When Hera left Pompey’s Theatre, she went directly home. On the
way pleasant recollections of her children filled her mind. She
recalled Psyche as a little child. Once more she heard with the ear
of imagination difficult Greek words childishly syllabled on Psyche’s
lips. She heard again her childish voice strained with excessive
happiness, singing an old Greek song. She recalled her childish
expressions of joy and of sorrow. She thought of the small wooden doll
that Psyche had loved like a mother; of the toys and household objects
endeared to the whole family by association with Psyche’s childhood.
She thought of Psyche in the religious festivals,--a little child, clad
in pure white, her face suffused with holy zeal. She thought of her
later, when Psyche led the chorus of youths and maidens, all carrying
garlands of roses and daisies, and singing sacred melodies to Maia,
goddess of spring.
But when Psyche ceased to take part in the festivals, when maidenhood
dimmed the radiance of childhood, that was the first vapor which
veiled the sun of Hera’s happiness. However, this waning light
of childhood merged almost imperceptibly into the silvery light
of Psyche’s public career. Now even this was to be shadowed; for
womanhood, like a semi-transparent shade of alabaster, would forever
obscure the light of maidenhood.
As she walked along, she was so occupied in contemplation that she
passed a shrine of Apollo without offering a prayer. When she became
aware of this omission, she was filled with anxious forebodings. To
omit praying at Apollo’s shrine was a bad omen.
But again her thoughts reverted to her children. Her heart’s love
belonged to them. This time she thought especially of Gannon. Once
again she followed him through all the changes of his young life.
The first smile, the little outstretched hands, the first trembling
footsteps, the loving caresses to her cheek, the tearful eyes,--all
these pictures presented themselves to her. She heard his broken words
echo in her ears, his complaints, his songs, and cries of joy. How
her heart beat with delight when she saw her children in the innocent
ecstasies of play! How she had smiled at their childish ideas!
As she walked along, a wan-faced woman who was quieting a sickly child
held out her scrawny hand for alms, saying, “For the love of the
Mother of God, give me food for my dying child!”
Hera stopped, looked at the wan face of the mother, then at the
miserable, sickly child, whose lips were nearly as white as the curds
of milk in its half-open mouth. She pressed a piece of money into the
mother’s hand. At that moment the babe convulsively moved, gave a
feeble cry, rolled its eyes, and then grew rigid. The child died before
Hera’s eyes. The poor mother shrieked with anguish. Hera trembled. The
unsaid prayers at Apollo’s shrine and the sight of the dead child were
the most ominous signs that had ever come into her experience. She
silently went her way, deeply impressed by these warnings. She wished
for some one to talk to. “Would that Alcmaeon or Psyche were only with
me!” she said to herself.
If Hera’s heart beat for her children, her love for Alcmaeon was the
power that controlled the pulsations. Her soul belonged to him. But her
life was completely wrapped up in her family. Rarely did she see or
talk with any one but them. Her life had been one bright summer in the
sunshine of their love. No dark cloud had shadowed her life as yet, and
no cloud was visible on the horizon of her happiness. To counteract the
evil effects of the warnings she had received, she softly sung a hymn
as she walked along. So absorbed was she in contemplation that she did
not observe two soldiers before her, carrying a litter. She did not
even see them when they turned down her street. But when they stopped
before her house, she hastened forward in alarm.
While she quickly opened the door and helped them place the litter
on the table, she anxiously asked them what had happened. They told
her that an accident had befallen Gannon. Thinking that he was only
injured, she tremblingly drew back the cover. She beheld the dead
face of her dear son. She uttered a piercing shriek of horror and
despair. Her cry aroused the neighbors, who collected around the door
and curiously looked inside. The distracted mother quickly closed the
door. Wringing her hands, she asked, in a voice broken by sobs, how
he had died. In a dazed manner she gathered from the replies of the
soldiers that at midnight, while on the roof of the camp, he had lost
his balance and had fallen to the ground.
The distance between her happy recollections of the past and the tragic
events of the present was too great to be traversed by Hera’s mind in
so short a time. Her heart felt heavy, like a stone falling into dark
waters. Alone with her grief, she felt afraid. In falling, Gannon had
broken his neck. The only marks on his body were a gash on the back of
his head and bruises around his neck. His uninjured, handsome face was
white, but natural in expression. The wretched mother looked into his
face. She touched and petted it. She covered it with tears and kisses.
She touched his hands, but they were cold and stiff. She hastily drew
hers back. Nearly beside herself, she threw her arms around him.
Shedding tears and moaning his name, she trembled above him. At last
she lost her powers of self-control and swooned away.
While Hera lay over the body of Gannon, Lupa entered. Learning from
the gossip of the neighbors that some one was dead, she knocked on
Alcmaeon’s door. As no one answered, she opened it and whispered
Psyche’s name. Not hearing a reply the second time, she entered, and
saw Hera prostrate upon a body which lay on a litter. She quietly
approached and lightly touched her. There was no response. She
called aloud, “O Hera, Hera!” and shook her. Hera slowly returned to
consciousness and looked vacantly around the room. When she saw Lupa’s
homely face so full of sympathy, she whispered that Gannon was dead.
Lupa made no reply. Throwing her long arms around Hera’s neck, she
sobbed aloud. Soon after, they heard some one outside. It was Alcmaeon,
coming home from school.
“Hail, wife!” he cheerfully sang out, as he opened the door. But the
happy words of greeting had hardly died on his lips when he saw Hera
and Lupa weeping. Hera quickly ran to meet him; Lupa slipped quietly
out of the room. Through tears and sobs Hera then told him the terrible
news. He seemed stunned. He looked upon Gannon’s face and walked away.
So greatly shocked was he that at first he did not understand the
weight of his affliction. Gradually its full force descended upon his
heart with crushing power. He could not weep. He groaned. He began to
rave. He looked to heaven and called upon the gods. When he became more
calm, he said with a trembling voice, “This was no accident, O wife!
This was no accident!”
“Why, what meanest thou, O husband?”
“When didst thou say he was on the roof?” he asked suspiciously.
“At midnight,” she replied.
“How came he on the roof at that time unless he was ordered?” he asked,
more suspicious than before.
“I know not, O husband.”
“Has he not told us that after his dinner ’twas his custom to work
until he went to bed? The night was not warm, O Hera. Believe me, he
was ordered there,” said Alcmaeon, with an air of conviction.
“Ay; then ’twas an unusual command.”
“Hearken unto me, O wife. Gannon has been murdered!” exclaimed Alcmaeon.
“Say not so, O Alcmaeon!” said Hera, excitedly.
“Ay, murdered!” repeated Alcmaeon.
“But who would wish him harm?” she asked sorrowfully.
“Have I not always said there might be danger in knowing a secret? Woe
to him who knows a secret in that den of murderers! Gannon has learned
one. This secret has been one that even prison walls could not keep
quiet. Death was the only way to silence him,” groaned Alcmaeon.
“O Alcmaeon! Woe is on our house!” cried Hera.
“Ay, Hera. Gannon did not fall; he was thrown. Mark thou, Hera, ’twas a
crime, a crime! O Zeus and ye other eternal gods, avenge this dastardly
deed!” he called to heaven.
“A curse is upon Greece and her people,” said Hera.
“Ay, a curse is upon us, O Hera,” added Alcmaeon. “And how can a
schoolmaster contend against such men? Ah, we must live silently. We
must bow our heads without raising a revengeful hand. Oh! is this not
worse than slavery?” he cried.
“Ah, Alcmaeon! Oh that we might have had some word from him, some last
word that we could forever remember!” she said, weeping.
“No doubt the dear lad tried to send us word, but he could not.”
Alcmaeon now approached the table. He drew away entirely the cloth that
covered the dead body of his son. He looked lovingly into Gannon’s
face. His eyes began to float in tears as the memories of his dear boy
surged through his mind; he completely broke down and sobbed like a
child.
“Why should I have lived to see this day, O Hera?” he cried. “There has
gone from my life a light that can never again shine upon my way. My
hopes lie shattered there. O Zeus and ye eternal gods, send solace to a
household burdened with so great a calamity!” he prayed.
Recovering his self-command, the stricken father tenderly removed
Gannon’s tunic, and handing it to Hera, procured a basin of water and
bathed Gannon’s body. Hera took the tunic, which she shook and folded.
While they were thus employed, Alcmaeon was startled by hearing his
wife call: “Come quickly, O husband! Here, inside Gannon’s tunic, is
some writing!”
In an instant Alcmaeon was at his wife’s side, and read excitedly the
words, “Have done wrong. Read a letter from L to S about Lygdus.” “Ah,
said I not so, O wife?” he cried. “He learned a secret. Ah, the poor
lad turned his thoughts to his family before he died. While we were
singing hymns yester eve, he was in trouble. O my dear, dear son! Why
did I ever take thee to the camp? O my son, my son!”
“But what means the ‘L to S’?” asked Hera, when Alcmaeon had again
become quiet.
“I know not. The ‘S’ must mean Sejanus. But who is Lygdus?”
“Is not Lygdus the eunuch that Gannon disliked, O husband?” asked Hera.
“Ay, I remember,” said Alcmaeon, shaking his head. “But what means the
‘L’?”
“Gannon has mentioned no name that begins with an ‘L’ except that of
Livilla,” said Hera.
“True, O Hera. ’Tis Livilla,” said Alcmaeon, as if convinced. “Ah, so
Sejanus and Livilla are conspiring! But hold, wife! What is this that
Gannon has done?” asked Alcmaeon, in a tone of fear.
“What dost thou mean, O Alcmaeon?” cried Hera.
“Ah, my son, thou hast told us the same secret that caused thy death! O
Hera! we are as guilty as the dead lad! Not a word to any one of what
thou hast read! Where is Psyche?”
“She is with Gyges.”
“Oh, what a sad home-coming for the dear child! But tell her not of the
writing, my Hera! Let that knowledge be forever sealed in thy memory.”
Greatly excited and impressed by the writing on Gannon’s tunic,
Alcmaeon stationed himself again by the body of his murdered son. Hera
took the tunic and began to tear away the cloth that bore Gannon’s
message. Suddenly they heard the tramping of feet outside the door.
They were startled when the door was thrust open and an officer of the
Praetorians entered and said, “The inhabitants of this house are under
arrest.”
Not having finished detaching the message, Hera dropped the tunic and
ran to Alcmaeon, who rose, exclaiming, “Ye gods! What have we done?”
“A soldier never questions his orders. There is a daughter; where is
she?” demanded the officer.
“She will be home at sundown,” replied Alcmaeon. “But what does this
mean?”
“It means that thou and thy wife must immediately go with me to the
Praetorian Camp,” replied the officer, in a rough tone.
“But the body of my dead son is unburied! How long shall we be
detained?” asked Alcmaeon, pitifully.
“I have orders to care for Gannon’s body,” said the officer. “You must
leave at once.”
“But may we not wait for our daughter?” pleaded Hera.
“No. We leave at once,” repeated the officer, impatiently.
Ordering two soldiers to await Psyche, and two others to carry Gannon’s
body to a crematory, the officer gave the command to depart. The
grief-stricken and terrified parents, after taking a heart-breaking
farewell of their beloved son, were then led away.
Sejanus was dictating a letter when Alcmaeon and Hera were led into
his office. They were obliged to wait until he had finished. Before
the murderer of his son Alcmaeon trembled; before the great Sejanus
the schoolmaster felt like a child. Hera tightly held Alcmaeon’s arm
in hers and talked to him in a subdued but nervous tone. She was
repeatedly warned by Alcmaeon not to acknowledge having seen the
writing on Gannon’s tunic. At last they were ordered to come forward.
Sejanus addressed Alcmaeon first, saying, “Thy son is dead.”
“Ay, O great Sejanus.”
“He was impertinent.”
“Say not so, O Sejanus--”
“Ay, impertinent; and he inquisitively pried into my letters.”
“Truly, O Sejanus!” exclaimed Alcmaeon, greatly surprised.
“What has he told thee?” asked Sejanus, in a rough tone.
“Nothing; he was--”
Sejanus impatiently interrupted him. “Having read important letters, he
has told thee nothing?”
“Of a truth, he told us nothing, O Sejanus.”
“I believe thee not,” said Sejanus. He turned to Hera and asked her the
same questions, and received the same replies that Alcmaeon had given.
Wishing to terrify them into a declaration, he continued: “Ye both have
lied. Fairly have ye been treated. One more chance will I give ye. What
knowest thou, O Alcmaeon?”
“Nothing,” replied Alcmaeon, emphatically.
“And thou, woman?”
“Nothing,” timidly replied the stricken mother.
“If you insist on lying, so be it. We sometimes torture in the camp
when we wish to know the truth,” thundered Sejanus.
“Have we not suffered enough, O Sejanus?” cried Alcmaeon.
But Hera, becoming hysterical at this announcement of Sejanus, revealed
what they had read on Gannon’s tunic before Alcmaeon could prevent her.
“Ah-h-h!” sarcastically laughed Sejanus. “Gannon has lied to me!
His death was an accident. Your knowledge carries with it its own
sentence. Your death will not be by accident. But no! Close confinement
will suffice for the present.”
At this announcement, made in the most cold-blooded manner, Gannon’s
parents became horror-stricken. Hera convulsively held to Alcmaeon,
who tried to soothe her. The father bore this new affliction with more
fortitude than he showed at the announcement of his son’s death.
“Where is thy daughter?” asked Sejanus.
“O great Sejanus, she knows nothing!” cried Alcmaeon. “She had not yet
arrived home when we left.”
“We will see,” said Sejanus. He called a soldier and gave this order:
“Take these prisoners and place them in a cell together, in close
confinement. Go.”
Scarcely had they left when he called another soldier, and ordered him
to bring to the camp Gannon’s tunic. “With that destroyed,” he said to
himself, “there will be no evidence against us.” He rubbed his hands
and smiled at the course events were taking. He called for his litter
and a small body-guard. Then, sinking back among the luxurious cushions
of his litter, he commanded imperiously: “To the Palatine!”