ivory--the trophies of half a score of voyages.
"Agias," she faintly whispered, "tell me what has happened since I
awoke from my sleep and found Gabinius's ruffians about me. By
whatsoever god you reverence most, speak truly!"
Agias fell on his knees, kissed the hem of her robe, kissed her hands.
Then he told her all,--as well as his own sorely confused wits would
admit. Fabia heard him through to the end, then laid her face between
her hands.
"Would that--would that they had murdered me as they wished! It would
be all over now," she agonized. "I have no wish again to see the
light. Whether they believe me innocent or guilty of the charge is
little; I can never be happy again."
"And why not, dear lady?" cried Agias.
"Don't ask me! I do not know. I do not know anything! Leave me! It is
not fit that you should see me crying like a child. Leave me! Leave
me!"
And thus conjured, Agias went up to the poop once more.
The yacht was flying down the current under her powerful oarage.
Demetrius was still standing with his hands fixed on the steering
paddle; his gaze was drifting along in the plashing water. The shadowy
outlines of the great city had vanished; the yacht was well on her way
down the river to Ostia. Save for the need to avoid a belated
merchantman anchored in midstream for the night, there was little
requiring the master's skill. Agias told his cousin how Fabia had sent
him away.
"_A!_ Poor lady!" replied the pirate, "perhaps she was the Vestal I
saw a few days since, and envied her, to see the consuls' lictors
lowering their rods to her, and all the people making way before her;
she, protected by the whole might of this terrible Roman people, and
honoured by them all; and I, a poor outlaw, massing gold whereof I
have no need, slaying men when I would be their friend, with only an
open sea and a few planks for native land. And now, see how the Fates
bring her down so low, that at my hands she receives hospitality, nay,
life!"
"You did not seem so very loath to shed blood to-night," commented
Agias, dryly.
"No, by Zeus!" was his frank answer. "It is easy to send men over the
Styx after having been Charon's substitute for so many years. But the
trade was not pleasant to learn, and, bless the gods, you may not have
to be apprenticed to it."
"Then you will not take me with you in your rover's life?" asked
Agias, half-disappointedly.
"Apollo forbid! I will take you and the lady to some place where she
can be safe until she may return vindicated, and where you can earn an
honest livelihood, marry a wife of station, in accordance with the
means which I shall give you, dwell peaceably, and be happy."
"But I cannot accept your present," protested the younger Greek.
"_Phui!_ What use have I of money? To paraphrase AEschylus: 'For more
of money than I would is mine.' I can't eat it, or beat swords out of
gold, or repair my ships therewith."
"Then why amass it at all?"
"Why drink when you know it is better to keep sober? I can no more
stop plundering than a toper leave a wine-jar. Besides, perhaps some
day I may see a road to amnesty open,--and, then, what will not money
do for a man or woman?"
"Quintus Drusus, my patron, the Lady Cornelia, and the Lady Fabia all
are rich. But I would not take up their sorrows for all their wealth."
"True," and Demetrius stared down into the inky water. "It will not
give back those who are gone forever. Achilles could ask Hephaestus for
his armour, but he could not put breath into the body of Patroclus.
_Plutus_ and _Cratus_[162] are, after all, but weaklings. _A!_ This is
an unequal world!"
[162] Riches and strength.
When Agias fell asleep that night, or rather that morning, on a hard
seaman's pallet, two names were stirring in his heart, names
inextricably connected: Cornelia, whom he had promised Quintus Drusus
to save from Ahenobarbus's clutches, and Artemisia. In the morning the
yacht, having run her sixteen miles to Ostia, stood out to sea, naught
hindering.
* * * * *
It was two months later when Quintus Drusus reentered Rome, no more a
fugitive, but a trusted staff officer of the lawfully appointed
dictator Julius Caesar. He had taken part in a desperate struggle
around Corfinium, where his general had cut off and captured the army
with which Domitius had aimed to check his advance. Drusus had been
severely wounded, and had not recovered in time to participate in the
futile siege of Brundusium, when Caesar vainly strove to prevent
Pompeius's flight across the sea to Greece. Soon as he was
convalescent, the young officer had hurried away to Rome; and there he
was met by a story concerning his aunt, whereof no rational
explanation seemed possible. And when, upon this mystery, was added a
tale he received from Baiae, he marvelled, yet dreaded, the more.