The royal chariot in which Klea was standing, wrapped in the cloak and
wearing the hat of the captain of the civic guard, went swiftly and
without stopping through the streets of Memphis. As long as she saw
houses with lighted windows on each side of the way, and met riotous
soldiers and quiet citizens going home from the taverns, or from working
late in their workshops, with lanterns in their hands or carried by
their slaves--so long her predominant feeling was one of hatred to
Publius; and mixed with this was a sentiment altogether new to her--a
sentiment that made her blood boil, and her heart now stand still
and then again beat wildly--the thought that he might be a wretched
deceiver. Had he not attempted to entrap one of them--whether her sister
or herself it was all the same--wickedly to betray her, and to get her
into his power!
“With me,” thought she, “he could not hope to gain his evil ends,
and when he saw that I knew how to protect myself he lured the poor
unresisting child away with him, in order to ruin her and to drag her
into shame and misery. Just like Rome herself, who seizes on one country
after another to make them her own, so is this ruthless man. No sooner
had that villain Eulaeus’ letter reached him, than he thought himself
justified in believing that I too was spellbound by a glance from his
eyes, and would spread my wings to fly into his arms; and so he put
out his greedy hand to catch me too, and threw aside the splendor and
delights of a royal banquet to hurry by night out into the desert,
and to risk a hideous death--for the avenging deities still punish the
evildoer.”
By this time she was shrouded in total darkness, for the moon was still
hidden by black clouds. Memphis was already behind her, and the chariot
was passing through a tall-stemmed palm-grove, where even at mid-day
deep shades intermingled with the sunlight. When, just at this spot,
the thought once more pierced her soul that the seducer was devoted to
death, she felt as though suddenly a bright glaring light had flashed up
in her and round her, and she could have broken out into a shout of joy
like one who, seeking retribution for blood, places his foot at last on
the breast of his fallen foe. She clenched her teeth tightly and grasped
her girdle, in which she had stuck the knife given her by the smith.
If the charioteer by her side had been Publius, she would have stabbed
him to the heart with the weapon with delight, and then have thrown
herself under the horses’ hoofs and the brazen wheels of the chariot.
But no! Still more gladly would she have found him dying in the desert,
and before his heart had ceased to beat have shouted in his ear how much
she hated him; and then, when his breast no longer heaved a breath--then
she would have flung herself upon him, and have kissed his dimmed eyes.
Her wildest thoughts of vengeance were as inseparable from tender pity
and the warmest longings of a heart overflowing with love, as the dark
waters of a river are from the brighter flood of a stream with which
it has recently mingled. All the passionate impulses which had hitherto
been slumbering in her soul were set free, and now raised their
clamorous voices as she was whirled across the desert through the gloom
of night. The wishes roused in her breast by her hatred appealing to her
on one side and her love singing in her ear, in tempting flute-tones, on
the other, jostled and hustled one another, each displacing the other as
they crowded her mind in wild confusion. As she proceeded on her journey
she felt that she could have thrown herself like a tigress on her
victim, and yet--like an outcast woman--have flung herself at Publius’
knees in supplication for the love that was denied her. She had lost all
idea of time and distance, and started as from a wild and bewildering
dream when the chariot suddenly halted, and the driver said in his rough
tones:
“Here we are, I must turn back again.”
She shuddered, drew the cloak more closely round her, sprang out on to
the road, and stood there motionless till the charioteer said:
“I have not spared my horses, my noble gentleman. Won’t you give me
something to get a drop of wine?” Klea’s whole possessions were two
silver drachma, of which she herself owned one and the other belonged to
Irene. On the last anniversary but one of his mother’s death, the king
had given at the temple a sum to be divided among all the attendants,
male and female, who served Serapis, and a piece of silver had fallen to
the share of herself and her sister. Klea had them both about her in a
little bag, which also contained a ring that her mother had given her at
parting, and the amulet belonging to Serapion. The girl took out the two
silver coins and gave them to the driver, who, after testing the liberal
gift with his fingers, cried out as he turned his horses:
“A pleasant night to you, and may Aphrodite and all the Loves be
favorable!”
“Irene’s drachma!” muttered Klea to herself, as the chariot rolled away.
The sweet form of her sister rose before her mind; she recalled the hour
when the girl--still but a child--had entrusted it to her, because she
lost everything unless Klea took charge of it for her.
“Who will watch her and care for her now?” she asked herself, and she
stood thinking, trying to defend herself against the wild wishes which
again began to stir in her, and to collect her scattered thoughts. She
had involuntarily avoided the beam of light which fell across the road
from the tavern-window, and yet she could not help raising her eyes and
looking along it, and she found herself looking through the darkness
which enveloped her, straight into the faces of two men whose gaze was
directed to the very spot where she was standing. And what faces they
were that she saw! One, a fat face, framed in thick hair and a short,
thick and ragged beard, was of a dusky brown and as coarse and brutal as
the other was smooth, colorless and lean, cruel and crafty. The eyes of
the first of these ruffians were prominent, weak and bloodshot, with a
fixed glassy stare, while those of the other seemed always to be on the
watch with a restless and uneasy leer.
These were Euergetes’ assassins--they must be! Spellbound with terror
and revulsion she stood quite still, fearing only that the ruffians
might hear the beating of her heart, for she felt as if it were a hammer
swung up and down in an empty space, and beating with loud echoes, now
in her bosom and now in her throat.
“The young gentleman must have gone round behind the tavern--he knows
the shortest way to the ‘tombs. Let us go after him, and finish off the
business at once,” said the broad-shouldered villain in a hoarse whisper
that broke down every now and then, and which seemed to Klea even more
repulsive than the monster’s face.
“So that he may hear us go after him-stupid!” answered the other. “When
he has been waiting for his sweetheart about a quarter of an hour I
will call his name in a woman’s voice, and at his first step towards the
desert do you break his neck with the sand-bag. We have plenty of time
yet, for it must still be a good half hour before midnight.”
“So much the better,” said the other. “Our wine-jar is not nearly empty
yet, and we paid the lazy landlord for it in advance, before he crept
into bed.”
“You shall only drink two cups more,” said the punier villain. “For this
time we have to do with a sturdy fellow, Setnam is not with us now to
lend a hand in the work, and the dead meat must show no gaping thrusts
or cuts. My teeth are not like yours when you are fasting--even cooked
food must not be too tough for them to chew it, now-a-days. If you soak
yourself in drink and fail in your blow, and I am not ready with the
poisoned stiletto the thing won’t come off neatly. But why did not the
Roman let his chariot wait?”
“Aye! why did he let it go away?” asked the other staring open-mouthed
in the direction where the sound of wheels was still to be heard. His
companion mean while laid his hand to his ear, and listened. Both were
silent for a few minutes, then the thin one said:
“The chariot has stopped at the first tavern. So much the better. The
Roman has valuable cattle in his shafts, and at the inn down there,
there is a shed for horses. Here in this hole there is hardly a stall
for an ass, and nothing but sour wine and mouldy beer. I don’t like the
rubbish, and save my coin for Alexandria and white Mariotic; that is
strengthening and purifies the blood. For the present I only wish we
were as well off as those horses; they will have plenty of time to
recover their breath.”
“Yes, plenty of time,” answered the other with a broad grin, and then he
with his companion withdrew into the room to fill his cup.
Klea too could hear that the chariot which had brought her hither,
had halted at the farther tavern, but it did not occur to her that
the driver had gone in to treat himself to wine with half of Irene’s
drachma. The horses should make up for the lost time, and they could
easily do it, for when did the king’s banquets ever end before midnight?
As soon as Plea saw that the assassins were filling their earthen cups,
she slipped softly on tiptoe behind the tavern; the moon came out from
behind the clouds for a few minutes, she sought and found the short way
by the desert-path to the Apis-tombs, and hastened rapidly along it. She
looked straight before her, for whenever she glanced at the road-side,
and her eye was caught by some dried up shrub of the desert, silvery
in the pale moonlight, she fancied she saw behind it the face of a
murderer.
The skeletons of fallen beasts standing up out of the dust, and the
bleached jawbones of camels and asses, which shone much whiter than the
desert-sand on which they lay, seemed to have come to life and motion,
and made her think of the tiger-teeth of the bearded ruffian.
The clouds of dust driven in her face by the warm west wind, which had
risen higher, increased her alarm, for they were mingled with the colder
current of the night-breeze; and again and again she felt as if spirits
were driving her onwards with their hot breath, and stroking her face
with their cold fingers. Every thing that her senses perceived was
transformed by her heated imagination into a fearful something; but more
fearful and more horrible than anything she heard, than any phantom that
met her eye in the ghastly moonlight, were her own thoughts of what
was to be done now, in the immediate future--of the fearful fate that
threatened the Roman and Irene; and she was incapable of separating one
from the other in her mind, for one influence alone possessed her,
heart and soul: dread, dread; the same boundless, nameless, deadly
dread--alike of mortal peril and irremediable shame, and of the airiest
phantoms and the merest nothings.
A large black cloud floated slowly across the moon and utter darkness
hid everything around, even the undefined forms which her imagination
had turned to images of dread. She was forced to moderate her pace, and
find her way, feeling each step; and just as to a child some hideous
form that looms before him vanishes into nothingness when he covers his
eyes with his hand, so the profound darkness which now enveloped her,
suddenly released her soul from a hundred imaginary terrors.
She stood still, drew a deep breath, collected the whole natural force
of her will, and asked herself what she could do to avert the horrid
issue.
Since seeing the murderers every thought of revenge, every wish to
punish the seducer with death, had vanished from her mind; one desire
alone possessed her now--that of rescuing him, the man, from the
clutches of these ravening beasts. Walking slowly onwards she repeated
to herself every word she had heard that referred to Publius and Irene
as spoken by Euergetes, Eulaeus, the recluse, and the assassins, and
recalled every step she had taken since she left the temple; thus she
brought herself back to the consciousness that she had come out and
faced danger and endured terror, solely and exclusively for Irene’s
sake. The image of her sister rose clearly before her mind in all its
bright charm, undimmed by any jealous grudge which, indeed, ever
since her passion had held her in its toils had never for the smallest
fraction of a minute possessed her.
Irene had grown up under her eye, sheltered by her care, in the sunshine
of her love. To take care of her, to deny herself, and bear the severest
fatigue for her had been her pleasure; and now as she appealed to her
father--as she wont to do--as if he were present, and asked him in an
inaudible cry: “Tell me, have I not done all for her that I could do?”
and said to herself that he could not possibly answer her appeal but
with assent, her eyes filled with tears; the bitterness and discontent
which had lately filled her breast gradually disappeared, and a gentle,
calm, refreshing sense of satisfaction came over her spirit, like a
cooling breeze after a scorching day.
As she now again stood still, straining her eyes which were growing more
accustomed to the darkness, to discover one of the temples at the end
of the alley of sphinxes, suddenly and unexpectedly at her right hand a
solemn and many-voiced hymn of lamentation fell upon her ear. This was
from the priests of Osiris-Apis who were performing the sacred mysteries
of their god, at midnight, on the roof of the temple. She knew the hymn
well--a lament for the deceased Osiris which implored him with urgent
supplication to break the power of death, to rise again, to bestow new
light and new vitality on the world and on men, and to vouchsafe to all
the departed a new existence.
The pious lament had a powerful effect on her excited spirit. Her
parents too perhaps had passed through death, and were now taking part
in the conduct of the destiny of the world and of men in union with the
life giving God. Her breath came fast, she threw up her arms, and, for
the first time since in her wrath she had turned her back on the holy
of holies in the temple of Serapis, she poured forth her whole soul with
passionate fervor in a deep and silent prayer for strength to fulfil her
duty to the end,--for some sign to show her the way to save Irene from
misfortune, and Publius from death. And as she prayed she felt no
longer alone--no, it seemed to her that she stood face to face with
the invincible Power which protects the good, in whom she now again had
faith, though for Him she knew no name; as a daughter, pursued by foes,
might clasp her powerful father’s knees and claim his succor.
She had not stood thus with uplifted arms for many minutes when the
moon, once more appearing, recalled her to herself and to actuality.
She now perceived close to her, at hardly a hundred paces from where she
stood, the line of sphinxes by the side of which lay the tombs of Apis
near which she was to await Publius. Her heart began to beat faster
again, and her dread of her own weakness revived. In a few minutes she
must meet the Roman, and, involuntarily putting up her hand to smooth
her hair, she was reminded that she still wore Glaucus’ hat on her head
and his cloak wrapped round her shoulders. Lifting up her heart again
in a brief prayer for a calm and collected mind, she slowly arranged her
dress and its folds, and as she did so the key of the tomb-cave, which
she still had about her, fell under her hand. An idea flashed through
her brain--she caught at it, and with hurried breath followed it out,
till she thought she had now hit upon the right way to preserve from
death the man who was so rich and powerful, who had given her nothing
but taken everything from her, and to whom, nevertheless, she--the poor
water-bearer whom he had thought to trifle with--could now bestow the
most precious of the gifts of the immortals, namely, life.
Serapion had said, and she was willing to believe, that Publius was not
base, and he certainly was not one of those who could prove ungrateful
to a preserver. She longed to earn the right to demand something of him,
and that could be nothing else but that he should give up her sister and
bring Irene back to her.
When could it be that he had come to an understanding with the
inexperienced and easily wooed maiden? How ready she must have been to
clasp the hand held out to her by this man! Nothing surprised her in
Irene, the child of the present; she could comprehend too that Irene’s
charm might quickly win the heart even of a grave and serious man.
And yet--in all the processions it was never Irene that he had gazed at,
but always herself, and how came it to pass that he had given a prompt
and ready assent to the false invitation to go out to meet her in the
desert at midnight? Perhaps she was still nearer to his heart than
Irene, and if gratitude drew him to her with fresh force then--aye
then--he might perhaps woo her, and forget his pride and her lowly
position, and ask her to be his wife.
She thought this out fully, but before she had reached the half circle
enclosed by the Philosophers’ busts the question occurred to her mind.
And Irene?
Had she gone with him and quitted her without bidding her farewell
because the young heart was possessed with a passionate love for
Publius--who was indeed the most lovable of men? And he? Would he
indeed, out of gratitude for what she hoped to do for him, make up his
mind, if she demanded it, to make her Irene his wife--the poor but more
than lovely daughter of a noble house?
And if this were possible, if these two could be happy in love and
honor, should she Klea come between the couple to divide them? Should
she jealously snatch Irene from his arms and carry her back to the
gloomy temple which now--after she had fluttered awhile in sportive
freedom in the sunny air--would certainly seem to her doubly
sinister and unendurable? Should she be the one to plunge Irene into
misery--Irene, her child, the treasure confided to her care, whom she
had sworn to cherish?
“No, and again no,” she said resolutely. “She was born for happiness,
and I for endurance, and if I dare beseech thee to grant me one thing
more, O thou infinite Divinity! it is that Thou wouldst cut out from my
soul this love which is eating into my heart as though it were rotten
wood, and keep me far from envy and jealousy when I see her happy in his
arms. It is hard--very hard to drive one’s own heart out into the desert
in order that spring may blossom in that of another: but it is well
so--and my mother would commend me and my father would say I had acted
after his own heart, and in obedience to the teaching of the great men
on these pedestals. Be still, be still my aching heart--there--that is
right!”
Thus reflecting she went past the busts of Zeno and Chrysippus, glancing
at their features distinct in the moonlight: and her eyes falling on
the smooth slabs of stone with which the open space was paved, her own
shadow caught her attention, black and sharply defined, and exactly
resembling that of some man travelling from one town to another in his
cloak and broad-brimmed hat.
“Just like a man!” she muttered to herself; and as, at the same moment,
she saw a figure resembling her own, and, like herself, wearing a hat,
appear near the entrance to the tombs, and fancied she recognized it as
Publius, a thought, a scheme, flashed through her excited brain, which
at first appalled her, but in the next instant filled her with the
ecstasy which an eagle may feel when he spreads his mighty wings and
soars above the dust of the earth into the pure and infinite ether. Her
heart beat high, she breathed deeply and slowly, but she advanced to
meet the Roman, drawn up to her full height like a queen, who goes
forward to receive some equal sovereign; her hat, which she had taken
off, in her left hand, and the Smith’s key in her right-straight on
towards the door of the Apis-tombs.