THE CAVE
The late spring or early summer weather was hot and clear. We had been
pressing on feverishly and were heated, tired and sleepy, when, while
following a faint track through dense woods, we took a wrong turn and soon
found that we had utterly lost our way. The sunlight was intensely
brilliant and the windless air sweltering. Stumbling over rocks and
through bushes was exhausting. We came upon a little spring and quenched
our thirst. Standing by it and staring about we noticed what looked like
an opening in an inconspicuous vine-clad cliff. It was, in fact, the
entrance to a spacious and, apparently, extensive cave.
The outer opening was about the size of an ordinary door. Though it was
well masked by beeches above and cornel bushes below, such was the
position of the sun and so intense was the flood of light it poured down
from the cloudless sky, that the inside of the cave, for some little
distance, was faintly discernible in the glimmer which penetrated there.
After our eyes had become accustomed to the darkness we could make out
fairly well the shape and proportions of the first considerable grotto.
From the outer opening a passage about a yard wide and two yards high
extended straight into the cliff for about four yards. There it bent
sharply to the right in an elbow. This offset extended three or four yards
and then bent to the left in a similar elbow, opening into a cavern more
than fifteen yards wide, twice as long or longer, and with a roof of dim
white pendants like alabaster, no part of which was less than five yards
from the conveniently level, rather damp floor, while some parts of it
were lofty.
The two elbows in the entrance passage made it impossible to see into this
cavern from anywhere out in the woods, and impossible to see out from
anywhere inside it. Yet, as I said, so brilliant was the sunlight and so
favorable the position, of the sun at the moment of our entrance that,
after the outer dazzle had faded from inside our eyes, we could make out
the form and size of this rocky hall.
To the right of the opening where the outer passage expanded, around a
jutting shoulder of rock, we found a recess about three yards across and
nearly as deep, in which we felt and smelt wood-ashes and charred, half-
burnt wood. We groped among the damp charcoal, convincing ourselves that
many good-sized fires had been made there, but none recently. We stood
back and regarded this recess, which was so placed that no gleam from any
fire, however large, kindled in it, could ever show outside the cave.
Investigating the recess yet again Agathemer looked up and pointed. Above
me, I saw sky. The recess was a natural fire-place with a natural chimney
from it, opening at a considerable height above.
To the right of the fire-place recess, round another smaller shoulder of
rock, was a perfectly vertical wall of smooth stone terminating just above
our reach at an opening three yards wide or more. The top of the wall of
rock at the bottom of the opening was almost as straight as a door-sill.
At first we could descry in the walls of the cavern no other openings than
the entrance, the chimney and this opening above our reach, unless one
boosted the other up. From under it we went all round the cave past the
fire-place and the entrance. The floor was all damp or moist, no place fit
for us to lie down to sleep and we felt along the wall opposite the fire-
place, where the light was too dim to see at all. After feeling for some
yards we emerged or came round into a less dusky space, where we could see
to some extent and so on along the back wall of the cave opposite the
entrance, later groping along the wall, when the light failed.
Some forty to forty-five yards from the entrance, at the far end of this
extensive grotto, we came upon a passage, two or three yards wide and
about as high, leading further back into the bowels of the mountain. We
groped into it a few steps, but it sloped sharply downward and was wet, so
we retreated out of it, it being also pitch dark.
Returning along the other side of the cavern towards the fire-place we
came upon a narrow opening, less than a yard wide and not much over a yard
high. It led into a passage which sloped upwards and was free from
moisture. Agathemer was for exploring it. I remonstrated. He insisted.
After some expostulation I bade him stand at the opening, which was out of
sight of the gleam of daylight at the entrance, being behind a big
shoulder of rock further in than the fire-place. While he stood as I told
him I went out towards the middle of the cavern floor till I could see the
fireplace, though very dimly, and the entrance, quite clearly, by the
mellow glow at it from the outer sunshine reflected along the walls of the
twice bent entrance-passage.
When I had reached a position from which I could certainly see the
entrance and from which, as Agathemer told me, I could be seen by him, I
told him I would stay there while he explored the little passage into the
side of the cavern. I adjured him to be cautious and not venture himself
recklessly in the pitch dark. He declared he could feel his way safely
some distance and be sure of returning. Then he crawled into the narrow
opening.
Before I had waited long enough to grow impatient, I heard him call:
"Why, I can see you!"
The voice came not from the direction of the opening into which he had
crawled, but from near the fire-place.
"Where are you?" I called back.
"Over here," said he, "come towards me."
Advancing towards the voice and peering into the dimness, where the light
dispersed from the entrance made the darkness of the cavern just a little
less dark than blackness, I saw him standing on the sill, as it were, of
the opening up in the wall, beyond the fire-place as one approached from
the entrance, and above the vertical wall of rock.
He had found a passage just big enough to crawl through leading from the
aperture up to this species of gallery-alcove. The passage curved and was
not much over twenty yards long. He pulled me up to the gallery and we
crawled back together out of the aperture by which he had entered the
passage. The whole passage was dry, unlike the floor of the cave.
"I tell you what we ought to do," said Agathemer, "let us go outside and
gather armfuls of small leafy boughs and twigs. These we can throw up into
that gallery-opening and make a fine bed there where it is dry. Then we
can get a good safe sleep, and we need a long sound sleep."
We did as he suggested till we had leaves enough for a good bed. Then we
ate, sparingly, for we had not much food in our wallets. After eating we
wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and went to sleep; Agathemer with his
wallet beside him and his head on his arm, I with my wallet under my head.
I wakened with a hand over my mouth and with Agathemer's voice in my ear
saying:
"Keep still! Lie still! Don't move or speak! Lie still!"
He spoke in a tense whisper, so low that I could hardly understand him
with his mouth against my ear, so full of terror that the tone of it
startled me wide awake.
My first impression was of a glaring orange light on the roof of the
cavern and a diffused reflection of it or from it on the roof of our
gallery-alcove.
"Keep your head down!" Agathemer whispered. "If you turn over, turn over
quietly."
I did turn over, very slowly, a muscle at a time and with great
precautions to avoid rustling the leaves or twigs of the bed on which we
lay.
As soon as I turned over I perceived that a good, big fire must be burning
on the fire-place and that the light on the cavern roof was the direct
glare from that, while the subdued glow on the roof of our alcove was the
light reflected from the farther wall of the cavern or from its roof.
As our alcove was separated from the fire by a jutting pillar of rock, no
direct light from the fire fell on its opening; it and we were well in the
shadow. So shadowed we could hunch ourselves forward as far as we dared
and peer down into the cave.
Its floor was littered with wallets, blankets, staffs and other foot-
farers' gear. About it sat groups of men, every one with a sheath-knife or
dagger in his belt. I counted forty and there were more out of sight round
the shoulder of rock between our alcove and the fire-place.
We smelt flesh roasting or boiling. The squatting groups seemed busy with
preparations for a meal.
The men, except one lad like a shepherd, did not look Italian. Some struck
me as Spanish, others as Gallic, one or two as runaway slaves of mongrel
ancestry. Nearly all of them had the unmistakable carriage and bearing of
soldiers, even specifically of soldiers of out-of-the-way garrisons, in
the mountains or on frontiers. Yet their behavior was tin-soldierly. I
judged them discharged campaigners with an admixture of deserters and
outlaws. They all had travellers' umbrella hats, and all had thrown them
off; their cloaks were coarse and rough, many torn, but none patched,
their tunics similar; their boots of Gallic fashion, coming up nearly to
the knee, like Sicilian hunting-boots. They were all black-haired and
shock-headed, all swarthy, and most of them of medium height and solidly
built. They did not talk loud and they all talked at once, so that we made
out little of what was said and nothing informing.
I could not but remark that, although the weather was exceedingly hot and
the fire seemed large, it made no difference whatever in the feeling of
the very slightly damp, gratefully cool and evenly mild air of the cavern.
Presently the food was ready and was distributed: goat's-flesh, roasted or
broiled, some sort of coarse bread or quickly-made cakes, wine aplenty,
olives and figs. While they ate most of them sat in groups; some stood by
twos or threes; a few stood singly. From their looks, attitudes, the
direction in which they faced and other indications, we inferred that
their chief was seated to the right of the fire, between it and us, with
his back to the pillar of rock and just out of sight of us around it. Some
appeared to be standing in a half-circle before him, listening to him, or
conversing with him. A few of the men ate alone, sitting, standing or
walking about.
One of these, munching a while as he strolled back and forth, came and
took his stand behind and outside of the respectful half circle, standing
facing the fire. When he finished eating and his face quieted as he stood
there silent, gazing at something out of our sight, all at once,
simultaneously, I gripped Agathemer and he gripped me. The fellow was
Caulonius Pelops, two years before secretary to the overseer of my uncle's
estate near Consentia in Bruttium. He had run away not long before my
uncle's death.
I stared at him, revolving in my mind the difference of the attitude of
mind towards runaway slaves of a former master who catches sight of a
runaway from his estates and of the same being while pretending himself to
be a runaway. I could have laughed out loud at the contrast between the
feelings towards Pelops which I felt surge up in me and the feelings I
hoped for towards me, say in Tarrutenus Spinellus.
Pelops, of course, knew me perfectly, knew Agathemer as well, would
recognize either of us at sight. Therefore, if we were now discovered, we
saw lost all that we had thought to gain and thought we had gained by our
crawl through the drain pipe and the other features of our escape up to
now. If Pelops set eyes on me, he, at least, would know that I was yet
alive, he might tell all the band; if he told them, any one of them, even
if not he himself, might inform the authorities and put new life into the
search for me, if it had not been abandoned, or revive it if it had; put
every spy in Italy on the alert to catch me: or even betray me to the
nearest magistrate.
And Pelops had always disliked me and had always envied and hated
Agathemer. We were keyed up with anxiety.
Just as we recognized Pelops a tall, red-headed, sandy lout, with a long
neck and a prominent gullet-knot, came forward into sight from the
direction of the entrance, apparently from beyond the fire. He put up his
right hand and called, slowly and clearly:
"Eating time is over: Now we hold council!"
The men speedily assembled in curving rows facing the fire and sat or
stood as they pleased, all facing where we inferred that their leader sat,
to the right of the fire-place out of our sight round the bulge of the
shoulder of rock.
Between them and the fire, just far enough from it for him to be visible
to us, a burly shock-headed, black-haired southern Gaul took his stand.
Then we clearly heard a voice, which we inferred must be the leader's, a
voice distinct and far-carrying, but a voice amazingly soft, mild and
gentle, say:
"Council is called. Let all other men be silent. Caburus is to speak."
The burly Gaul began blusteringly, with a strong southern Gallic accent
like a Tolosan:
"It is no use, Maternus, trying to bamboozle us with your everlasting
serenity. We decline to be fooled any longer. Somehow, by sorcery or
magic, you infused into us the greatest enthusiasm for your crazy project.
You've dragged us over the Alps and into these Apennines. On the way we've
talked matters over among ourselves. The nearer we get to Rome the crazier
our errand seems. We have made fools of ourselves under your leadership
long enough. We go no further.
"We admit that Commodus ought to be killed; we admit that, if he were
killed, it would be a good thing for all Gaul and for Spain and Britain,
too, and, we suppose, for Italy and all the provinces. We also admit that
it would be a fine thing for us if we could kill Commodus, avoid getting
killed or caught ourselves, and win the rewards we could properly hope for
from the next Emperor, and the glory we'd have at home as successful
heroes.
"But, when free from the spell of your eloquence, we see no chance of
killing the Emperor and surviving to reap the reward of our prowess: none
of surviving: not even any of killing him. You say you have a perfect and
infallible plan which you will reveal when the time comes. You may have a
plan and it may be infallible and as certain of success as the sun is
certain of rising tomorrow and the day after. But we have followed you and
your secret plan long enough. We follow no further unless we know what
plan we are expected to take part in. We have all agreed to that and we
all stick to that."
And the assemblage chorused:
"We have all agreed to that and we all stick to that."
Now, from, where we peered down from our hiding-place Maternus was
entirely out of sight. We could not see what attitude he took nor what
expression his face wore. Yet, by the flickering light of the leaping
fire, which flooded the cavern with its ruddy glare, we could plainly see
the effect of his personality on the assemblage. Even as their shouts of
assent to what Caburus had said still rang through the cave I could see
them half fawning, half cringing towards their chief.
Yet his voice, when he spoke, was not harsh or domineering, but, while
perfectly audible, as bland and placid as a girl's.
"Please remember," he said, "that a plan such as I have conceived, while
it is, if carried out as designed, as certain of success as the swoop of
the hawk upon the hare, is certain of success only while it is not only
undreamed of by its object but totally unsuspected by anyone outside of
our band. The success of our project depends on no one having any inkling
of any such project, far less having an inkling of what kind of a project
it is.
"For your sakes and for your sakes only have I kept the details of my
plans locked in my own bosom. You are venturing your lives to help me to
the realization of my hopes of setting free the world. Your lives must not
be risked needlessly. Little will be the risk any of you will run in
carrying out my plans, so ingeniously are they conceived. But that
smallness of risk can be attained only if the nature of the project is
unknown to anyone save myself up to the latest possible moment before
putting it into effect. Every day, every hour, which elapses between the
giving of my instructions and their execution increases the danger of our
betrayal. We must have guides, we must, occasionally, induct into our
society new associates. Not one of these can be a danger to us as long as
the methods by which we are to effect our purpose is unknown except to me.
I propose no loitering in Rome. I mean to arrive at the right spot at the
right hour, at the hour of opportunity, to strike and to vanish before
anyone save ourselves knows that the blow has been struck. Only thus can
we succeed, only thus can we escape. Upon my silence our success depends.
Once I speak, every day, every hour makes it more likely that someone will
betray to some outsider the nature of our plot or even its details. Then
we shall certainly fail and perish."
Thereupon ensued a long wrangle in which Caburus repeated that Maternus
had said all that before and Maternus repeated the same argument in other
words and brought up other similar arguments. The crowd, while swayed by
Maternus, appeared to lean more and more to the opinions of Caburus. It
became manifest that they would break away and disperse unless Maternus
revealed his intentions. He was, apparently, quick to sense the situation
and finally yielded.
"I have three separate plans," he said, "and I mean to prepare to use all
three, so that, if the first fails the second may succeed; if both the
first and second fail I may hope to succeed with the third.
"I mean to reach Rome two days before the Festival of Cybele and for all
of us to get a sound night's sleep. Then, on the eve of the great day,
most of you may wander about the city sight-seeing; Caburus and I and a
few with us will buy or hire costumes for the Festival.
"As we have all heard, the wildest license in costumes is permitted on the
day of the celebration. Everybody dresses up as extravagantly as possible.
More than that it is so customary for jokers to dress up in burlesque of
notables that such assumptions of the costumes of officials are merely
laughed at and the wearers of them are never arrested or even reprimanded.
"Caburus and I will buy at old-clothing shops or hire from costumers cast
off uniforms of the privates of the Praetorian Guard. Two squads of us,
all volunteers and approved as boldest, strongest and quickest, will dress
up as Praetorians. One will be led by Caburus and I myself shall lead the
other.
"Caburus and his men will mingle with the crowd along the line of the
morning procession. The procession is so long, its route is so jammed with
sight-seeing rabble, the rabble is permitted so close to the line of the
procession, so many wonders and marvels form part of the procession, there
is so much interest in gazing at them, that it is possible that Caburus
may see a chance to achieve our object. I shall leave it to him whether to
give whatever signal he may agree on with his men, or to withhold it. If
he sees an opportunity, that will mean that, in his judgment, there is a
good chance of killing the tyrant and getting away unrecognized. You know
how cautious Caburus is: you will run no risk if he does not give the
signal and little if he does.
"Now, Caburus, what do you think of this plan?"
Not being able to watch Maternus making his speech, I, while straining my
ears to catch his softly uttered words, had kept my eyes on Caburus, had
marvelled to see the dogged spirit of opposition and surly disaffection
fade out of his expression, to see interest and excitement take their
place.
"I think," he shouted, "that you are a marvel! I don't wonder that you
wanted to conceal this plan till the last possible moment. It is so good
that I already want to tell it to somebody, just to see his amazement. But
we'll keep your secret! And as to your plan, I'll risk it. No Gaul with a
drop of sporting blood in his veins would hesitate to embrace the
opportunity to try to carry out so ingenious, so promising a plan.
"And you don't need a second plan or third plan. This plan, under my
leadership, is certain to succeed."
At this a scrawny, tow-headed, long-armed, long-legged fellow sprang to
his feet.
"I don't agree with that at all," he vociferated.
"Just because the first plan pleases Caburus is no reason why we should
not hear the other two plans also."
This utterance started a long discussion, from which Agathemer and I
learned nothing except that there was much insubordination among the men
following Maternus and that the scrawny objector was named Torix.
The upshot of the discussion was a general agreement that Maternus ought
to disclose all three plans.
Maternus then resumed:
"The second plan is already known to Cossedo and it need not be known to
anyone else, as he alone is concerned and he, if Caburus decides not to
make his attempt, will attempt his alone, without any assistance from
anyone and without endangering anyone else; in fact without endangering
himself. I myself thought of this plan, which is so ingenious that, if it
succeeds, no one will ever know how Commodus came to his death; it if
fails no one will ever suspect that it was tried at all.
"You have all been wondering how Cossedo came to be with us. Many of you
have jeered him; many of you have protested to me. But I know what I am
doing. Cossedo can do other things besides walk the tight-rope, juggle
five balls at once, and stand on his head on the back of a galloping
horse. He is just the right man to carry out my idea, which neither I nor
any other of us could put into effect. As Cossedo approves the plan; as he
is to try it alone, no one else need know it."
"Just so," cried the red-headed lout who had heralded the council, coming
forward into the fire-light. "I can try it and I may do it. If I do it,
Commodus will be a corpse. If I fail, no one will know I have tried. And
it is a jewel of a plan."
And he stood on his hands, feet waggling in the air, apparently from mere
exuberance of spirits. Standing up again, he threw three flip-flops
forward, then two backward, then turned a half a dozen cart wheels, during
which gyrations he passed out of our field of view.
Torix sulkily agreed that the second plan remain unknown except to
Maternus and Cossedo, the assemblage not supporting him when he pressed
for its disclosure. But he was insistent about the third plan.
"The third plan," said Maternus, "is merely the first plan over again,
except that I lead instead of Caburus and that we try after dark instead
of by day. From all I can hear the opportunity will be even better by
torchlight in the gardens about the temple than it will be by day in the
jammed streets. I mean to be as cautious as I expect Caburus to be: there
is no use making an attempt unless a really promising chance presents
itself. If I see an opening I'll kill the monster myself, and I do not
expect to need any help from anybody, except a little jostling in the
crowd to increase the confusion. As rigged up in Praetorian uniforms we
will be laughed at and indulged. Either in the noonday swelter or in the
torchlit darkness it ought to be easy to pass from aping, mimicking and
burlesquing Praetorians to personating and counterfeiting Praetorians.
Once mistaken for real guards we ought to be able to get close to
Commodus. Then in the torchlight it should be easy for me to finish him
and for you others to escape. I shall not think of escape until the deed
is done. Then I'll escape, if I can, but I shall let no thought of escape
interfere with my doing what I purpose."
This speech was acclaimed by everyone except Torix. He said:
"All this is most ingenious. But there is in this plan one flaw which no
one has noted. I suppose that you, Maternus, evolved this really promising
idea from pondering on what Claudius told us. All the hearsay about Rome
and its festivals which ever came to the ears of all of us put together is
as nothing at all compared with what Claudius told us in two months.
Claudius had lived in Rome, Claudius knew every alley in Rome. With
Claudius to pilot us we might have hoped to succeed. But Claudius is dead,
dead somewhere in the Alps, where he is no use to us. He had seen the
Emperor, he knew him by sight. Not one of us does. And, as Claudius told
us, at the Festival of Cybele, as at several other religious festivals,
the Emperor does not wear his official robes, so that anyone may recognize
him, but appears in the garb of a priest of the deity celebrated, as High
Priest or Assistant High Priest, or as a dignitary of some other degree,
the rank in the hierarchy varying with the deity worshipped.
"Now not one of us, who have never set eyes on him, can tell Commodus, in
the garb of a priest of Cybele, from any other priest of Cybele. We have
no reasonable assurance of recognizing the mark at which we aim. Thus we
have only a small chance of success, by sunlight or torchlight."
This utterance started another wrangle; the men, apparently, about equally
divided as backers of Maternus and of Torix. As I lay listening to this
hubbub someone stepped on the calf of my leg, his foot slipped off of it,
and he fell on top of me, with a smothered exclamation.
"Who are you?" he demanded, adding some words which I did not catch. It
seemed that another man was occupied similarly with Agathemer. The man
who had fallen on me, in the act of scrambling up, yelled out:
"Here are two men lying and listening and they do not seem to belong to
us. They do not respond to the pass-word."
At that every voice stilled and every face turned to our alcove-balcony
where our captors, now four, gripped us and had lifted us to our knees.
"Throw 'em down!" came a chorus of voices, "throw 'em down!"
Down we were thrown, none too tenderly, but we landed without breaking any
bones.
Two men clutched each of us and haled us towards the fire. There we had
our first glimpse of Maternus, who sat on a pack, his back against the
rock, not too close to the fire, the light of which played on his left
cheek.
He looked plump and lazy.
"Strip them," he commanded.
As he was being obeyed somebody did something to the fire which increased
the light it gave.
"Turn them round," Maternus commanded. "Humph," he commented, "by their
faces they are a Roman gentleman and his Greek secretary; by their backs
they are fugitive slaves with bad records."
"They are both branded," added Torix, who had been inspecting us.
"Where?" queried Maternus. "I don't see any brand marks."
"On the left shoulder, each of them," Torix replied.
"Humph!" Maternus commented, "rascally slaves and indulgent master, or
canny owner of valuable, if restive, property."
Just as he said this there was a yell at our left and Caulonius Pelops
rushed in from somewhere beyond the firelight, probably from outside the
cave.
"Here's the solution of our dilemma," he cried. "We are all right now.
We've two men who know Commodus by sight. This is Andivius Hedulio, my
former master's nephew, and the other is his secretary, Agathemer."
"What, in the name of Mithras," Maternus breathed, "is your master's
nephew doing in a cave in the Apennines, with his back all scourge-marks
and a runaway-slave brand on his shoulder?"
Then ensued a long series of questions and answers, in the course of which
Agathemer and I pretty well told our story.
Maternus asked the assemblage whether they believed us and the consensus
was that they believed us and Pelops, who reminded them that Claudius had
read to them lists of those involved in conspiracies, who had been
executed or banished and their properties confiscated; that my name had
been among those he read; and that he, Pelops, had then told about me; all
of which most of them did not recollect at all, and the few who claimed to
recollect it recollected only vaguely.
Maternus, in his mild way, suggested that we would make valuable additions
to their association. Torix opposed the idea, but Maternus pointed out
that no one of them had as much to gain by the Emperor's death as I had:
that after it I might hope to be restored to my rank and wealth, and that,
after my miseries, I ought to hate Commodus more viciously than any of
them. The assemblage approved, and, while throat-cutting was not
mentioned, as that was the obvious alternative, Agathemer and I took oath
as brothers in the confraternity.
Upon this we were released and our wallets, cloaks, hats and staffs, which
had been deposited before Maternus, were restored to us. But Maternus
informed us that no member of the band was allowed any money of his own.
We must give up to him any coins we had.
Agathemer spread his cloak, spread mine on it, and upon it I emptied my
wallet, that all might see its contents. I was allowed to retain
everything, except the denarii. Agathemer did the like, with the like
result. But at the sight of his flageolet there were exclamations and
questions. He kept it out when he repacked his belongings, only giving the
coins to Maternus. After we had fed he played tunes on it, to the delight
of the whole band. It seemed to me they would never let him stop playing
that flageolet and I was desperately drowsy.
At last all were for sleep. Maternus decreed that Agathemer and I might
climb up again on the dry shelf where we had been found. Neither he nor
any of the band seemed to object to, or indeed to notice, the dampness of
the cave floor.
Agathemer and I slept at once. Our precious amulet-bags, of course, had
not been investigated, or so much as suspected, and were safe on our neck-
thongs.