The story told by Mastor which had so greatly agitated Pollux and had
prompted him to his mad flight was the history of events which had taken
place in the steward’s rooms during the hours when the young artist
was helping his parents to transfer their household belongings into
his sister’s tiny dwelling. Keraunus was certainly not one of the most
cheerful of men, but on the morning when Sabina came to the palace and
the gate-keeper was driven from his home, he had worn the aspect of a
thoroughly-contented man.
Since visiting Selene the day before he had given himself no farther
concern about her. She was not dangerously ill and was exceptionally
well taken care of, and the children did not seem to miss her. Indeed,
he himself did not want her back to-day. He avoided confessing this to
himself it is true, still he felt lighter and freer in the absence
of his grave monitor than he had been for a long time. It would be
delightful, he thought, to go on living in this careless manner, alone
with Arsinoe and the children, and now and again he rubbed his hands and
grinned complacently. When the old slave-woman brought a large dish full
of cakes which he had desired her to buy, and set it down by the side
of the children’s porridge, he chuckled so heartily that his fat person
shook and swayed; and he had very good reason to be happy in his way,
for Plutarch quite early in the morning, had sent a heavy purse of gold
pieces for his ivory cup, and a magnificent bunch of roses to Arsinoe;
he might give his children a treat, buy himself a solid gold fillet,
and dress Arsinoe as finely as though she were the prefect’s favorite
daughter.
His vanity was gratified in every particular.
And what a splendid fellow was the slave who now--with a superbly
reverential bow-presented him with a roast chicken and who was to walk
behind him in the afternoon to the council-chamber. The tall Thessalian
who marched after the Archidikastes to the Hall of justice, carrying his
papers, was hardly grander than his “body-servant.” He had bought him
yesterday at quite a low price. The well-grown Samian was scarcely
thirty years old; he could read and write and was in a position
therefore to instruct the children in these arts; nay, he could even
play the lute. His past, to be sure, was not a spotless record, and
it was for that reason that he had been sold so cheaply. He had stolen
things on several occasions; but the brands and scars which he bore upon
his person were hidden by his new chiton and Keraunus felt in himself
the power to cure him of his evil propensities.
After desiring Arsinoe to let nothing he about of any value, for their
new house-mate seemed not to be perfectly honest, he answered his
daughter’s scruples by saying:
“It would be better, no doubt, that he should be as honest as the old
skeleton I gave in exchange for him, but I reflect that even if my
body-servant should make away with some of the few drachmae we carry
about with us, I need not repent of having bought him, since I got him
for many thousand drachmae less than he is worth, on account of his
thefts, while a teacher for the children would have cost more than he
can steal from us at the worst. I will lock up the gold in the chest
with my documents. It is strong and could only be opened with a
crow-bar. Besides the fellow will have left off stealing at any rate at
first, for his late master was none of the mildest and had cured him of
his pilfering I should think, once for all. It is lucky that in selling
such rascals we should be compelled to state what their faults are; if
the seller fails to do so compensation maybe claimed from him by the
next owner for what he may lose. Lykophron certainly concealed nothing,
and setting aside his thieving propensities the Samian is said to be in
every respect a capital fellow.”
“But father,” replied Arsinoe, her anxiety once more urging her to
speak, “it is a bad thing to have a dishonest man in the house.”
“You know nothing about it child!” answered Keraunus. “To us to live and
to be honest are the same thing, but a slave!--King Antiochus is said to
have declared that the man who wishes to be well served must employ none
but rascals.”
When Arsinoe had been tempted out on to the balcony by her lover’s
snatch of song and had been driven in again by her father, the steward
had not reproved her in any way unkindly, but had stroked her cheeks and
said with a smile: “I rather fancy that lad of the gatekeeper’s--whom
I once turned out of doors has had his eye on you since you were chosen
for Roxana. Poor wretch! But we have very different suitors in view for
you my little girl. How would it be, think you, if rich Plutarch had
sent you those roses, not on his own behalf but as a greeting on the
part of his son? I know that he is very desirous of marrying him but the
fastidious man has never yet thought any Alexandrian girl good enough
for him.”
“I do not know him, and he does not think of a poor thing like me,” said
Arsinoe.
“Do you think not?” asked Keraunus smiling. “We are of as good family,
nay of a better than Plutarch, and the fairest is a match for the
wealthiest. What would you say child to a long flowing purple robe and a
chariot with white horses, and runners in front?”
At breakfast Keraunus drank two cups of strong wine, in which he allowed
Arsinoe to mix only a few drops of water. While his daughter was curling
his hair a swallow flew into the room; this was a good omen and raised
the steward’s spirits. Dressed in his best and with a well-filled purse,
he was on the point of starting for the council-chamber with his new
slave when Sophilus the tailor and his girl-assistant were shown into
the living-room. The man begged to be allowed to try the dress, ordered
for Roxana by the prefect’s wife, on the steward’s daughter. Keraunus
received him with much condescension and allowed him to bring in the
slave who followed him with a large parcel of dresses,--and Arsinoe, who
was with the children, was called.
Arsinoe was embarrassed and anxious and would far rather have yielded
her part to another; still, she was curious about the new dresses. The
tailor begged her to allow her maid to dress her; his assistant would
help her because the dresses which were only slightly stitched together
for trying on, were cut, not in the Greek but in the Oriental fashion.
“Your waiting woman,” he added turning to Arsinoe, “will be able to
learn to-day the way to dress you on the great occasion.”
“My daughter’s maid,” said Keraunus, winking slily at Arsinoe, “is not
in the house.”
“Oh, I require no help,” cried the tailor’s girl. “I am handy too at
dressing hair, and I am most glad to help such a fair Roxana.”
“And it is a real pleasure to work for her,” added Sophilus. “Other
young ladies are beautified by what they wear, but your daughter adds
beauty to all she wears.”
“You are most polite,” said Keraunus, as Arsinoe and her handmaid left
the room.
“We learn a great deal by our intercourse with people of rank,” replied
the tailor. “The illustrious ladies who honor me with their custom like
not only to see but to hear what is pleasing. Unfortunately there are
among them some whom the gods have graced with but few charms, and
they, strangely enough, crave the most flattering speeches. But the poor
always value it more than the rich when benevolence is shown them.”
“Well said,” cried Keraunus. “I myself am but indifferently well off for
a man of family, and am glad to live within my moderate means--so that
my daughter--”
“The lady Julia has chosen the costliest stuffs for her; as is
fitting--as the occasion demands,” said the tailor. “Quite right, at the
same time--”
“Well, my lord?”
“The grand occasion will be over and my daughter, now that she is grown
up, ought to be seen at home and in the street in suitable and handsome,
though not costly, clothes.
“I said just now, true beauty needs no gaudy raiment.”
“Would you be disposed now, to work for me at a moderate price?”
“With pleasure; nay, I shall be indebted to her, for all the world will
admire Roxana and inquire who may be her tailor.”
“You are a very reasonable and right-minded man. What now would you
charge for a dress for her?”
“That we can discuss later.”
“No, no, I beg you sincerely--”
“First let me consider what you want. Simple dresses are more difficult,
far more difficult to make, and yet become a handsome woman better than
rich and gaudy robes. But can any man make a woman understand it? I
could tell you a tale of their folly! Why many a woman who rides by in
her chariot wears dresses and gems to conceal not merely her own limbs,
but the poverty-stricken condition of her house.”
Thus, and in this wise did Keraunus and the tailor converse, while the
assistant plaited up Arsinoe’s hair with strings of false pearls that
she had brought with tier, and fitted and pinned on her the costly white
and blue silk robes of an Asiatic princess. At first Arsinoe was very
still and timid. She no longer cared to dress for any one but Pollux;
but the garments prepared for her were wonderfully pretty--and how well
the fitter knew how to give effect to her natural advantages. While the
neat-handed woman worked busily and carefully many merry jests passed
between them--many sincere and hearty words of admiration--and before
long Arsinoe had become quite excited and took pleased interest in the
needle-woman’s labors.
Every bough that is freshly decked by spring seems to feel gladness, and
the simple child who was to-day so splendidly dressed was captivated by
pleasure in her own beauty, and its costly adornment which delighted her
beyond measure. Arsinoe now clapped her hands with delight, now had
the mirror handed to her, and now, with all the frankness of a child,
expressed her satisfaction not only with the costly clothes she wore,
but with her own surprisingly grand appearance in them.
The dress-maker was enchanted with her, proud and delighted, and could
not resist the impulse to give a kiss to the charming girl’s white,
beautifully round throat.
“If only Pollux could see me so!” thought Arsinoe. “After the
performance perhaps I might show myself in my dress to Selene, and then
she would forgive my taking part in the show. It is really a pleasure to
look so nice!”
The children all stood round her while she was being dressed, and
shouted with admiration each time some new detail of the princess’s
attire was added. Helios begged to be allowed to feel her dress, and
after satisfying herself that his little hands were clean she stroked
them over the glistening white silk.
She had now advanced so far that her father and the tailor could be
called in. She felt remarkably content and happy. Drawn up to her
tallest, like a real king’s daughter, and yet with a heart beating as
anxiously as that of any girl would who is on the point of displaying
her beauty--hitherto protected and hidden in her parents’ home--to
the thousand eyes of the gaping multitude, she went towards the
sitting-room; but she drew back her hand she had put forth to raise the
latch, for she heard the voices of several men who must just now have
joined her father.
“Wait a little while, there are visitors,” she cried to the seamstress
who had followed her, and she put her ear to the door to listen. At
first she could not make out anything that was going on, but the end
of the strange conversation that was being carried on within was so
hideously intelligible that she could never forget it so long as she
lived.
Her father had ordered two new dresses for her, beating down the price
with the promise of prompt payment, when Mastor came into the
steward’s room and informed Keraunus that his master and Gabinius, the
curiosity-dealer from Nicaea, wished to speak with him.
“Your master,” said Keraunus haughtily, “may come in; I think that he
regrets the injury he has done me; but Gabinius shall never cross this
threshold again, for he is a scoundrel.”
“It would be as well that you should desire that man to leave you for
the present,” said the slave, pointing to the tailor.
“Whoever comes to visit me,” said the steward loftily, “must be
satisfied to meet any one whom I permit to enter my house.”
“Nay, nay,” said the slave urgently, “my master is a greater man than
you think. Beg this man to leave the room.”
“I know, I know very well,” said Keraunus with a smile. “Your master
is an acquaintance of Caesar’s. But we shall see, after the performance
that is about to take place, which of us two Caesar will decide for.
This tailor has business here and will stay at my pleasure. Sit in the
corner there, my friend.”
“A tailor!” cried Mastor, horrified. “I tell you he must go.”
“He must!” asked Keraunus wrathfully. “A slave dares to give orders in
my house? We will see.”
“I am going,” interrupted the artisan who understood the case. “No
unpleasantness shall arise here on my account, I will return in a
quarter of an hour.”
“You will stay,” commanded Keraunus. “This insolent Roman seems to think
that Lochias belongs to him; but I will show him who is master here.”
But Mastor paid no heed to these words spoken in a high pitch; he took
the tailor’s hand and led him out, whispering to him:
“Come with me if you wish to escape an evil hour.”
The two men went off and Keraunus did not detain the artisan, for it
occurred to his mind that his presence did him small credit. He purposed
to show himself in all his dignity to the overbearing architect, but he
also remembered that it was not advisable to provoke unnecessarily the
mysterious bearded stranger, with the big clog. Much excited, and not
altogether free from anxiety, he paced up and down his room. To give
himself courage he hastily filled a cup from the wine-jar that stood on
the breakfast table, emptied it, refilled it and drank it off a second
time without adding any water, and then stood with his arms folded and a
strong color in his face awaiting his enemy’s visit.
The Emperor walked in with Gabinius. Keraunus expected some greeting,
but Hadrian spoke not a word, cast a glance at him of the utmost
contempt and passed by him without taking any more notice of him than if
he had been a pillar or a piece of furniture. The blood mounted to the
steward’s head and heated his eyes and for fully a minute he strove in
vain to find words to give utterance to his rage. Gabinius paid no more
heed to Keraunus than the Roman had done. He walked on ahead and paused
in front of the mosaic for which he had offered so high a price, and
over which a few days since he had been so sharply dealt with by the
steward.
“I would beg you,” he said, “to look at this masterpiece.”
The Emperor looked at the ground, but hardly had he begun to study the
picture, of which he quite understood and appreciated the beauty, when
just behind him he heard in a hoarse voice these words uttered with
difficulty:
“In Alexandria--it is the custom, to greet--to say something--to the
people you visit.” Hadrian half turned his head towards the speaker and
said indifferently but with strong and insulting contempt:
“In Rome too it is the custom to greet honest people.” Then looking down
again at the mosaic he said, “Exquisite, exquisite an inestimable and
precious work.” At Hadrian’s words Keraunus’ eyes almost started out of
his head. His face was crimson and his lips pale; he went close up to
him and as soon as he had found breath to speak he said:
“What have you--what are your words intended to convey?”
Hadrian turned suddenly and full upon the steward; in his eyes sparkled
that annihilating fire which few could endure to gaze on and his deep
voice rolled sullenly through the room as he said to the miserable man:
“My words are intended to convey that you have been an unfaithful
steward, that I know what you would rather I should not know, that
I have learned how you deal with the property entrusted to you, that
you--”
“That I?”--cried the steward trembling with rage and stepping close up
to the Emperor.
“That you,” shouted Hadrian in his face, “tried to sell this picture
to this man; in short that you are a simpleton and a scoundrel into the
bargain.”
“I--I,” gasped Keraunus slapping his hand on his fat chest.
“I--a--a--but you shall repent of these words.”
Hadrian laughed coldly and scornfully, but Keraunus sprang on Gabinius
with a wonderful agility for his size, clutched him by the collar of
his chiton and shook the feeble little man as if he were a sapling,
shrieking meanwhile:
“I will choke you with your own lies--serpent, mean viper!”
“Madman!” cried Hadrian “leave hold of the Ligurian or by Sirius you
shall repent it.”
“Repent it?” gasped the steward. “It will be your turn to repent when
Caesar comes. Then will come a day of reckoning with false witnesses,
shameless calumniators who disturb peaceful households, while credulous
idiots--”
“Man, man,” interrupted Hadrian, not loudly but sternly and ominously,
“you know not to whom you speak.”
“Oh I know you--I know you only too well. But I--I--shall I tell you who
I am?”
“You--you are a blockhead,” replied the monarch shrugging his shoulders
contemptuously. Then he added calmly, with dignity--almost with
indifference:
“I am Caesar.”
At these words the steward’s hand dropped from the chiton of the
half-throttled dealer. Speechless and with a glassy stare he gazed in
Hadrian’s face for a few seconds. Then he suddenly started, staggered
backwards, uttered a loud choking, gurgling, nameless cry, and fell
back on the floor like a mass of rock shaken from its foundations by an
earthquake. The room shook again with his fall.
Hadrian was startled and when he saw him lying motionless at his feet
he bent over him--less from pity than from a wish to see what was the
matter with him; for he had also dabbled in medicine. Just as he was
lifting the fallen man’s hand to feel his pulse Arsinoe rushed into the
room. She had heard the last words of the antagonists with breathless
anxiety and her father’s fall and now threw herself on her knees by the
side of the unhappy man, just opposite to Hadrian, and as his distorted
and grey-white face told her what had occurred she broke out in a
passionate cry of anguish. Her brothers and sisters followed at her
heels, and when they saw their favorite sister bewailing herself they
followed her example without knowing at first what Arsinoe was crying
for, but soon with terror and horror at their father lying there stiff
and disfigured. The Emperor, who had never had either son or daughter
of his own, found nothing so intolerable as the presence of crying
children. However he endured the wailing and whimpering that surrounded
him till he had ascertained the condition of the man lying on the ground
before him.
“He is dead,” he said in a few minutes. “Cover his face, Master.”
Arsinoe and the children broke out afresh, and Hadrian glanced down at
them with annoyance. When his eye fell on Arsinoe, whose costly robe,
merely pinned and slightly stitched together had come undone with the
vehemence of her movements and were hanging as flapping rags in tumbled
disorder, he was disgusted with the gaudy fluttering trumpery which
contrasted so painfully with the grief of the wearer, and turning his
back on the fair girl he quitted the chamber of misery.
Gabinius followed him with a hideous smirk. He had directed the
Emperor’s attention to the mosaic pavement in the steward’s room, and
had shamelessly accused Keraunus of having offered to sell him a work
that belonged to the palace, contrasting his conduct with his own
rectitude. Now the calumniated man was dead, and the truth could never
come to light; this was necessarily a satisfaction to the miserable man,
but he derived even greater pleasure from the reflection that Arsinoe
could not now fill the part of Roxana, and that consequently there was
once more a possibility that it might devolve on his daughter.
Hadrian walked on in front of him, silent and thoughtful. Gabinius
followed him into his writing-room, and there said with fulsome
smoothness:
“Ah, great Caesar, thus do the gods punish with a heavy hand the crimes
of the guilty.”
Hadrian did not interrupt him, but he looked him keenly and enquiringly
in the face, and then said, gravely, but coolly:
“It seems to me, man, that I should do well to break off my connection
with you, and to give some other dealer the commissions which I proposed
to entrust to you.”
“Caesar!” stammered Gabinius, “I really do not know--”
“But I do know,” interrupted the Emperor. “You have attempted to mislead
me, and throw your own guilt on the shoulders of another.”
“I--great Caesar? I have attempted--” began the Ligurian, while his
pinched features turned an ashy grey. “You accused the steward of a
dishonorable trick,” replied Hadrian. “But I know men well, and I know
that no thief ever yet died of being called a scoundrel. It is only
undeserved disgrace that can cost a man’s life.”
“Keraunus was full-blooded, and the shock when he learnt that you were
Caesar--”
“That shock accelerated the end no doubt,” interrupted the monarch, “but
the mosaic in the steward’s room is worth a million of sesterces, and
now I have seen enough to be quite sure that you are not the man to save
your money when a work like that mosaic is offered you for sale--be the
circumstances what they may. If I see the case rightly, it was Keraunus
who refused your demand that he should resign to you the treasure in his
charge. Certainly, that was the case exactly! Now, leave me. I wish to
be alone.”
Gabinius retired with many bows, walking backwards to the door, and then
turned his back on the palace of Lochias muttering many impotent curses
as he went.
The steward’s new ‘body-servant,’ the old black woman, Mastor, the
tailor and his slave, helped Arsinoe to carry her father’s lifeless body
and lay it on a couch, and the slave closed his eyes. He was dead--so
each told the despairing girl, but she would not, could not believe it.
As soon as she was alone with the old negress and the dead, she lifted
up his heavy, clumsy arm, and as soon as she let go her hold it fell by
his side like lead. She lifted the cloth from the dead man’s face, but
she flung it over him again at once, for death had drawn his features.
Then she kissed his cold hand and brought the children in and made them
do the same, and said sobbing:
“We have no father now; we shall never, never see him again.”
The little blind boy felt the dead body with his hands, and asked his
sister:
“Will he not wake again to-morrow morning and make you curl his hair,
and take me up on his knee?”
“Never, never; he is gone, gone for ever.”
As she spoke Mastor entered the room, sent by his master. Yesterday had
he not heard from the overseer of the pavement-workers the comforting
tidings that after our grief and suffering here on earth there would
be another, beautiful, blissful and eternal life? He went kindly up to
Arsinoe and said:
“No, no, my children; when we are dead we become beautiful angels with
colored wings, and all who have loved each other here on earth will meet
again in the presence of the good God.”
Arsinoe looked at the slave with disapproval.
“What is the use,” she asked, “of cheating the children with silly
tales? Their father is gone, quite gone, but we will never, never forget
him.”
“Are there any angels with red wings?” asked the youngest little girl.
“Oh! I want to be an angel!” cried Helios, clapping his hands. “And can
the angels see?”
“Yes, dear little man,” replied Mastor, “and their eyes are wonderfully
bright, and all they look upon is beautiful.”
“Tell them no more Christian nonsense,” begged Arsinoe. “Ah! children,
when we shall have burned our father’s body there will be nothing left
of him but a few grey ashes.”
But the slave took the little blind boy on his knees and whispered to
him:
“Only believe what I tell you--you will see him again in Heaven.”
Then he set him down again, gave Arsinoe a little bag of gold pieces in
Caesar’s name, and begged her--for so his master desired--to find a new
abode and, after the deceased was burned on the morrow, to quit Lochias
with the children. When Mastor was gone Arsinoe opened the chest, in
which lay her father’s papyri and the money that Plutarch had paid for
the ivory cup, put in the heavy purse sent by the Emperor, comforting
herself while her tears flowed, with the reflection that she and the
children were provided at any rate against immediate want.
But where was she to go with the little ones? Where could she hope to
find a refuge at once? What was to become of them when all they now
possessed was spent. The gods be thanked! she was not forlorn; she still
had friends. She could find protection and love with Pollux and look to
dame Doris for motherly counsel.
She quickly dried her eyes and changed the remains of her splendor
for the dark dress in which she was accustomed to work at the papyrus
factory; then, as soon as she had taken the pearls out of her hair, she
went down to the little gate-house.
She was only a few steps from the door--but why did not the Graces come
springing out to meet her? Why did she see no birds, no flowers in the
window? Was she deceived, was she dreaming or was she tricked by some
evil spirit? The door of the dear home-like little dwelling was wide
open and the sitting-room was absolutely empty, not a chattel was left
behind, forgotten--not a leaf from a plant was lying on the ground; for
dame Doris, in her tidy fashion, had swept out the few rooms where she
had grown grey in peace and contentment as carefully as though she were
to come into them again to-morrow.
What had happened here? Where were her friends gone? A great terror came
over her, all the misery of desolation fell upon her, and as she sank
upon the stone bench outside the gate-house to wait for the inhabitants
who must presently return, the tears again flowed from her eyes and fell
in heavy drops on her hands as they lay in her lap.
She was still sitting there, thinking with a throbbing heart of Pollux
and of the happy morning of this now dying day, when a troup of Moorish
slaves came towards the deserted house. The head mason who led them
desired her to rise from the bench, and in answer to her questions, told
her that the little building was to be pulled down, and that the couple
who had inhabited it were evicted from their post, turned out of doors
and had gone elsewhere with all their belongings. But where Doris and
her son had taken themselves no one knew. Arsinoe as she heard these
tidings felt like a sailor whose vessel has grounded on a rocky shore,
and who realizes with horror that every plank and beam be neath him
quivers and gapes. As usual, when she felt too weak to help herself
unaided, her first thought was of Selene, and she decided to hasten off
to her and to ask her what she could do, what was to become of her and
the children.
It was already growing dark. With a swift step, and drying her eyes from
time to time on her peplum as she went, she returned to her own room
to fetch a veil, without which she dared not venture so late into the
streets. On the steps--where the dog had thrown down Selene--she met
a man hurrying past her; in the dim light she fancied he bore some
resemblance to the slave that her father had bought the day before;
but she paid no particular heed, for her mind was full of so many other
things. In the kitchen sat the old negress in front of a lamp and
the children squatted round her; by the hearth sat the baker and the
butcher, to whom her father owed considerable sums and who had come to
claim their dues, for ill news has swifter wings than good tidings, and
they had already heard of the steward’s death. Arsinoe took the lamp,
begged the men to wait, went into the sitting-room, passing, not without
a shudder, the body of the man who a few hours since had stroked her
cheeks and looked lovingly into her eyes.
How glad she felt to be able to pay her dead father’s debts and save the
honor of his name! She confidently drew the key out of her pocket and
went up to the chest. What was this? She knew, quite positively, that
she had locked it before going out and yet it was now standing wide
open; the lid, thrown back, hung askew by one hinge; the other was
broken. A dread, a hideous suspicion, froze her blood; the lamp trembled
in her hand as she leaned over the chest which ought to have contained
every thing she possessed. There lay the old documents, carefully rolled
together, side by side, but the two bags with Plutarch’s money and the
Emperor’s, had vanished. She took out one roll after another; then she
tossed them all out on to the floor till the bottom of the chest was
bare--but the gold was really gone, nowhere to be found.
The new slave had forced open the lid of the chest and stolen the whole
possessions of the orphans of the man who, to gratify his own vanity,
had brought him into the house.
Arsinoe screamed aloud, called in her creditors, explained to them all
that had occurred and implored them to pursue the thief; and when they
only listened to her with an incredulous shrug, she swore that she was
speaking the truth, and promised that whether the slave were caught
or not she would pay them with the price of her own and her father’s
personal ornaments. She knew the name of the dealer of whom her father
had bought the slave and told it to the unsatisfied dealers, who at last
left her to follow up the thief as promptly as possible.
Once more Arsinoe was alone. Tearless, but shivering and scarcely
mistress of herself from misery and agitation, she took out her veil,
flung it over her head, and hurried through the court and along the
streets to her sister.
Verily, since Sabina’s visit to the palace all good spirits had deserted
it.